FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]The preface is given at the beginning of the Notes on p.393.[2]William Thomas Fitzgerald.The annotator's first personal knowledge of this gentleman was at Harry Greville's Pic-Nic Theatre, in Tottenham Street, where he personated Zanga in a wig too small for his head. The second time of seeing him was at the table of old Lord Dudley, who familiarly called him Fitz, but forgot to name him in his will. The Earl's son (recently deceased), however, liberally supplied the omission by a donation of five thousand pounds. The third and last time of encountering him was at an anniversary dinner of the Literary Fund, at the Freemasons' Tavern. Both parties, as two of the stewards, met their brethren in a small room about half an hour before dinner. The lampooner, out of delicacy, kept aloof from the poet. The latter, however, made up to him, when the following dialogue took place:Fitzgerald (with good humour): 'Mr.——, I mean to recite after dinner.'Mr.——: 'Do you?'Fitzgerald: 'Yes; you'll have more of "God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!"'The whole of this imitation, after a lapse of twenty years, appears to the Authors too personal and sarcastic; but they may shelter themselves under a very broad mantle:'Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawlHis creaking couplets in a tavern-hall.'Byron.[3]'The first piece, under the name of the loyal Mr. Fitzgerald, though as good, we suppose, as the original, is not very interesting. Whether it be very like Mr. Fitzgerald or not, however, it must be allowed that the vulgarity, servility, and gross absurdity of the newspaper scribblers is well rendered in the following lines.'—Edinburgh Review.[4]In plain English, the Halfpenny-hatch, then a footway through fields; but now, as the same bards sing elsewhere—'St. George's Fields are fields no more,The trowel supersedes the plough;Swamps, huge and inundate of yore,Are changed to civic villas now.'Fitzgerald actually sent in an address to the committee on the 31st of August, 1812. It was published among the other genuineRejected Addresses, in one volume, in that year. The following is an extract:—'The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near,Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear.'What a pity that, like Sterne's recording angel, it did not succeed in blotting the fire out for ever! That failing, why not adopt Gulliver's remedy?[5]William Wordsworth.[6]Jack and Nancy, as it was afterwards remarked to the Authors, are here made to come into the world at periods not sufficiently remote. The writers were then bachelors. One of them, unfortunately, still continues so, as he has thus recorded in his niece's album:'Should I seek Hymen's tie,As a poet I die—Ye Benedicks, mourn my distresses!For what little fameIs annexed to my nameIs derived fromRejected Addresses.'The blunder, notwithstanding, remains unrectified. The reader of poetry is always dissatisfied with emendations: they sound discordantly upon the ear, like a modern song, by Bishop or Braham, introduced inLove in a Village.[7]This alludes to the young Betty mania. The writer was in the stage-box at the height of this young gentleman's popularity. One of the other occupants offered, in a loud voice, to prove that young Betty did not understand Shakespeare. 'Silence!' was the cry; but he still proceeded. 'Turn him out!' was the next ejaculation. He still vociferated 'He does not understand Shakespeare;' and was consequently shouldered into the lobby. 'I'll prove it to you,' said the critic to the door-keeper. 'Prove what, sir?' 'That he does not understand Shakespeare.' This was Molière's housemaid with a vengeance!Young Betty may now be seen walking about town—a portly personage, aged about forty—clad in a furred and frogged surtout; probably muttering to himself (as he has been at college), 'O mihi præteritos!' &c.[8]For an account of this anonymous gentleman, see the Preface.[9]Lord Byron.[10]This would seem to show that poet and prophet are synonymous, the noble bard having afterwards returned to England, and again quitted it, under domestic circumstances painfully notorious. His good-humoured forgiveness of the Authors has been already alluded to in the Preface. Nothing of this illustrious poet, however trivial, can be otherwise than interesting. 'We knew him well.' At Mr. Murray's dinner-table the annotator met him and Sir John Malcolm. Lord Byron talked of intending to travel in Persia. 'What must I do when I set off?' said he to Sir John. 'Cut off your buttons!' 'My buttons! what, these metal ones?' 'Yes; the Persians are in the main very honest fellows; but if you go thus bedizened, you will infallibly be murdered for your buttons.' At a dinner at Monk Lewis's chambers in the Albany, Lord Byron expressed to the writer his determination not to go there again, adding, 'I never will dine with a middle-aged man who fills up his table with young ensigns, and has looking-glass panels to his book-cases.' Lord Byron, when one of the Drury Lane Committee of Management, challenged the writer to sing alternately (like the swains in Virgil) the praises of Mrs. Mardyn, the actress, who, by the by, was hissed off the stage for an imputed intimacy, of which she was quite innocent.The contest ran as follows:'Wake, muse of fire, your ardent lyre,Pour forth your amorous ditty,But first profound, in duty bound,Applaud the new committee;Their scenic art from Thespis cartAll jaded nags discarding,To London drove this queen of love,Enchanting Mrs. Mardyn.'Though tides of love around her rove,I fear she'll choose Pactolus—In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge,So I must e'en swim solus."Out, out, alas!" ill-fated gas,That shin'st round Covent Garden,Thy ray how flat, compared with thatFrom eye of Mrs. Mardyn!'And so on. The reader has, no doubt, already discovered 'which is the justice, and which is the thief.'Lord Byron at that time wore a very narrow cravat of white sarsnet, with the shirt-collar falling over it; a black coat and waistcoat, and very broad white trousers, to hide his lame foot—these were of Russia duck in the morning, and jean in the evening. His watch-chain had a number of small gold seals appended to it, and was looped up to a button of his waistcoat. His face was void of colour; he wore no whiskers. His eyes were grey, fringed with long black lashes; and his air was imposing, but rather supercilious. He undervalued David Hume; denying his claim to genius on account of his bulk, and calling him, from the heroic epistle,'The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty.'One of this extraordinary man's allegations was, that 'fat is an oily dropsy.' To stave off its visitation, he frequently chewed tobacco in lieu of dinner, alleging that it absorbed the gastric juice of the stomach, and prevented hunger. 'Pass your hand down my side,' said his lordship to the writer; 'can you count my ribs?' 'Every one of them.' 'I am delighted to hear you say so. I called last week on Lady ——; "Ah, Lord Byron," said she, "how fat you grow!" But you know Lady —— is fond of saying spiteful things!' Let this gossip be summed up with the words of Lord Chesterfield, in his character of Bolingbroke: 'Upon the whole, on a survey of this extraordinary character, what can we say but "Alas, poor human nature!"'His favourite Pope's description of man is applicable to Byron individually:'Chaos of thought and passion all confused,Still by himself abused or disabused;Created part to rise and part to fall,Great lord of all things, yet a slave to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled—The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.'The writer never heard him allude to his deformed foot except upon one occasion, when, entering the green-room of Drury Lane, he found Lord Byron alone, the younger Byrne and Miss Smith the dancer having just left him, after an angry conference about apas seul. 'Had you been here a minute sooner,' said Lord B., 'you would have heard a question about dancing referred to me;—me! (looking mournfully downward) whom fate from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step.'[11]'Holland's edifice.' The late theatre was built by Holland the architect. The writer visited it on the night of its opening. The performances wereMacbethand theVirgin Unmasked. Between the play and the farce, an excellent epilogue, written by George Colman, was excellently spoken by Miss Farren. It referred to the iron curtain which was, in the event of fire, to be let down between the stage and the audience, and which accordingly descended, by way of experiment, leaving Miss Farren between the lamps and the curtain. The fair speaker informed the audience, that should the fire break out on the stage (where it usually originates), it would thus be kept from the spectators; adding, with great solemnity—'No! we assure our generous benefactors'Twill only burn the scenery and the actors!'A tank of water was afterwards exhibited, in the course of the epilogue, in which a wherry was rowed by a real live man, the band playing—'And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman?'Miss Farren reciting—'Sit still, there's nothing in it,We'll undertake to drown you in a single minute.''O vain thought!' as Othello says. Notwithstanding the boast in the epilogue—'Blow, wind—come, wrack, in ages yet unborn,Our castle's strength shall laugh a siege to scorn'—the theatre fell a victim to the flames within fifteen years from the prognostic! These preparations against fire always presuppose presence of mind and promptness in those who are to put them into action. They remind one of the dialogue, in Morton'sSpeed the Plough, between Sir Abel Handy and his son Bob:'Bob.Zounds, the castle's on fire!Sir A.Yes.Bob.Where's your patent liquid for extinguishing fire?Sir A.It is not mixed.Bob.Then where's your patent fire-escape?Sir A.It is not fixed.Bob.You are never at a loss?Sir A.Never.Bob.Then what do you mean to do?Sir A.I don't know.'[12]A rather obscure mode of expression forJews'-harp; which some etymologists allege, by the way, to be a corruption ofJaws'-harp. No connexion, therefore, with King David.[13]William Cobbett—now M.P.[14]Bagshaw. At that time the publisher of Cobbett's Register.[15]The old Lyceum Theatre, pulled down by Mr. Arnold. That since destroyed by fire was erected on its site.[16]An allusion to a murder then recently committed on Barnes Terrace.[17]At that time keeper of Newgate. The present superintendent is styled governor![18]A portentous one that made its appearance in the year 1811; in the midst of the war,with fear of changePerplexing nations.[19]Thomas Moore.[20]'The Living Lustresappears to us a very fair imitation of the fantastic verses which that ingenious person, Mr. Moore, indites when he is merely gallant, and, resisting the lures of voluptuousness, is not enough in earnest to be tender.'—Edinburgh Review.[21]This alludes to two massive pillars of verd antique which then flanked the proscenium, but which have since been removed. Their colour reminds the bard of the Emerald Isle, and this causes him (more suo) to fly off at a tangent, and Hibernicise the rest of the poem.[22]Robert Southey.[23]For the Glendoveer, and the rest of thedramatis personæof this imitation, the reader is referred to the 'Curse of Kehama.'[24]'The Rebuildingis in the name of Mr. Southey, and is one of the best in the collection. It is in the style of the "Kehama" of that multifarious author; and is supposed to be spoken in the character of one of his Glendoveers. The imitation of the diction and measure, we think, is nearly almost perfect; and the descriptions as good as the original. It opens with an account of the burning of the old theatre, formed upon the pattern of the Funeral of Arvalan.'—Edinburgh Review.[25]This couplet was introduced by the Authors by way of bravado, in answer to one who alleged that the English language contained no rhyme to chimney.[26]Apollo. A gigantic wooden figure of this deity was erected on the roof. The writer (horrescit referens!) is old enough to recollect the time when it was first placed there. Old Bishop, then one of the masters of Merchant Tailors' School, wrote an epigram upon the occasion, which, referring to the aforesaid figure, concluded thus:'Above he fills up Shakespeare's place,And Shakespeare fills up his below'—Very antithetical: but quære as to the meaning? The writer, like Pluto, 'long puzzled his brain' to find it out, till he was immersed 'in a lower deep' by hearing Madame de Staël say, at the table of the late Lord Dillon, 'Buonaparte is not a man, but a system.' Inquiry was made in the course of the evening of Sir James Mackintosh as to what the lady meant. He answered, 'Mass! I cannot tell.' Madame de Staël repeats this apophthegm in her work on Germany. It is probably understoodthere.[27]O. P. This personage, who is alleged to have growled like a bull-dog, requires rather a lengthened note, for the edification of the rising generation. The 'horns, rattles, drums,' with which he is accompanied, are no inventions of the poet. The new Covent Garden Theatre opened on the 18th Sept., 1809, when a cry of 'Old Prices' (afterwards diminished to O. P.) burst out from every part of the house. This continued and increased in violence till the 23rd, when rattles, drums, whistles, and cat-calls, having completely drowned the voices of the actors, Mr. Kemble, the stage-manager, came forward and said, that a committee of gentlemen had undertaken to examine the finances of the concern, and that until they were prepared with their report the theatre would continue closed. 'Name them!' was shouted from all sides. The names were declared, viz. Sir Charles Price, the Solicitor-General, the Recorder of London, the Governor of the Bank, and Mr. Angersteen. 