"Such are the triumphs of the new schools, and such their scholars. The disciples of Pope were Johnson, Goldsmith, Rogers, Campbell, Crabbe, Gifford, Matthias, Hayley, and the author of the Paradise of Coquettes; to whom may be added Richards, Heber, Wrangham, Bland, Hodgson, Merivale, and others who have not had their full fame, because the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,' and because there is a fortune in fame as in all other things. Now, of all the new schools-I say all, for, like Legion, they are many-has there appeared a single scholar who has not made his master ashamed of him? unless it be Sotheby, who has imitated every body, and occasionally surpassed his models. Scott found peculiar favour and imitation among the fair sex: there was Miss Holford, and Miss Mitford, and Miss Francis; but, with the greatest respect be it spoken, none of his imitators did much honour to the original, except Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, until the appearance of The Bridal of Triermain, and Harold the Dauntless, which in the opinion of some equalled if not surpassed him; and lo! after three or four years they turned out to be the Master's own compositions. Have Southey, or Coleridge, or t'other fellow, made a follower of renown? Wilson never did well till he set up for himself in the City of the Plague. Has Moore, or any other living writer of reputation, had a tolerable imitator, or rather disciple? Now, it is remarkable, that almost all the followers of Pope, whom I have named, have produced beautiful and standard works; and it was not the number of his imitators who finally hurt his fame, but the despair of imitation, and the ease of not imitating him sufficiently. This, and the same reason which induced the Athenian burgher to vote for the banishment of Aristides, 'because he was tired of always hearing him called the Just,' have produced the temporary exile of Pope from the State of Literature. But the term of his ostracism will expire, and the sooner the better, not for him, but for those who banished him, and for the coming generation, who "Will blush to find their fathers were his foes.' "I will now return to the writer of the article which has drawn forth these remarks, whom I honestly take to be John Wilson, a man of great powers and acquirements, well known to the public as the author of the City of the Plague, Isle of Palms, and other productions. I take the liberty of naming him, by the same species of courtesy which has induced him to designate me as the author of Don Juan. Upon the score of the Lake Poets, he may perhaps recall to mind that I merely express an opinion long ago entertained and specified in a letter to Mr. James Hogg, which he the said James Hogg, somewhat contrary to the law of pens, showed to Mr. John Wilson, in the year 1814, as he himself informed me in his answer, telling me by way of apology, that 'he'd be damned if he could help it;' and I am not conscious of any thing like ' 'envy' or " exacerbation' at this moment which induces me to think better or worse of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge as poets than I do now, although I do know one or two things more which have added to my contempt for them as individuals. And, in return for Ix.] JOHN WILSON. 495 Mr. Wilson's invective, I shall content myself with asking one question; Did he never compose, recite, or sing any parody or parodies upon the Psalms (of what nature this deponent saith not,) in certain jovial meetings of the youth of Edinburgh? It is not that I think any great harm if he did; because it seems to me that all depends upon the intention of such a parody. If it be meant to throw ridicule on the sacred original, it is a sin; if it be intended to burlesque the profane subject, or to inculcate a moral truth, it is none. If it were, the unbelievers' Creed, the many political parodies of various parts of the Scriptures and liturgy, particularly a celebrated one of the Lord's Prayer, and the beautiful moral parable in favour of toleration by Franklin, which has often been taken for a real extract from Genesis, would all be sins of a damning nature. But I wish to know, if Mr. Wilson ever has done this, and if he has, why he should be so very angry with similar portions of Don Juan-Did no 'parody profane' appear in any of the earlier numbers of Blackwood's Magazine? "I will now conclude this long answer to a short article, repenting of having said so much in my own defence, and so little on the 'crying, left-hand fallings off and national defections' of the poetry of the present day. Having said this, I can hardly be expected to defend Don Juan, or any other 'living' poetry, and shall not make the attempt. And although I do not think that Mr. John Wilson has in this instance treated me with candour or consideration, I trust that the tone I have used in speaking of him personally will prove that I bear him as little malice as I really believe at the bottom of his heart he bears towards me; but the duties of an editor, like those of a tax-gatherer, are paramount and peremptory. I have done. "BYRON." APPENDIX X. THOMAS MULOCK'S ANSWER GIVEN BY THE GOSPEL TO THE ATHEISM OF ALL AGES. LONDON, 1819. (See p. 416, note 1.) BYRON refers to two passages in the above-mentioned work. 1. Note (pp. 43, 44)— "Critics are perpetually perplexed in attempting to account for the moody and misanthropic strain of mystic melancholy, intermixed with the expression of sharper sorrows, which runs through the productions of the greatest of living poets, and perhaps of all poets, Lord Byron.