'All shareholders!' bawled a wag from the gallery. In a few days the theatre re-opened: the public paid no attention to the report of the referees, and the tumult was renewed for several weeks with even increased violence. The proprietors now sent in hired bruisers, tomillthe refractory into subjection. This irritated most of their former friends, and, amongst the rest, the annotator, who accordingly wrote the song of 'Heigh-ho, says Kemble,' which was caught up by the ballad-singers, and sung under Mr. Kemble's house-windows in Great Russell Street. A dinner was given at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand, to celebrate the victory obtained by W. Clifford in his action against Brandon the box-keeper, for assaulting him for wearing the letters O. P. in his hat. At this dinner Mr. Kemble attended, and matters were compromised by allowing the advanced price (seven shillings) to the boxes. The writer remembers a former riot of a similar sort at the same theatre (in the year 1792), when the price to the boxes was raised from five shillings to six. That tumult, however, only lasted three nights.[28]'From the knobb'd bludgeon to the taper switch.' This image is not the creation of the poets: it sprang from reality. The Authors happened to be at the Royal Circus when 'God save the King' was called for, accompanied by a cry of 'Stand up!' and 'Hats off!' An inebriated naval lieutenant perceiving a gentleman in an adjoining box slow to obey the call, struck his hat off with his stick, exclaiming, 'Take off your hat, sir!' The other thus assaulted proved to be, unluckily for the lieutenant, Lord Camelford, the celebrated bruiser and duellist. A set-to in the lobby was the consequence, where his lordship quickly proved victorious. 'The devil is not so black as he is painted,' said one of the Authors to the other; 'let us call upon Lord Camelford, and tell him that we were witnesses of his being first assaulted.' The visit was paid on the ensuing morning at Lord Camelford's lodging, in Bond Street. Over the fire-place in the drawing-room were ornaments strongly expressive of the pugnacity of the peer. A long thick bludgeon lay horizontally supported by two brass hooks. Above this was placed parallel one of lesser dimensions, until a pyramid of weapons gradually arose, tapering to a horsewhip:'Thus all below was strength, and all above was grace.'Lord Camelford received his visitants with great civility, and thanked them warmly for the call; adding, that their evidence would be material, it being his intention to indict the lieutenant for an assault. 'All I can say in return is this,' exclaimed the peer with great cordiality, 'if ever I see you engaged in a row, upon my soul, I'll stand by you.' The Authors expressed themselves thankful for so potent an ally, and departed. In about a fortnight afterwards Lord Camelford was shot in a duel with Mr. Best.[29]Veeshnoo. The late Mr. Whitbread.[30]Levy. An insolvent Israelite who threw himself from the top of the Monument a short time before. An inhabitant of Monument Yard informed the writer, that he happened to be standing at his door talking to a neighbour; and looking up at the top of the pillar, exclaimed, 'Why, here's the flag coming down.' 'Flag!' answered the other, 'it's a man.' The words were hardly uttered when the suicide fell within ten feet of the speakers.[31]The Authors, as in gallantry bound, wish this lady to continue anonymous.[32]Walter Scott.[33]Sir Walter Scott informed the annotator, that at one time he intended to print his collected works, and had pitched upon this identical quotation as a motto;—a proof that sometimes great wits jump with little ones.[34]Alluding to the then great distance between the picture-frame, in which the green curtain was set, and the band. For a justification of this see below—Dr. Johnson.[35]Old Bedlam at that time stood 'close by London Wall.' It was built after the model of the Tuileries, which is said to have given the French king great offence. In front of it Moorfields extended, with broad gravel walks crossing each other at right angles. These the writer well recollects; and Rivaz, an underwriter at Lloyd's, has told him, that he remembered when the merchants of London would parade these walks on a summer evening with their wives and daughters. But now, as a punning brother bard sings,'Moorfields are fields no more.'[36]Whitbread's shears. An economical experiment of that gentleman. The present portico, towards Brydges Street, was afterwards erected under the lesseeship of Elliston, whose portrait in the Exhibition was thus noticed in theExaminer: 'Portrait of the great lessee, in his favourite character of Mr. Elliston.'[37]'Samuel Johnson is not so good: the measure and solemnity of his sentences, in all the limited variety of their structure, are indeed imitated with singular skill; but the diction is caricatured in a vulgar and unpleasing degree. To make Johnson call a door "a ligneous barricado," and its knocker and bell its "frappant and tintinnabulant appendages," is neither just nor humorous; and we are surprised that a writer who has given such extraordinary proofs of his talent for finer ridicule and fairer imitation, should have stooped to a vein of pleasantry so low, and so long ago exhausted; especially as, in other passages of the same piece, he has shewn how well qualified he was both to catch and to render the true characteristics of his original. The beginning, for example, we think excellent.'—Edinburgh Review.[38]The celebrated Lord Chesterfield, whose Letters to his Son, according to Dr. Johnson, inculcate 'the manners of a dancing-master and the morals of——,' &c.[39]Lord Mayor of the theatric sky. This alludes to Leigh Hunt, who, inThe Examiner, at this time kept the actors in hot water. Dr. Johnson's argument is, like many of his other arguments, specious, but untenable; that which it defends has since been abandoned as impracticable. Mr. Whitbread contended that the actor was like a portrait in a picture, and accordingly placed the green curtain in a gilded frame remote from the foot-lights; alleging that no performer should mar the illusion by stepping out of the frame. Dowton was the first actor who, like Manfred's ancestor in theCastle of Otranto, took the liberty of abandoning the canon. 'Don't tell me of frames and pictures,' ejaculated the testy comedian; 'if I can't be heard by the audience in the frame, I'll walk out of it!' The proscenium has since been new-modelled, and the actors thereby brought nearer to the audience.[40]William Spencer.[41]Sobriety, &c. The good-humour of the poet upon occasion of this parody has been noticed in the Preface. 'It's all very well for once,' said he afterwards, in comic confidence, at his villa at Petersham, 'but don't do it again. I had been almost forgotten when you revived me; and now all the newspapers and reviews ring with, "this fashionable, trashy author."' The sand and 'filings of glass,' mentioned in the last stanza, are referable to the well-known verses of the poet apologising to a lady for having paid an unconscionably long morning visit; and where, alluding to Time, he says,'All his sands are diamond sparks,That glitter as they pass.'Few men in society have more 'gladdened life' than this poet. He now resides in Paris, and may thence make the grand tour without an interpreter—speaking, as he does, French, Italian, and German, as fluently as English.[42]Congreve's plug. The late Sir William Congreve had made a model of Drury Lane Theatre, to which was affixed an engine that, in the event of fire, was made to play from the stage into every box in the house. The writer, accompanied by Theodore Hook, went to see the model at Sir William's house in Cecil Street. 'Now I'll duck Whitbread!' said Hook, seizing the water-pipe whilst he spoke, and sending a torrent of water into the brewer's box.[43]See Byron,afterwards, inDon Juan:—'For flesh is grass, which Time mows down to hay.'But, as Johnson says of Dryden, 'His known wealth was so great, he might borrow without any impeachment of his credit.'[44]Matthew Gregory Lewis, commonly called Monk Lewis, from his once popular romance of that name. He was a good-hearted man, and, like too many of that fraternity, a disagreeable one—verbose, disputatious, and paradoxical. HisMonkandCastle Spectreelevated him into fame; and he continued to write ghost-stories till, following as he did in the wake of Mrs. Radcliffe, he quite overstocked the market. Lewis visited his estates in Jamaica, and came back perfectly negro-bitten. He promulgated a new code of laws in the island, for the government of his sable subjects: one may serve for a specimen: 'Any slave who commits murder shall have his head shaved, and be confined three days and nights in a dark room.' Upon occasion of printing these parodies, Monk Lewis said to Lady H., 'Many of them are very fair, but mine is not at all like; they have made me write burlesque, which I never do.' 'You don't know your own talent,' answered the lady.Lewis aptly described himself, as to externals, in the verses affixed to hisMonk, as having'A graceless form and dwarfish stature.'He had, moreover, large grey eyes, thick features, and an inexpressive countenance. In talking, he had a disagreeable habit of drawing the fore-finger of his right hand across his right eyelid. He affected, in conversation, a sort of dandified, drawling tone; young Harlowe, the artist, did the same. A foreigner who had but a slight knowledge of the English language might have concluded, from their cadences, that they were little better than fools—'just a born goose,' as Terry the actor used to say. Lewis died on his passage homeward from Jamaica, owing to a dose of James's powders injudiciously administered by 'his own mere motion.' He wrote various plays, with various success: he had an admirable notion of dramatic construction, but the goodness of his scenes and incidents was marred by the badness of his dialogue.[45]Samuel Taylor Coleridge.[46]'He of Blackfriars' Road,' viz. the late Rev. Rowland Hill, who is said to have preached a sermon congratulating his congregation on the catastrophe.[47]'Oh, Mr. Whitbread!' Sir William Grant, then Master of the Rolls, repeated this passage aloud at a Lord Mayor's dinner, to the no small astonishment of the writer, who happened to sit within ear-shot.[48]'Padmanaba,' viz. in a pantomime calledHarlequin in Padmanaba. This elephant, some years afterwards, was exhibited over Exeter 'Change, where, the reader will remember, it was found necessary to destroy the poor animal by discharges of musketry. When he made his entrance in the pantomime above mentioned, Johnson, the machinist of the rival house, exclaimed, 'I should be very sorry if I could not make a better elephant than that!' Johnson was right: we go to the theatre to be pleased with the skill of the imitator, and not to look at the reality.[49]Dr. Busby.This gentleman gave living recitations of his translation ofLucretius, with tea and bread-and-butter. He sent in a real Address to the Drury Lane Committee, which was really rejected. The present imitation professes to be recited by the translator's son. The poet here, again, was a prophet. A few evenings after the opening of the theatre, Dr. Busby sat with his son in one of the stage-boxes. The latter, to the astonishment of the audience, at the end of the play, stepped from the box upon the stage, his father's real rejected address in his hand, and began to recite it as follows:-'When energising objects men pursue,What are the miracles they cannot do?'Raymond, the stage-manager, accompanied by a constable, at this moment walked upon the stage, and handed away the juveniledilettanteperformer.The doctor's classical translation was thus noticed in one of the newspapers of the day, in the column of births:—'Yesterday, at his house in Queen Anne Street, Dr. Busby of a still-bornLucretius.'[50]'Winsor's patent gas'—at that time in its infancy. The first place illumined by it was the Carlton House side of Pall Mall; the second, Bishopsgate Street. The writer attended a lecture given by the inventor: the charge of admittance was three shillings, but, as the inventor was about to apply to parliament, members of both houses were admitted gratis. The writer and a fellow-jester assumed the parts of senators at a short notice. 'Members of parliament!' was their important ejaculation at the door of entrance. 'What places, gentlemen?' 'Old Sarum and Bridgewater.' 'Walk in, gentlemen.' Luckily, the real Simon Pures did not attend. This Pall Mall illumination was further noticed inHorace in London:—'And Winsor lights, with flame of gas,Home, to king's place, his mother.'[51]'Ticket-nights.' This phrase is probably unintelligible to the untheatrical portion of the community, which may now be said to be all the world except the actors. Ticket-nights are those whereon the inferior actors club for a benefit: each distributes as many tickets of admission as he is able among his friends. A motley assemblage is the consequence; and as each actor is encouraged by his own set, who are not in general play-going people, the applause comes (as Chesterfield says of Pope's attempts at wit) 'generally unseasonably and too often unsuccessfully.'[52]Morning Post.[53]TheRev. George Crabbe. The writer's first interview with this poet, who may be designated Pope in worsted stockings, took place at William Spencer's villa at Petersham, close to what that gentleman called his gold-fish pond, though it was scarcely three feet in diameter, throwing up ajet d'eaulike a thread. The venerable bard, seizing both the hands of his satirist, exclaimed, with a good-humoured laugh: 'Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?' In the course of conversation, he expressed great astonishment at his popularity in London; adding, 'In my own village they think nothing of me.' The subject happening to be the inroads of Time upon Beauty, the writer quoted the following lines:—'Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six,When Time began to play his usual tricks:My locks, once comely in a virgin's sight,Locks of pure brown, now felt th' encroaching white;Gradual each day I liked my horses less,My dinner more—I learnt to play at chess.''That's very good!' cried the bard;—'whose is it?' 'Your own.' 'Indeed! hah! well, I had quite forgotten it.' Was this affectation, or was it not? In sooth, he seemed to push simplicity to puerility. This imitation contained in manuscript the following lines, after describing certain Sunday-newspaper critics who were supposed to be present at a new play, and who were rather heated in their politics:—'Hard is his task who edits—thankless job!A Sunday journal for the factious mob:With bitter paragraph and caustic jest,He gives to turbulence the day of rest;Condemn'd, this week, rash rancour to instil,Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will:Alike undone or if he praise or rail(For this affects his safety, that his sale),He sinks at last, in luckless limbo set,If loud for libel, and if dumb for debt.'They were, however, never printed; being, on reflection, considered too serious for the occasion.It is not a little extraordinary that Crabbe, who could write with such vigour, should descend to such lines as the following:—'Something had happen'd wrong about a billWhich was not drawn with true mercantile skill;So, to amend it, I was told to goAnd seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co.'Surely 'Emanuel Jennings,' compared with the above, rises to sublimity.[54]'We come next to three ludicrous parodies—of the story ofThe Stranger, ofGeorge Barnwell, and of the dagger-scene inMacbeth, under the signature of Momus Medlar. They are as good, we think, as that sort of thing can be, and remind us of the happier efforts of Colman, whose less successful fooleries are professedly copied in the last piece in the volume.'—Edinburgh Review.[55]Theodore Hook, at that time a very young man, and the companion of the annotator in many wild frolics. The cleverness of his subsequent prose compositions has cast his early stage songs into oblivion. This parody was, in the second edition, transferred from Colman to Hook.[56]Then Director of the Opera House.[57]At that time the chief dancer at this establishment.[58]Vauxhall Bridge then, like the Thames Tunnel at present, stood suspended in the middle of that river.[59]The Critical Reviewers. The others are theLondonandMonthly.[60]VideAdmiral Tyrrel's monument in Westminster Abbey.[61]My worthy friend, the Bellman, had promised to supply an additional stanza, but the business of assisting the lamplighter, chimney-sweeper, etc., with complimentary verses for their worthy masters and mistresses, pressing on him at this season, he was obliged to decline it.[62]Imitated from the introductory couplet to the 'Economy of Vegetation:''Stay your rude steps, whose throbbing breasts unfoldThe legion friends of glory and of gold.'This sentiment is here expanded into four lines.[63]For theos-culation, or kissing of circles and other curves, seeHuygens, who has veiled this delicate and inflammatory subject in the decent obscurity of a learned language.[64]A curve supposed to resemble the sprig of ivy, from which it has its name, and therefore peculiarly adapted to poetry.[65]Water has been supposed, by several of our philosophers, to be capable of the passion of love. Some later experiments appear to favour this idea. Water, when pressed by a moderate degree of heat, has been observed tosimper, orsimmer(as it is more usually called). The same does not hold true of any other element.[66]Videmodern prints of nymphs and shepherds dancing to nothing at all.[67]Imitated from the following genteel and sprightly lines in the first canto of the 'Loves of the Plants':'So bright its folding canopy withdrawn,Glides the gilt landau o'er the velvet lawn,Of beaux and belles displays the glittering throng,And soft airs fan them as they glide along.'[68]The Nymph of the Wheel, supposed to be in love withSmoke-Jack.[69]'A figure which has one angle,or more, of ninety degrees.'—Johnson's Dictionary.It here means aRight-angled Triangle, which is therefore incapable of having more than one angle of ninety degrees, but which may, according to our author'sProsopopœia, be supposed to be in love withThreeor any greater number ofNymphs.[70]Supposed to be the same withSatan.[71]The Eastern name forGenii.—VideTales of Ditto.[72]A submarine palace near Tunis, whereZatanaiusually held his Court.[73]The IndianCaucasus.[74]Mr. Higginsdoes not mean to deny thatSolomonwas really King ofJudæa. The epithetfabledapplies to that empire over the Genii, which the retrospective generosity of the Arabian fabulists has bestowed upon this monarch.[75]It was under this shape thatVenuswas worshipped inPhœnicia.Mr. Higginsthinks it was theVenus Urania, or Celestial Venus; in allusion to which, he supposes that thePhœniciangrocers first introduced the practice of preserving sugar-loaves in blue or sky-coloured paper. He also believes that theconicalform of the original grenadiers' caps was typical of the loves ofMarsandVenus.[76]The doctrine of mathematics. Pope calls hermad Mathesis.—Vide Johnson's Dictionary.[77]The harmony and imagery of these lines are imperfectly imitated from the following exquisite passage in theEconomy of Vegetation:'Gnomes, as you now dissect, with hammers fine,The granite rock, the noduled flint calcine;Grind with strong arm the circling Chertz betwixt,Your pure ka—o—lins and Pe—tunt—ses mixt.'Canto 2, line 297.[78]This line affords a striking instance of the sound conveying an echo to the sense. I would defy the most unfeeling reader to repeat it over without accompanying it by some corresponding gesture imitative of the action described.[79]A term usually applied in allegoric and technical poetry to any person or object to which no other qualifications can be assigned.—Chambers's Dictionary.[80]Infancy is particularly interested in the diffusion of the new principles. See the 'Bloody Buoy.' See also the following description and prediction:'Here Time's huge fingers grasp his giant mace,And dash proud Superstition from her base;Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes,&c. &c. &c. &c.'While each light moment, as it passes by,With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye,Feeds from its baby-hand with many a kissThe callow nestlings of domestic bliss.'Botanic Garden.[81]The oldest scholiasts read—AdodecagamicPotter.This is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous,—but the alliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of later commentators.[82]To those who have not duly appreciated the distinction betweenWhaleandRussiaoil, this attribute might rather seem to belong to the Dandy than the Evangelic. The effect, when to the windward, is indeed so similar, that it requires a subtle naturalist to discriminate the animals. They belong, however, to distinct genera.[83]One of the attributes in Linnæus's description of the Cat. To a similar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus is to be referred;—except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is compelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is supposed only to quarrel with those of others.[84]This libel on our national oath, and this accusation of all our countrymen of being in the daily practice of solemnly asseverating the most enormous falsehood, I fear deserves the notice of a more active Attorney General than that here alluded to.[85]Vox populi, vox dei.As Mr. Godwin truly observes of a more famous saying,of some merit as a popular maxim, but totally destitute of philosophical accuracy.[86]Quasi,Qui valet verba—i.e., all the words which have been, are, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A sufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter's progenitor who selected this name seems to have possesseda pure anticipated cognitionof the nature and modesty of this ornament of his posterity.[87]A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophylic Pantisocratists.[88]See the description of the beautiful colours produced during the agonizing death of a number of trout, in the fourth part of a long poem in blank verse, published within a few years. That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual hardening of a strong but circumscribed sensibility, of the perversion of a penetrating but panic-stricken understanding.[89]It is curious to observe how often extremes meet. Cobbett and Peter use the same language for a different purpose: Peter is indeed a sort of metrical Cobbett. Cobbett is, however, more mischievous than Peter, because he pollutes a holy and now unconquerable cause with the principles of legitimate murder; whilst the other only makes a bad one ridiculous and odious. If either Peter Cobbett should see this note, each will feel more indignation at being compared to the other than at any censure implied in the moral perversion laid to their charge.[90]'A noticeable man with large grey eyes.'—Lyrical Ballads.[91]Dairy-maid to Mr. Gill.[92]Peter Bell resembleth Harry Gill in this particular:'His teeth they chatter, chatter, chatter,'I should have introduced this fact in the text, but that Harry Gill would not rhyme. I reserve this for my blank verse.[93]Harry Gill was the original proprietor of Barbara Lewthwaite's pet lamb; and he also bred Betty Foy's celebrated pony, got originally out of a Nightmare, by a descendant of the great Trojan horse.[94]Mr. Sheridan, in his sweet poem of theCritic, supplies one of his heroes with as singularly clustering a relationship.[95]I have here changed the shape of the moon, not from any poetical heedlessness, or human perversity, but because man is fond of change, and in this I have studied the metaphysical varieties of our being.[96]I have a similar idea in my Poem on finding a Bird's Nest:'Look!fiveblue eggs are gleaming there.'But the numbers are different, so I trust no one will differ with the numbers.[97]I have also given these lines before; but in thus printing them again, I neither tarnish their value, nor injure their novelty.[98]See my Sonnet to Sleep:—'I surely not a man ungently made.'[99]See my story of the Leech-gatherer, the finest poem in the world,—except this.[100]'Ah!' said the Briar, 'blame me not.'Waterfall and Eglantine.Also,—'The Oak, a Giant and a Sage,His neighbour thus address'd.'[101]'Long Susanlay deep lost in thought.'—The Idiot Boy.[102]See what I have said of this man in my excellent supplementaryPreface.[103]I cannot resist quoting the following lines, to show how I preserve my system from youth to age. As Simon was, so he is. And one and twenty years have scarcely altered (except by death) that cheerful and cherry-cheeked Old Huntsman. This is the truth of Poetry.'In the sweet shire of Cardigan,Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall;An old man dwells—a little man—I've heard he once was tall;Of years he has upon his back,No doubt, a burthen weighty;He says he is threescore and ten,But others say he's eighty.'These lines were written in the summer of 1798, and I bestowed great labour upon them.[104]Andrew Jones was a very singular old man. See my Poem,'I hate that Andrew Jones—he'll breed,' etc.[105]'Let thy wheelbarrow alone,' etc. See my Poem to a Sexton.[106]The reference here and in a subsequent verse is to a song very popular at the time:'All round my hat I vears a green villow,All round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day,And if any van should arsk you the reason vy I vears it,Say, all for my true love that's far, far away.''Twas agoin of my rounds on the streets I first did meet her,'Twas agoin of my rounds that first she met my heye,And I never heard a voice more louder nor more sweeter,As she cried, "Who'll buy my cabbages, my cabbages who'll buy?"'There were several more verses, and being set to a very taking air, it was a reigning favourite with the 'Social Chucksters' of the day. Even scholars thought it worth turning into Latin verse. I remember reading in some short-lived journal a very clever version of it, the first verse of which ran thus:'Omne circa petusum sertum gero viridemPer annum circa petasum et unum diem plus.Si quis te rogaret, cur tale sertum gererem,Dic, "Omne propter coroulum qui est inpartibus."'Allusions to the willow, as an emblem of grief, are of a very old date. 'Sing all, a green willow must be my garland,' is the refrain of the song which haunted Desdemona on the eve of her death (Othello, Act IV., Scene 3). That exquisite scene, and the beautiful air to which some contemporary of Shakespeare wedded it, will make 'The Willow Song' immortal.[107]Madame Laffarge and Daniel Good were the two most talked about criminals of the time when these lines were written. Madame Laffarge was convicted of poisoning her husband under extenuating circumstances, and was imprisoned for life, but many believed in her protestations of innocence—this, of course, she being a woman and unhappily married. Daniel Good died on the scaffold on the 23rd of May, 1842, protesting his innocence to the last, and asserting that his victim, Jane Sparks, had killed herself, an assertion which a judge and jury naturally could not reconcile with the fact that her head, arms, and legs had been cut off and hidden with her body in a stable. He, too, found people to maintain that his sentence was unjust.[108]The two papers here glanced at wereThe AgeandThe Satirist, long since dead.[109]The expression of contemptuous defiance, signified by the application of the thumb of one hand to the nose, spreading out the fingers, and attaching to the little finger the stretched-out fingers of the other hand, and working them in a circle. Among the graffiti in Pompeii are examples of the same subtle symbolism.[110]Well known to readers of Thackeray'sNewcomesas 'The Cave of Harmony.'[111]Sir Peter Laurie, Lord Mayor; afterwards Alderman, and notable for his sagacity and severity as a magistrate in dealing with evil-doers.[112]Thin boards.[113]Burnt.[114]See the 'six-text' edition of Chaucer.[115]A town in Spain.[116]Acquire.[117]For those that gave him the means to study with.[118]Care.[119]Seize upon.[120]Would not hesitate.[121]All quotations for the 'Oxford Dictionary' illustrating special uses of English words were written on pieces of paper of a particular size.[122]Find fault with.[123]Curious ways.[124]In accordance with.[125]Written at the Crystal Palace Aquarium.