-But the Christian is enabled to behold in those matchless (uninspired) effusions the outpourings of a heart not right with God, and awfully preyed upon by vulture regrets and disappointments. The wild, agonising wailings of Lord Byron's lyre, are the piercing plaints of an exhausted voluptuary, conscious of an aching void in the soul, which, uninstructed by terrible experience, he seeks to supply by sensible pleasures. The volcanic bursts of burning exclamation, in which Lord Byron fearfully pours forth his internal sufferings, clearly betoken great spiritual conflict, in which some chronic vice-some sin that doth most easily beset him, wars against his convictions, which, as heavenly chastenings, have been, with a purpose of mercy, inflicted upon him. Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living. It may be also remarked, that Lord Byron's poetry contains glimpses of the great doctrine of human depravity, a deeper insight into which would, under the divine guidance, lead him to Jesus, the repairer of the breach-the restorer of paths to dwell in. "In the religion of Christ, this man of many thoughts,' would find a spiritual sublimity, to which all the grandeur of his most unearthly aspirations would adoringly bow. His talents would be tamed by a single glance at the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus; and his passions, which no mortal monitions can quell, would gradually sink under the sway of that celestial wisdom, which x.] THOMAS MULOCK ON BYRON. 497 is first pure, and then peaceable. No slight portion of Lord Byron's misery is associated with a sense of isolation. He seems to himself to be a fated voyager upon an ocean untracked by any other keel. But if the God of all grace shall show him the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is, his monopoly of wretchedness will be quickly abandoned. He will find that, though man may not, and perhaps cannot, sound the depths of his mental distress, there is a mercyseat to which he may approach through an everlasting Mediator, where his woes will be intelligible-being interpreted by that great and gracious High Priest, who was himself made perfect through sufferings, and who, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. At present, Lord Byron is interrogating the air, and asking with the similarly exercised sufferer in Holy Writ, Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable? Let Lord Byron, and all other 'wandering outlaws of their own dark minds,' search the scriptures. In the Bible, when unsealed to them by the Spirit of the living God, they will discover what their harrowing introspection of themselves— their jaundiced survey of others, and their carnal communings with external nature,—will never reveal to them—the cause and the cure of their calamities. They will see that sin, the sin of their wholly ruined nature, is within them, and that salvation is without them; and that the burthen under which they groan, (felt by millions with different degrees of intensity, according to the constitution of their minds, the vicissitudes in their condition, and the variform abuse of bodily gifts), cannot be removed but by an almighty arm. He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases." 2. Note (pp. 99, 100)— Who "Lord Byron whose awful state of mind enables him to view, with supernatural strength of vision, the fallacy of carnal life, without discerning the fulness of him who filleth all in all-has wrought into a single stanza more solid truth than can be detected in the philosophy and theology of all ages. But he greatly errs in concluding, that exhibitions of human suffering would have the slightest effect in quelling human passions. This is the prerogative-royal of sovereign grace. Where, it may be asked, are the converts made to purity and peace by Lord Byron's terrific disclosure of the woes which inly torture his own bared and burning bosom? Sin is deaf as well as blind, and will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely." VOL. IV. 2 K APPENDIX XI. BYRON'S BALLAD ON HOBHOUSE. (See p. 423.) HOBHOUSE was seriously annoyed with Byron for writing, and with Murray for showing, the ballad printed on p. 423. A version of the lines was printed in the Morning Post for April 15, 1820, but without the allusion to the Whig Club at Cambridge, which gave Hobhouse the greatest offence. In this Appendix are printed (1) the ballad as it appeared in the Morning Post; and (2) Hobhouse's letter to John Murray. (1) To the Editor of the Morning Post. "SIR,-A copy of verses, to the tune of My boy Tammy,' are repeated in literary circles, and said to be written by a Noble Lord of the highest poetical fame, upon his quondam friend and annotator. My memory does not enable me to repeat more than the first two verses quite accurately, but the humourous spirit of the Song may be gathered from these "Why were you put in Lob's pond, My boy, HOBBY O? (bis) "Who are your grand Reformers now, There's me and BURDETT,-gentlemen, "Have you no other friends but these, Yes, Southwark's KNIGHT, the County BYNG, |