[1]The preface is given at the beginning of the Notes on p.393.

[2]William Thomas Fitzgerald.The annotator's first personal knowledge of this gentleman was at Harry Greville's Pic-Nic Theatre, in Tottenham Street, where he personated Zanga in a wig too small for his head. The second time of seeing him was at the table of old Lord Dudley, who familiarly called him Fitz, but forgot to name him in his will. The Earl's son (recently deceased), however, liberally supplied the omission by a donation of five thousand pounds. The third and last time of encountering him was at an anniversary dinner of the Literary Fund, at the Freemasons' Tavern. Both parties, as two of the stewards, met their brethren in a small room about half an hour before dinner. The lampooner, out of delicacy, kept aloof from the poet. The latter, however, made up to him, when the following dialogue took place:Fitzgerald (with good humour): 'Mr.——, I mean to recite after dinner.'Mr.——: 'Do you?'Fitzgerald: 'Yes; you'll have more of "God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!"'The whole of this imitation, after a lapse of twenty years, appears to the Authors too personal and sarcastic; but they may shelter themselves under a very broad mantle:'Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawlHis creaking couplets in a tavern-hall.'Byron.

Fitzgerald (with good humour): 'Mr.——, I mean to recite after dinner.'

Mr.——: 'Do you?'

Fitzgerald: 'Yes; you'll have more of "God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!"'

The whole of this imitation, after a lapse of twenty years, appears to the Authors too personal and sarcastic; but they may shelter themselves under a very broad mantle:

'Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawlHis creaking couplets in a tavern-hall.'Byron.

'Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawl

His creaking couplets in a tavern-hall.'

Byron.

[3]'The first piece, under the name of the loyal Mr. Fitzgerald, though as good, we suppose, as the original, is not very interesting. Whether it be very like Mr. Fitzgerald or not, however, it must be allowed that the vulgarity, servility, and gross absurdity of the newspaper scribblers is well rendered in the following lines.'—Edinburgh Review.

[4]In plain English, the Halfpenny-hatch, then a footway through fields; but now, as the same bards sing elsewhere—'St. George's Fields are fields no more,The trowel supersedes the plough;Swamps, huge and inundate of yore,Are changed to civic villas now.'Fitzgerald actually sent in an address to the committee on the 31st of August, 1812. It was published among the other genuineRejected Addresses, in one volume, in that year. The following is an extract:—'The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near,Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear.'What a pity that, like Sterne's recording angel, it did not succeed in blotting the fire out for ever! That failing, why not adopt Gulliver's remedy?

[4]In plain English, the Halfpenny-hatch, then a footway through fields; but now, as the same bards sing elsewhere—

'St. George's Fields are fields no more,The trowel supersedes the plough;Swamps, huge and inundate of yore,Are changed to civic villas now.'

'St. George's Fields are fields no more,

The trowel supersedes the plough;

Swamps, huge and inundate of yore,

Are changed to civic villas now.'

Fitzgerald actually sent in an address to the committee on the 31st of August, 1812. It was published among the other genuineRejected Addresses, in one volume, in that year. The following is an extract:—

'The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near,Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear.'

'The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near,

Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear.'

What a pity that, like Sterne's recording angel, it did not succeed in blotting the fire out for ever! That failing, why not adopt Gulliver's remedy?

[5]William Wordsworth.

[6]Jack and Nancy, as it was afterwards remarked to the Authors, are here made to come into the world at periods not sufficiently remote. The writers were then bachelors. One of them, unfortunately, still continues so, as he has thus recorded in his niece's album:'Should I seek Hymen's tie,As a poet I die—Ye Benedicks, mourn my distresses!For what little fameIs annexed to my nameIs derived fromRejected Addresses.'The blunder, notwithstanding, remains unrectified. The reader of poetry is always dissatisfied with emendations: they sound discordantly upon the ear, like a modern song, by Bishop or Braham, introduced inLove in a Village.

'Should I seek Hymen's tie,As a poet I die—Ye Benedicks, mourn my distresses!For what little fameIs annexed to my nameIs derived fromRejected Addresses.'

'Should I seek Hymen's tie,

As a poet I die—

Ye Benedicks, mourn my distresses!

For what little fame

Is annexed to my name

Is derived fromRejected Addresses.'

The blunder, notwithstanding, remains unrectified. The reader of poetry is always dissatisfied with emendations: they sound discordantly upon the ear, like a modern song, by Bishop or Braham, introduced inLove in a Village.

[7]This alludes to the young Betty mania. The writer was in the stage-box at the height of this young gentleman's popularity. One of the other occupants offered, in a loud voice, to prove that young Betty did not understand Shakespeare. 'Silence!' was the cry; but he still proceeded. 'Turn him out!' was the next ejaculation. He still vociferated 'He does not understand Shakespeare;' and was consequently shouldered into the lobby. 'I'll prove it to you,' said the critic to the door-keeper. 'Prove what, sir?' 'That he does not understand Shakespeare.' This was Molière's housemaid with a vengeance!Young Betty may now be seen walking about town—a portly personage, aged about forty—clad in a furred and frogged surtout; probably muttering to himself (as he has been at college), 'O mihi præteritos!' &c.

Young Betty may now be seen walking about town—a portly personage, aged about forty—clad in a furred and frogged surtout; probably muttering to himself (as he has been at college), 'O mihi præteritos!' &c.

[8]For an account of this anonymous gentleman, see the Preface.

[9]Lord Byron.

[10]This would seem to show that poet and prophet are synonymous, the noble bard having afterwards returned to England, and again quitted it, under domestic circumstances painfully notorious. His good-humoured forgiveness of the Authors has been already alluded to in the Preface. Nothing of this illustrious poet, however trivial, can be otherwise than interesting. 'We knew him well.' At Mr. Murray's dinner-table the annotator met him and Sir John Malcolm. Lord Byron talked of intending to travel in Persia. 'What must I do when I set off?' said he to Sir John. 'Cut off your buttons!' 'My buttons! what, these metal ones?' 'Yes; the Persians are in the main very honest fellows; but if you go thus bedizened, you will infallibly be murdered for your buttons.' At a dinner at Monk Lewis's chambers in the Albany, Lord Byron expressed to the writer his determination not to go there again, adding, 'I never will dine with a middle-aged man who fills up his table with young ensigns, and has looking-glass panels to his book-cases.' Lord Byron, when one of the Drury Lane Committee of Management, challenged the writer to sing alternately (like the swains in Virgil) the praises of Mrs. Mardyn, the actress, who, by the by, was hissed off the stage for an imputed intimacy, of which she was quite innocent.The contest ran as follows:'Wake, muse of fire, your ardent lyre,Pour forth your amorous ditty,But first profound, in duty bound,Applaud the new committee;Their scenic art from Thespis cartAll jaded nags discarding,To London drove this queen of love,Enchanting Mrs. Mardyn.'Though tides of love around her rove,I fear she'll choose Pactolus—In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge,So I must e'en swim solus."Out, out, alas!" ill-fated gas,That shin'st round Covent Garden,Thy ray how flat, compared with thatFrom eye of Mrs. Mardyn!'And so on. The reader has, no doubt, already discovered 'which is the justice, and which is the thief.'Lord Byron at that time wore a very narrow cravat of white sarsnet, with the shirt-collar falling over it; a black coat and waistcoat, and very broad white trousers, to hide his lame foot—these were of Russia duck in the morning, and jean in the evening. His watch-chain had a number of small gold seals appended to it, and was looped up to a button of his waistcoat. His face was void of colour; he wore no whiskers. His eyes were grey, fringed with long black lashes; and his air was imposing, but rather supercilious. He undervalued David Hume; denying his claim to genius on account of his bulk, and calling him, from the heroic epistle,'The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty.'One of this extraordinary man's allegations was, that 'fat is an oily dropsy.' To stave off its visitation, he frequently chewed tobacco in lieu of dinner, alleging that it absorbed the gastric juice of the stomach, and prevented hunger. 'Pass your hand down my side,' said his lordship to the writer; 'can you count my ribs?' 'Every one of them.' 'I am delighted to hear you say so. I called last week on Lady ——; "Ah, Lord Byron," said she, "how fat you grow!" But you know Lady —— is fond of saying spiteful things!' Let this gossip be summed up with the words of Lord Chesterfield, in his character of Bolingbroke: 'Upon the whole, on a survey of this extraordinary character, what can we say but "Alas, poor human nature!"'His favourite Pope's description of man is applicable to Byron individually:'Chaos of thought and passion all confused,Still by himself abused or disabused;Created part to rise and part to fall,Great lord of all things, yet a slave to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled—The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.'The writer never heard him allude to his deformed foot except upon one occasion, when, entering the green-room of Drury Lane, he found Lord Byron alone, the younger Byrne and Miss Smith the dancer having just left him, after an angry conference about apas seul. 'Had you been here a minute sooner,' said Lord B., 'you would have heard a question about dancing referred to me;—me! (looking mournfully downward) whom fate from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step.'

The contest ran as follows:

'Wake, muse of fire, your ardent lyre,Pour forth your amorous ditty,But first profound, in duty bound,Applaud the new committee;Their scenic art from Thespis cartAll jaded nags discarding,To London drove this queen of love,Enchanting Mrs. Mardyn.'Though tides of love around her rove,I fear she'll choose Pactolus—In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge,So I must e'en swim solus."Out, out, alas!" ill-fated gas,That shin'st round Covent Garden,Thy ray how flat, compared with thatFrom eye of Mrs. Mardyn!'

'Wake, muse of fire, your ardent lyre,

Pour forth your amorous ditty,

But first profound, in duty bound,

Applaud the new committee;

Their scenic art from Thespis cart

All jaded nags discarding,

To London drove this queen of love,

Enchanting Mrs. Mardyn.

'Though tides of love around her rove,I fear she'll choose Pactolus—In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge,So I must e'en swim solus."Out, out, alas!" ill-fated gas,That shin'st round Covent Garden,Thy ray how flat, compared with thatFrom eye of Mrs. Mardyn!'

'Though tides of love around her rove,

I fear she'll choose Pactolus—

In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge,

So I must e'en swim solus.

"Out, out, alas!" ill-fated gas,

That shin'st round Covent Garden,

Thy ray how flat, compared with that

From eye of Mrs. Mardyn!'

And so on. The reader has, no doubt, already discovered 'which is the justice, and which is the thief.'

Lord Byron at that time wore a very narrow cravat of white sarsnet, with the shirt-collar falling over it; a black coat and waistcoat, and very broad white trousers, to hide his lame foot—these were of Russia duck in the morning, and jean in the evening. His watch-chain had a number of small gold seals appended to it, and was looped up to a button of his waistcoat. His face was void of colour; he wore no whiskers. His eyes were grey, fringed with long black lashes; and his air was imposing, but rather supercilious. He undervalued David Hume; denying his claim to genius on account of his bulk, and calling him, from the heroic epistle,

'The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty.'

One of this extraordinary man's allegations was, that 'fat is an oily dropsy.' To stave off its visitation, he frequently chewed tobacco in lieu of dinner, alleging that it absorbed the gastric juice of the stomach, and prevented hunger. 'Pass your hand down my side,' said his lordship to the writer; 'can you count my ribs?' 'Every one of them.' 'I am delighted to hear you say so. I called last week on Lady ——; "Ah, Lord Byron," said she, "how fat you grow!" But you know Lady —— is fond of saying spiteful things!' Let this gossip be summed up with the words of Lord Chesterfield, in his character of Bolingbroke: 'Upon the whole, on a survey of this extraordinary character, what can we say but "Alas, poor human nature!"'

His favourite Pope's description of man is applicable to Byron individually:

'Chaos of thought and passion all confused,Still by himself abused or disabused;Created part to rise and part to fall,Great lord of all things, yet a slave to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled—The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.'

'Chaos of thought and passion all confused,

Still by himself abused or disabused;

Created part to rise and part to fall,

Great lord of all things, yet a slave to all;

Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled—

The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.'

The writer never heard him allude to his deformed foot except upon one occasion, when, entering the green-room of Drury Lane, he found Lord Byron alone, the younger Byrne and Miss Smith the dancer having just left him, after an angry conference about apas seul. 'Had you been here a minute sooner,' said Lord B., 'you would have heard a question about dancing referred to me;—me! (looking mournfully downward) whom fate from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step.'

[11]'Holland's edifice.' The late theatre was built by Holland the architect. The writer visited it on the night of its opening. The performances wereMacbethand theVirgin Unmasked. Between the play and the farce, an excellent epilogue, written by George Colman, was excellently spoken by Miss Farren. It referred to the iron curtain which was, in the event of fire, to be let down between the stage and the audience, and which accordingly descended, by way of experiment, leaving Miss Farren between the lamps and the curtain. The fair speaker informed the audience, that should the fire break out on the stage (where it usually originates), it would thus be kept from the spectators; adding, with great solemnity—'No! we assure our generous benefactors'Twill only burn the scenery and the actors!'A tank of water was afterwards exhibited, in the course of the epilogue, in which a wherry was rowed by a real live man, the band playing—'And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman?'Miss Farren reciting—'Sit still, there's nothing in it,We'll undertake to drown you in a single minute.''O vain thought!' as Othello says. Notwithstanding the boast in the epilogue—'Blow, wind—come, wrack, in ages yet unborn,Our castle's strength shall laugh a siege to scorn'—the theatre fell a victim to the flames within fifteen years from the prognostic! These preparations against fire always presuppose presence of mind and promptness in those who are to put them into action. They remind one of the dialogue, in Morton'sSpeed the Plough, between Sir Abel Handy and his son Bob:'Bob.Zounds, the castle's on fire!Sir A.Yes.Bob.Where's your patent liquid for extinguishing fire?Sir A.It is not mixed.Bob.Then where's your patent fire-escape?Sir A.It is not fixed.Bob.You are never at a loss?Sir A.Never.Bob.Then what do you mean to do?Sir A.I don't know.'

'No! we assure our generous benefactors'Twill only burn the scenery and the actors!'

'No! we assure our generous benefactors

'Twill only burn the scenery and the actors!'

A tank of water was afterwards exhibited, in the course of the epilogue, in which a wherry was rowed by a real live man, the band playing—

'And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman?'

Miss Farren reciting—

'Sit still, there's nothing in it,We'll undertake to drown you in a single minute.'

'Sit still, there's nothing in it,

We'll undertake to drown you in a single minute.'

'O vain thought!' as Othello says. Notwithstanding the boast in the epilogue—

'Blow, wind—come, wrack, in ages yet unborn,Our castle's strength shall laugh a siege to scorn'—

'Blow, wind—come, wrack, in ages yet unborn,

Our castle's strength shall laugh a siege to scorn'—

the theatre fell a victim to the flames within fifteen years from the prognostic! These preparations against fire always presuppose presence of mind and promptness in those who are to put them into action. They remind one of the dialogue, in Morton'sSpeed the Plough, between Sir Abel Handy and his son Bob:

'Bob.Zounds, the castle's on fire!

Sir A.Yes.

Bob.Where's your patent liquid for extinguishing fire?

Sir A.It is not mixed.

Bob.Then where's your patent fire-escape?

Sir A.It is not fixed.

Bob.You are never at a loss?

Sir A.Never.

Bob.Then what do you mean to do?

Sir A.I don't know.'

[12]A rather obscure mode of expression forJews'-harp; which some etymologists allege, by the way, to be a corruption ofJaws'-harp. No connexion, therefore, with King David.

[13]William Cobbett—now M.P.

[14]Bagshaw. At that time the publisher of Cobbett's Register.

[15]The old Lyceum Theatre, pulled down by Mr. Arnold. That since destroyed by fire was erected on its site.

[16]An allusion to a murder then recently committed on Barnes Terrace.

[17]At that time keeper of Newgate. The present superintendent is styled governor!

[18]A portentous one that made its appearance in the year 1811; in the midst of the war,with fear of changePerplexing nations.

[18]A portentous one that made its appearance in the year 1811; in the midst of the war,

with fear of changePerplexing nations.

with fear of change

Perplexing nations.

[19]Thomas Moore.

[20]'The Living Lustresappears to us a very fair imitation of the fantastic verses which that ingenious person, Mr. Moore, indites when he is merely gallant, and, resisting the lures of voluptuousness, is not enough in earnest to be tender.'—Edinburgh Review.

[21]This alludes to two massive pillars of verd antique which then flanked the proscenium, but which have since been removed. Their colour reminds the bard of the Emerald Isle, and this causes him (more suo) to fly off at a tangent, and Hibernicise the rest of the poem.

[22]Robert Southey.

[23]For the Glendoveer, and the rest of thedramatis personæof this imitation, the reader is referred to the 'Curse of Kehama.'

[24]'The Rebuildingis in the name of Mr. Southey, and is one of the best in the collection. It is in the style of the "Kehama" of that multifarious author; and is supposed to be spoken in the character of one of his Glendoveers. The imitation of the diction and measure, we think, is nearly almost perfect; and the descriptions as good as the original. It opens with an account of the burning of the old theatre, formed upon the pattern of the Funeral of Arvalan.'—Edinburgh Review.

[25]This couplet was introduced by the Authors by way of bravado, in answer to one who alleged that the English language contained no rhyme to chimney.

[26]Apollo. A gigantic wooden figure of this deity was erected on the roof. The writer (horrescit referens!) is old enough to recollect the time when it was first placed there. Old Bishop, then one of the masters of Merchant Tailors' School, wrote an epigram upon the occasion, which, referring to the aforesaid figure, concluded thus:'Above he fills up Shakespeare's place,And Shakespeare fills up his below'—Very antithetical: but quære as to the meaning? The writer, like Pluto, 'long puzzled his brain' to find it out, till he was immersed 'in a lower deep' by hearing Madame de Staël say, at the table of the late Lord Dillon, 'Buonaparte is not a man, but a system.' Inquiry was made in the course of the evening of Sir James Mackintosh as to what the lady meant. He answered, 'Mass! I cannot tell.' Madame de Staël repeats this apophthegm in her work on Germany. It is probably understoodthere.

'Above he fills up Shakespeare's place,And Shakespeare fills up his below'—

'Above he fills up Shakespeare's place,

And Shakespeare fills up his below'—

Very antithetical: but quære as to the meaning? The writer, like Pluto, 'long puzzled his brain' to find it out, till he was immersed 'in a lower deep' by hearing Madame de Staël say, at the table of the late Lord Dillon, 'Buonaparte is not a man, but a system.' Inquiry was made in the course of the evening of Sir James Mackintosh as to what the lady meant. He answered, 'Mass! I cannot tell.' Madame de Staël repeats this apophthegm in her work on Germany. It is probably understoodthere.

[27]O. P. This personage, who is alleged to have growled like a bull-dog, requires rather a lengthened note, for the edification of the rising generation. The 'horns, rattles, drums,' with which he is accompanied, are no inventions of the poet. The new Covent Garden Theatre opened on the 18th Sept., 1809, when a cry of 'Old Prices' (afterwards diminished to O. P.) burst out from every part of the house. This continued and increased in violence till the 23rd, when rattles, drums, whistles, and cat-calls, having completely drowned the voices of the actors, Mr. Kemble, the stage-manager, came forward and said, that a committee of gentlemen had undertaken to examine the finances of the concern, and that until they were prepared with their report the theatre would continue closed. 'Name them!' was shouted from all sides. The names were declared, viz. Sir Charles Price, the Solicitor-General, the Recorder of London, the Governor of the Bank, and Mr. Angersteen. 'All shareholders!' bawled a wag from the gallery. In a few days the theatre re-opened: the public paid no attention to the report of the referees, and the tumult was renewed for several weeks with even increased violence. The proprietors now sent in hired bruisers, tomillthe refractory into subjection. This irritated most of their former friends, and, amongst the rest, the annotator, who accordingly wrote the song of 'Heigh-ho, says Kemble,' which was caught up by the ballad-singers, and sung under Mr. Kemble's house-windows in Great Russell Street. A dinner was given at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand, to celebrate the victory obtained by W. Clifford in his action against Brandon the box-keeper, for assaulting him for wearing the letters O. P. in his hat. At this dinner Mr. Kemble attended, and matters were compromised by allowing the advanced price (seven shillings) to the boxes. The writer remembers a former riot of a similar sort at the same theatre (in the year 1792), when the price to the boxes was raised from five shillings to six. That tumult, however, only lasted three nights.

[28]'From the knobb'd bludgeon to the taper switch.' This image is not the creation of the poets: it sprang from reality. The Authors happened to be at the Royal Circus when 'God save the King' was called for, accompanied by a cry of 'Stand up!' and 'Hats off!' An inebriated naval lieutenant perceiving a gentleman in an adjoining box slow to obey the call, struck his hat off with his stick, exclaiming, 'Take off your hat, sir!' The other thus assaulted proved to be, unluckily for the lieutenant, Lord Camelford, the celebrated bruiser and duellist. A set-to in the lobby was the consequence, where his lordship quickly proved victorious. 'The devil is not so black as he is painted,' said one of the Authors to the other; 'let us call upon Lord Camelford, and tell him that we were witnesses of his being first assaulted.' The visit was paid on the ensuing morning at Lord Camelford's lodging, in Bond Street. Over the fire-place in the drawing-room were ornaments strongly expressive of the pugnacity of the peer. A long thick bludgeon lay horizontally supported by two brass hooks. Above this was placed parallel one of lesser dimensions, until a pyramid of weapons gradually arose, tapering to a horsewhip:'Thus all below was strength, and all above was grace.'Lord Camelford received his visitants with great civility, and thanked them warmly for the call; adding, that their evidence would be material, it being his intention to indict the lieutenant for an assault. 'All I can say in return is this,' exclaimed the peer with great cordiality, 'if ever I see you engaged in a row, upon my soul, I'll stand by you.' The Authors expressed themselves thankful for so potent an ally, and departed. In about a fortnight afterwards Lord Camelford was shot in a duel with Mr. Best.

'Thus all below was strength, and all above was grace.'

Lord Camelford received his visitants with great civility, and thanked them warmly for the call; adding, that their evidence would be material, it being his intention to indict the lieutenant for an assault. 'All I can say in return is this,' exclaimed the peer with great cordiality, 'if ever I see you engaged in a row, upon my soul, I'll stand by you.' The Authors expressed themselves thankful for so potent an ally, and departed. In about a fortnight afterwards Lord Camelford was shot in a duel with Mr. Best.

[29]Veeshnoo. The late Mr. Whitbread.

[30]Levy. An insolvent Israelite who threw himself from the top of the Monument a short time before. An inhabitant of Monument Yard informed the writer, that he happened to be standing at his door talking to a neighbour; and looking up at the top of the pillar, exclaimed, 'Why, here's the flag coming down.' 'Flag!' answered the other, 'it's a man.' The words were hardly uttered when the suicide fell within ten feet of the speakers.

[31]The Authors, as in gallantry bound, wish this lady to continue anonymous.

[32]Walter Scott.

[33]Sir Walter Scott informed the annotator, that at one time he intended to print his collected works, and had pitched upon this identical quotation as a motto;—a proof that sometimes great wits jump with little ones.

[34]Alluding to the then great distance between the picture-frame, in which the green curtain was set, and the band. For a justification of this see below—Dr. Johnson.

[35]Old Bedlam at that time stood 'close by London Wall.' It was built after the model of the Tuileries, which is said to have given the French king great offence. In front of it Moorfields extended, with broad gravel walks crossing each other at right angles. These the writer well recollects; and Rivaz, an underwriter at Lloyd's, has told him, that he remembered when the merchants of London would parade these walks on a summer evening with their wives and daughters. But now, as a punning brother bard sings,'Moorfields are fields no more.'

'Moorfields are fields no more.'

[36]Whitbread's shears. An economical experiment of that gentleman. The present portico, towards Brydges Street, was afterwards erected under the lesseeship of Elliston, whose portrait in the Exhibition was thus noticed in theExaminer: 'Portrait of the great lessee, in his favourite character of Mr. Elliston.'

[37]'Samuel Johnson is not so good: the measure and solemnity of his sentences, in all the limited variety of their structure, are indeed imitated with singular skill; but the diction is caricatured in a vulgar and unpleasing degree. To make Johnson call a door "a ligneous barricado," and its knocker and bell its "frappant and tintinnabulant appendages," is neither just nor humorous; and we are surprised that a writer who has given such extraordinary proofs of his talent for finer ridicule and fairer imitation, should have stooped to a vein of pleasantry so low, and so long ago exhausted; especially as, in other passages of the same piece, he has shewn how well qualified he was both to catch and to render the true characteristics of his original. The beginning, for example, we think excellent.'—Edinburgh Review.

[38]The celebrated Lord Chesterfield, whose Letters to his Son, according to Dr. Johnson, inculcate 'the manners of a dancing-master and the morals of——,' &c.

[39]Lord Mayor of the theatric sky. This alludes to Leigh Hunt, who, inThe Examiner, at this time kept the actors in hot water. Dr. Johnson's argument is, like many of his other arguments, specious, but untenable; that which it defends has since been abandoned as impracticable. Mr. Whitbread contended that the actor was like a portrait in a picture, and accordingly placed the green curtain in a gilded frame remote from the foot-lights; alleging that no performer should mar the illusion by stepping out of the frame. Dowton was the first actor who, like Manfred's ancestor in theCastle of Otranto, took the liberty of abandoning the canon. 'Don't tell me of frames and pictures,' ejaculated the testy comedian; 'if I can't be heard by the audience in the frame, I'll walk out of it!' The proscenium has since been new-modelled, and the actors thereby brought nearer to the audience.

[40]William Spencer.

[41]Sobriety, &c. The good-humour of the poet upon occasion of this parody has been noticed in the Preface. 'It's all very well for once,' said he afterwards, in comic confidence, at his villa at Petersham, 'but don't do it again. I had been almost forgotten when you revived me; and now all the newspapers and reviews ring with, "this fashionable, trashy author."' The sand and 'filings of glass,' mentioned in the last stanza, are referable to the well-known verses of the poet apologising to a lady for having paid an unconscionably long morning visit; and where, alluding to Time, he says,'All his sands are diamond sparks,That glitter as they pass.'Few men in society have more 'gladdened life' than this poet. He now resides in Paris, and may thence make the grand tour without an interpreter—speaking, as he does, French, Italian, and German, as fluently as English.

'All his sands are diamond sparks,That glitter as they pass.'

'All his sands are diamond sparks,

That glitter as they pass.'

Few men in society have more 'gladdened life' than this poet. He now resides in Paris, and may thence make the grand tour without an interpreter—speaking, as he does, French, Italian, and German, as fluently as English.

[42]Congreve's plug. The late Sir William Congreve had made a model of Drury Lane Theatre, to which was affixed an engine that, in the event of fire, was made to play from the stage into every box in the house. The writer, accompanied by Theodore Hook, went to see the model at Sir William's house in Cecil Street. 'Now I'll duck Whitbread!' said Hook, seizing the water-pipe whilst he spoke, and sending a torrent of water into the brewer's box.

[43]See Byron,afterwards, inDon Juan:—'For flesh is grass, which Time mows down to hay.'But, as Johnson says of Dryden, 'His known wealth was so great, he might borrow without any impeachment of his credit.'

[43]See Byron,afterwards, inDon Juan:—

'For flesh is grass, which Time mows down to hay.'

But, as Johnson says of Dryden, 'His known wealth was so great, he might borrow without any impeachment of his credit.'

[44]Matthew Gregory Lewis, commonly called Monk Lewis, from his once popular romance of that name. He was a good-hearted man, and, like too many of that fraternity, a disagreeable one—verbose, disputatious, and paradoxical. HisMonkandCastle Spectreelevated him into fame; and he continued to write ghost-stories till, following as he did in the wake of Mrs. Radcliffe, he quite overstocked the market. Lewis visited his estates in Jamaica, and came back perfectly negro-bitten. He promulgated a new code of laws in the island, for the government of his sable subjects: one may serve for a specimen: 'Any slave who commits murder shall have his head shaved, and be confined three days and nights in a dark room.' Upon occasion of printing these parodies, Monk Lewis said to Lady H., 'Many of them are very fair, but mine is not at all like; they have made me write burlesque, which I never do.' 'You don't know your own talent,' answered the lady.Lewis aptly described himself, as to externals, in the verses affixed to hisMonk, as having'A graceless form and dwarfish stature.'He had, moreover, large grey eyes, thick features, and an inexpressive countenance. In talking, he had a disagreeable habit of drawing the fore-finger of his right hand across his right eyelid. He affected, in conversation, a sort of dandified, drawling tone; young Harlowe, the artist, did the same. A foreigner who had but a slight knowledge of the English language might have concluded, from their cadences, that they were little better than fools—'just a born goose,' as Terry the actor used to say. Lewis died on his passage homeward from Jamaica, owing to a dose of James's powders injudiciously administered by 'his own mere motion.' He wrote various plays, with various success: he had an admirable notion of dramatic construction, but the goodness of his scenes and incidents was marred by the badness of his dialogue.

Lewis aptly described himself, as to externals, in the verses affixed to hisMonk, as having

'A graceless form and dwarfish stature.'

He had, moreover, large grey eyes, thick features, and an inexpressive countenance. In talking, he had a disagreeable habit of drawing the fore-finger of his right hand across his right eyelid. He affected, in conversation, a sort of dandified, drawling tone; young Harlowe, the artist, did the same. A foreigner who had but a slight knowledge of the English language might have concluded, from their cadences, that they were little better than fools—'just a born goose,' as Terry the actor used to say. Lewis died on his passage homeward from Jamaica, owing to a dose of James's powders injudiciously administered by 'his own mere motion.' He wrote various plays, with various success: he had an admirable notion of dramatic construction, but the goodness of his scenes and incidents was marred by the badness of his dialogue.

[45]Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

[46]'He of Blackfriars' Road,' viz. the late Rev. Rowland Hill, who is said to have preached a sermon congratulating his congregation on the catastrophe.

[47]'Oh, Mr. Whitbread!' Sir William Grant, then Master of the Rolls, repeated this passage aloud at a Lord Mayor's dinner, to the no small astonishment of the writer, who happened to sit within ear-shot.

[48]'Padmanaba,' viz. in a pantomime calledHarlequin in Padmanaba. This elephant, some years afterwards, was exhibited over Exeter 'Change, where, the reader will remember, it was found necessary to destroy the poor animal by discharges of musketry. When he made his entrance in the pantomime above mentioned, Johnson, the machinist of the rival house, exclaimed, 'I should be very sorry if I could not make a better elephant than that!' Johnson was right: we go to the theatre to be pleased with the skill of the imitator, and not to look at the reality.

[49]Dr. Busby.This gentleman gave living recitations of his translation ofLucretius, with tea and bread-and-butter. He sent in a real Address to the Drury Lane Committee, which was really rejected. The present imitation professes to be recited by the translator's son. The poet here, again, was a prophet. A few evenings after the opening of the theatre, Dr. Busby sat with his son in one of the stage-boxes. The latter, to the astonishment of the audience, at the end of the play, stepped from the box upon the stage, his father's real rejected address in his hand, and began to recite it as follows:-'When energising objects men pursue,What are the miracles they cannot do?'Raymond, the stage-manager, accompanied by a constable, at this moment walked upon the stage, and handed away the juveniledilettanteperformer.The doctor's classical translation was thus noticed in one of the newspapers of the day, in the column of births:—'Yesterday, at his house in Queen Anne Street, Dr. Busby of a still-bornLucretius.'

'When energising objects men pursue,What are the miracles they cannot do?'

'When energising objects men pursue,

What are the miracles they cannot do?'

Raymond, the stage-manager, accompanied by a constable, at this moment walked upon the stage, and handed away the juveniledilettanteperformer.

The doctor's classical translation was thus noticed in one of the newspapers of the day, in the column of births:—'Yesterday, at his house in Queen Anne Street, Dr. Busby of a still-bornLucretius.'

[50]'Winsor's patent gas'—at that time in its infancy. The first place illumined by it was the Carlton House side of Pall Mall; the second, Bishopsgate Street. The writer attended a lecture given by the inventor: the charge of admittance was three shillings, but, as the inventor was about to apply to parliament, members of both houses were admitted gratis. The writer and a fellow-jester assumed the parts of senators at a short notice. 'Members of parliament!' was their important ejaculation at the door of entrance. 'What places, gentlemen?' 'Old Sarum and Bridgewater.' 'Walk in, gentlemen.' Luckily, the real Simon Pures did not attend. This Pall Mall illumination was further noticed inHorace in London:—'And Winsor lights, with flame of gas,Home, to king's place, his mother.'

'And Winsor lights, with flame of gas,Home, to king's place, his mother.'

'And Winsor lights, with flame of gas,

Home, to king's place, his mother.'

[51]'Ticket-nights.' This phrase is probably unintelligible to the untheatrical portion of the community, which may now be said to be all the world except the actors. Ticket-nights are those whereon the inferior actors club for a benefit: each distributes as many tickets of admission as he is able among his friends. A motley assemblage is the consequence; and as each actor is encouraged by his own set, who are not in general play-going people, the applause comes (as Chesterfield says of Pope's attempts at wit) 'generally unseasonably and too often unsuccessfully.'

[52]Morning Post.

[53]TheRev. George Crabbe. The writer's first interview with this poet, who may be designated Pope in worsted stockings, took place at William Spencer's villa at Petersham, close to what that gentleman called his gold-fish pond, though it was scarcely three feet in diameter, throwing up ajet d'eaulike a thread. The venerable bard, seizing both the hands of his satirist, exclaimed, with a good-humoured laugh: 'Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?' In the course of conversation, he expressed great astonishment at his popularity in London; adding, 'In my own village they think nothing of me.' The subject happening to be the inroads of Time upon Beauty, the writer quoted the following lines:—'Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six,When Time began to play his usual tricks:My locks, once comely in a virgin's sight,Locks of pure brown, now felt th' encroaching white;Gradual each day I liked my horses less,My dinner more—I learnt to play at chess.''That's very good!' cried the bard;—'whose is it?' 'Your own.' 'Indeed! hah! well, I had quite forgotten it.' Was this affectation, or was it not? In sooth, he seemed to push simplicity to puerility. This imitation contained in manuscript the following lines, after describing certain Sunday-newspaper critics who were supposed to be present at a new play, and who were rather heated in their politics:—'Hard is his task who edits—thankless job!A Sunday journal for the factious mob:With bitter paragraph and caustic jest,He gives to turbulence the day of rest;Condemn'd, this week, rash rancour to instil,Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will:Alike undone or if he praise or rail(For this affects his safety, that his sale),He sinks at last, in luckless limbo set,If loud for libel, and if dumb for debt.'They were, however, never printed; being, on reflection, considered too serious for the occasion.It is not a little extraordinary that Crabbe, who could write with such vigour, should descend to such lines as the following:—'Something had happen'd wrong about a billWhich was not drawn with true mercantile skill;So, to amend it, I was told to goAnd seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co.'Surely 'Emanuel Jennings,' compared with the above, rises to sublimity.

'Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six,When Time began to play his usual tricks:My locks, once comely in a virgin's sight,Locks of pure brown, now felt th' encroaching white;Gradual each day I liked my horses less,My dinner more—I learnt to play at chess.'

'Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six,

When Time began to play his usual tricks:

My locks, once comely in a virgin's sight,

Locks of pure brown, now felt th' encroaching white;

Gradual each day I liked my horses less,

My dinner more—I learnt to play at chess.'

'That's very good!' cried the bard;—'whose is it?' 'Your own.' 'Indeed! hah! well, I had quite forgotten it.' Was this affectation, or was it not? In sooth, he seemed to push simplicity to puerility. This imitation contained in manuscript the following lines, after describing certain Sunday-newspaper critics who were supposed to be present at a new play, and who were rather heated in their politics:—

'Hard is his task who edits—thankless job!A Sunday journal for the factious mob:With bitter paragraph and caustic jest,He gives to turbulence the day of rest;Condemn'd, this week, rash rancour to instil,Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will:Alike undone or if he praise or rail(For this affects his safety, that his sale),He sinks at last, in luckless limbo set,If loud for libel, and if dumb for debt.'

'Hard is his task who edits—thankless job!

A Sunday journal for the factious mob:

With bitter paragraph and caustic jest,

He gives to turbulence the day of rest;

Condemn'd, this week, rash rancour to instil,

Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will:

Alike undone or if he praise or rail

(For this affects his safety, that his sale),

He sinks at last, in luckless limbo set,

If loud for libel, and if dumb for debt.'

They were, however, never printed; being, on reflection, considered too serious for the occasion.

It is not a little extraordinary that Crabbe, who could write with such vigour, should descend to such lines as the following:—

'Something had happen'd wrong about a billWhich was not drawn with true mercantile skill;So, to amend it, I was told to goAnd seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co.'

'Something had happen'd wrong about a bill

Which was not drawn with true mercantile skill;

So, to amend it, I was told to go

And seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co.'

Surely 'Emanuel Jennings,' compared with the above, rises to sublimity.

[54]'We come next to three ludicrous parodies—of the story ofThe Stranger, ofGeorge Barnwell, and of the dagger-scene inMacbeth, under the signature of Momus Medlar. They are as good, we think, as that sort of thing can be, and remind us of the happier efforts of Colman, whose less successful fooleries are professedly copied in the last piece in the volume.'—Edinburgh Review.

[55]Theodore Hook, at that time a very young man, and the companion of the annotator in many wild frolics. The cleverness of his subsequent prose compositions has cast his early stage songs into oblivion. This parody was, in the second edition, transferred from Colman to Hook.

[56]Then Director of the Opera House.

[57]At that time the chief dancer at this establishment.

[58]Vauxhall Bridge then, like the Thames Tunnel at present, stood suspended in the middle of that river.

[59]The Critical Reviewers. The others are theLondonandMonthly.

[60]VideAdmiral Tyrrel's monument in Westminster Abbey.

[61]My worthy friend, the Bellman, had promised to supply an additional stanza, but the business of assisting the lamplighter, chimney-sweeper, etc., with complimentary verses for their worthy masters and mistresses, pressing on him at this season, he was obliged to decline it.

[62]Imitated from the introductory couplet to the 'Economy of Vegetation:''Stay your rude steps, whose throbbing breasts unfoldThe legion friends of glory and of gold.'This sentiment is here expanded into four lines.

[62]Imitated from the introductory couplet to the 'Economy of Vegetation:'

'Stay your rude steps, whose throbbing breasts unfoldThe legion friends of glory and of gold.'

'Stay your rude steps, whose throbbing breasts unfold

The legion friends of glory and of gold.'

This sentiment is here expanded into four lines.

[63]For theos-culation, or kissing of circles and other curves, seeHuygens, who has veiled this delicate and inflammatory subject in the decent obscurity of a learned language.

[64]A curve supposed to resemble the sprig of ivy, from which it has its name, and therefore peculiarly adapted to poetry.

[65]Water has been supposed, by several of our philosophers, to be capable of the passion of love. Some later experiments appear to favour this idea. Water, when pressed by a moderate degree of heat, has been observed tosimper, orsimmer(as it is more usually called). The same does not hold true of any other element.

[66]Videmodern prints of nymphs and shepherds dancing to nothing at all.

[67]Imitated from the following genteel and sprightly lines in the first canto of the 'Loves of the Plants':'So bright its folding canopy withdrawn,Glides the gilt landau o'er the velvet lawn,Of beaux and belles displays the glittering throng,And soft airs fan them as they glide along.'

[67]Imitated from the following genteel and sprightly lines in the first canto of the 'Loves of the Plants':

'So bright its folding canopy withdrawn,Glides the gilt landau o'er the velvet lawn,Of beaux and belles displays the glittering throng,And soft airs fan them as they glide along.'

'So bright its folding canopy withdrawn,

Glides the gilt landau o'er the velvet lawn,

Of beaux and belles displays the glittering throng,

And soft airs fan them as they glide along.'

[68]The Nymph of the Wheel, supposed to be in love withSmoke-Jack.

[69]'A figure which has one angle,or more, of ninety degrees.'—Johnson's Dictionary.It here means aRight-angled Triangle, which is therefore incapable of having more than one angle of ninety degrees, but which may, according to our author'sProsopopœia, be supposed to be in love withThreeor any greater number ofNymphs.

[70]Supposed to be the same withSatan.

[71]The Eastern name forGenii.—VideTales of Ditto.

[72]A submarine palace near Tunis, whereZatanaiusually held his Court.

[73]The IndianCaucasus.

[74]Mr. Higginsdoes not mean to deny thatSolomonwas really King ofJudæa. The epithetfabledapplies to that empire over the Genii, which the retrospective generosity of the Arabian fabulists has bestowed upon this monarch.

[75]It was under this shape thatVenuswas worshipped inPhœnicia.Mr. Higginsthinks it was theVenus Urania, or Celestial Venus; in allusion to which, he supposes that thePhœniciangrocers first introduced the practice of preserving sugar-loaves in blue or sky-coloured paper. He also believes that theconicalform of the original grenadiers' caps was typical of the loves ofMarsandVenus.

[76]The doctrine of mathematics. Pope calls hermad Mathesis.—Vide Johnson's Dictionary.

[77]The harmony and imagery of these lines are imperfectly imitated from the following exquisite passage in theEconomy of Vegetation:'Gnomes, as you now dissect, with hammers fine,The granite rock, the noduled flint calcine;Grind with strong arm the circling Chertz betwixt,Your pure ka—o—lins and Pe—tunt—ses mixt.'Canto 2, line 297.

[77]The harmony and imagery of these lines are imperfectly imitated from the following exquisite passage in theEconomy of Vegetation:

'Gnomes, as you now dissect, with hammers fine,The granite rock, the noduled flint calcine;Grind with strong arm the circling Chertz betwixt,Your pure ka—o—lins and Pe—tunt—ses mixt.'Canto 2, line 297.

'Gnomes, as you now dissect, with hammers fine,

The granite rock, the noduled flint calcine;

Grind with strong arm the circling Chertz betwixt,

Your pure ka—o—lins and Pe—tunt—ses mixt.'

Canto 2, line 297.

[78]This line affords a striking instance of the sound conveying an echo to the sense. I would defy the most unfeeling reader to repeat it over without accompanying it by some corresponding gesture imitative of the action described.

[79]A term usually applied in allegoric and technical poetry to any person or object to which no other qualifications can be assigned.—Chambers's Dictionary.

[80]Infancy is particularly interested in the diffusion of the new principles. See the 'Bloody Buoy.' See also the following description and prediction:'Here Time's huge fingers grasp his giant mace,And dash proud Superstition from her base;Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes,&c. &c. &c. &c.'While each light moment, as it passes by,With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye,Feeds from its baby-hand with many a kissThe callow nestlings of domestic bliss.'Botanic Garden.

[80]Infancy is particularly interested in the diffusion of the new principles. See the 'Bloody Buoy.' See also the following description and prediction:

'Here Time's huge fingers grasp his giant mace,And dash proud Superstition from her base;Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes,&c. &c. &c. &c.'While each light moment, as it passes by,With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye,Feeds from its baby-hand with many a kissThe callow nestlings of domestic bliss.'Botanic Garden.

'Here Time's huge fingers grasp his giant mace,

And dash proud Superstition from her base;

Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes,

&c. &c. &c. &c.

'While each light moment, as it passes by,

With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye,

Feeds from its baby-hand with many a kiss

The callow nestlings of domestic bliss.'

Botanic Garden.

[81]The oldest scholiasts read—AdodecagamicPotter.This is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous,—but the alliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of later commentators.

[81]The oldest scholiasts read—

AdodecagamicPotter.

This is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous,—but the alliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of later commentators.

[82]To those who have not duly appreciated the distinction betweenWhaleandRussiaoil, this attribute might rather seem to belong to the Dandy than the Evangelic. The effect, when to the windward, is indeed so similar, that it requires a subtle naturalist to discriminate the animals. They belong, however, to distinct genera.

[83]One of the attributes in Linnæus's description of the Cat. To a similar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus is to be referred;—except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is compelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is supposed only to quarrel with those of others.

[84]This libel on our national oath, and this accusation of all our countrymen of being in the daily practice of solemnly asseverating the most enormous falsehood, I fear deserves the notice of a more active Attorney General than that here alluded to.

[85]Vox populi, vox dei.As Mr. Godwin truly observes of a more famous saying,of some merit as a popular maxim, but totally destitute of philosophical accuracy.

[86]Quasi,Qui valet verba—i.e., all the words which have been, are, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A sufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter's progenitor who selected this name seems to have possesseda pure anticipated cognitionof the nature and modesty of this ornament of his posterity.

[87]A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophylic Pantisocratists.

[88]See the description of the beautiful colours produced during the agonizing death of a number of trout, in the fourth part of a long poem in blank verse, published within a few years. That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual hardening of a strong but circumscribed sensibility, of the perversion of a penetrating but panic-stricken understanding.

[89]It is curious to observe how often extremes meet. Cobbett and Peter use the same language for a different purpose: Peter is indeed a sort of metrical Cobbett. Cobbett is, however, more mischievous than Peter, because he pollutes a holy and now unconquerable cause with the principles of legitimate murder; whilst the other only makes a bad one ridiculous and odious. If either Peter Cobbett should see this note, each will feel more indignation at being compared to the other than at any censure implied in the moral perversion laid to their charge.

[90]'A noticeable man with large grey eyes.'—Lyrical Ballads.

[91]Dairy-maid to Mr. Gill.

[92]Peter Bell resembleth Harry Gill in this particular:'His teeth they chatter, chatter, chatter,'I should have introduced this fact in the text, but that Harry Gill would not rhyme. I reserve this for my blank verse.

[92]Peter Bell resembleth Harry Gill in this particular:

'His teeth they chatter, chatter, chatter,'

I should have introduced this fact in the text, but that Harry Gill would not rhyme. I reserve this for my blank verse.

[93]Harry Gill was the original proprietor of Barbara Lewthwaite's pet lamb; and he also bred Betty Foy's celebrated pony, got originally out of a Nightmare, by a descendant of the great Trojan horse.

[94]Mr. Sheridan, in his sweet poem of theCritic, supplies one of his heroes with as singularly clustering a relationship.

[95]I have here changed the shape of the moon, not from any poetical heedlessness, or human perversity, but because man is fond of change, and in this I have studied the metaphysical varieties of our being.

[96]I have a similar idea in my Poem on finding a Bird's Nest:'Look!fiveblue eggs are gleaming there.'But the numbers are different, so I trust no one will differ with the numbers.

[96]I have a similar idea in my Poem on finding a Bird's Nest:

'Look!fiveblue eggs are gleaming there.'

But the numbers are different, so I trust no one will differ with the numbers.

[97]I have also given these lines before; but in thus printing them again, I neither tarnish their value, nor injure their novelty.

[98]See my Sonnet to Sleep:—'I surely not a man ungently made.'

[98]See my Sonnet to Sleep:—

'I surely not a man ungently made.'

[99]See my story of the Leech-gatherer, the finest poem in the world,—except this.

[100]'Ah!' said the Briar, 'blame me not.'Waterfall and Eglantine.Also,—'The Oak, a Giant and a Sage,His neighbour thus address'd.'

[100]

'Ah!' said the Briar, 'blame me not.'Waterfall and Eglantine.

'Ah!' said the Briar, 'blame me not.'

Waterfall and Eglantine.

Also,—

'The Oak, a Giant and a Sage,His neighbour thus address'd.'

'The Oak, a Giant and a Sage,

His neighbour thus address'd.'

[101]'Long Susanlay deep lost in thought.'—The Idiot Boy.

[102]See what I have said of this man in my excellent supplementaryPreface.

[103]I cannot resist quoting the following lines, to show how I preserve my system from youth to age. As Simon was, so he is. And one and twenty years have scarcely altered (except by death) that cheerful and cherry-cheeked Old Huntsman. This is the truth of Poetry.'In the sweet shire of Cardigan,Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall;An old man dwells—a little man—I've heard he once was tall;Of years he has upon his back,No doubt, a burthen weighty;He says he is threescore and ten,But others say he's eighty.'These lines were written in the summer of 1798, and I bestowed great labour upon them.

'In the sweet shire of Cardigan,Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall;An old man dwells—a little man—I've heard he once was tall;Of years he has upon his back,No doubt, a burthen weighty;He says he is threescore and ten,But others say he's eighty.'

'In the sweet shire of Cardigan,

Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall;

An old man dwells—a little man—

I've heard he once was tall;

Of years he has upon his back,

No doubt, a burthen weighty;

He says he is threescore and ten,

But others say he's eighty.'

These lines were written in the summer of 1798, and I bestowed great labour upon them.

[104]Andrew Jones was a very singular old man. See my Poem,'I hate that Andrew Jones—he'll breed,' etc.

[104]Andrew Jones was a very singular old man. See my Poem,

'I hate that Andrew Jones—he'll breed,' etc.

[105]'Let thy wheelbarrow alone,' etc. See my Poem to a Sexton.

[106]The reference here and in a subsequent verse is to a song very popular at the time:'All round my hat I vears a green villow,All round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day,And if any van should arsk you the reason vy I vears it,Say, all for my true love that's far, far away.''Twas agoin of my rounds on the streets I first did meet her,'Twas agoin of my rounds that first she met my heye,And I never heard a voice more louder nor more sweeter,As she cried, "Who'll buy my cabbages, my cabbages who'll buy?"'There were several more verses, and being set to a very taking air, it was a reigning favourite with the 'Social Chucksters' of the day. Even scholars thought it worth turning into Latin verse. I remember reading in some short-lived journal a very clever version of it, the first verse of which ran thus:'Omne circa petusum sertum gero viridemPer annum circa petasum et unum diem plus.Si quis te rogaret, cur tale sertum gererem,Dic, "Omne propter coroulum qui est inpartibus."'Allusions to the willow, as an emblem of grief, are of a very old date. 'Sing all, a green willow must be my garland,' is the refrain of the song which haunted Desdemona on the eve of her death (Othello, Act IV., Scene 3). That exquisite scene, and the beautiful air to which some contemporary of Shakespeare wedded it, will make 'The Willow Song' immortal.

[106]The reference here and in a subsequent verse is to a song very popular at the time:

'All round my hat I vears a green villow,All round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day,And if any van should arsk you the reason vy I vears it,Say, all for my true love that's far, far away.''Twas agoin of my rounds on the streets I first did meet her,'Twas agoin of my rounds that first she met my heye,And I never heard a voice more louder nor more sweeter,As she cried, "Who'll buy my cabbages, my cabbages who'll buy?"'

'All round my hat I vears a green villow,All round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day,And if any van should arsk you the reason vy I vears it,Say, all for my true love that's far, far away.

'All round my hat I vears a green villow,

All round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day,

And if any van should arsk you the reason vy I vears it,

Say, all for my true love that's far, far away.

''Twas agoin of my rounds on the streets I first did meet her,'Twas agoin of my rounds that first she met my heye,And I never heard a voice more louder nor more sweeter,As she cried, "Who'll buy my cabbages, my cabbages who'll buy?"'

''Twas agoin of my rounds on the streets I first did meet her,

'Twas agoin of my rounds that first she met my heye,

And I never heard a voice more louder nor more sweeter,

As she cried, "Who'll buy my cabbages, my cabbages who'll buy?"'

There were several more verses, and being set to a very taking air, it was a reigning favourite with the 'Social Chucksters' of the day. Even scholars thought it worth turning into Latin verse. I remember reading in some short-lived journal a very clever version of it, the first verse of which ran thus:

'Omne circa petusum sertum gero viridemPer annum circa petasum et unum diem plus.Si quis te rogaret, cur tale sertum gererem,Dic, "Omne propter coroulum qui est inpartibus."'

'Omne circa petusum sertum gero viridem

Per annum circa petasum et unum diem plus.

Si quis te rogaret, cur tale sertum gererem,

Dic, "Omne propter coroulum qui est inpartibus."'

Allusions to the willow, as an emblem of grief, are of a very old date. 'Sing all, a green willow must be my garland,' is the refrain of the song which haunted Desdemona on the eve of her death (Othello, Act IV., Scene 3). That exquisite scene, and the beautiful air to which some contemporary of Shakespeare wedded it, will make 'The Willow Song' immortal.

[107]Madame Laffarge and Daniel Good were the two most talked about criminals of the time when these lines were written. Madame Laffarge was convicted of poisoning her husband under extenuating circumstances, and was imprisoned for life, but many believed in her protestations of innocence—this, of course, she being a woman and unhappily married. Daniel Good died on the scaffold on the 23rd of May, 1842, protesting his innocence to the last, and asserting that his victim, Jane Sparks, had killed herself, an assertion which a judge and jury naturally could not reconcile with the fact that her head, arms, and legs had been cut off and hidden with her body in a stable. He, too, found people to maintain that his sentence was unjust.

[108]The two papers here glanced at wereThe AgeandThe Satirist, long since dead.

[109]The expression of contemptuous defiance, signified by the application of the thumb of one hand to the nose, spreading out the fingers, and attaching to the little finger the stretched-out fingers of the other hand, and working them in a circle. Among the graffiti in Pompeii are examples of the same subtle symbolism.

[110]Well known to readers of Thackeray'sNewcomesas 'The Cave of Harmony.'

[111]Sir Peter Laurie, Lord Mayor; afterwards Alderman, and notable for his sagacity and severity as a magistrate in dealing with evil-doers.

[112]Thin boards.

[113]Burnt.

[114]See the 'six-text' edition of Chaucer.

[115]A town in Spain.

[116]Acquire.

[117]For those that gave him the means to study with.

[118]Care.

[119]Seize upon.

[120]Would not hesitate.

[121]All quotations for the 'Oxford Dictionary' illustrating special uses of English words were written on pieces of paper of a particular size.

[122]Find fault with.

[123]Curious ways.

[124]In accordance with.

[125]Written at the Crystal Palace Aquarium.

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