94 — To the Rev. John Becher

Chapter III — ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS

1808-1809

Dorant's Hotel, Feb. 26, 1808.

My Dear Becher

, — Now for Apollo. I am happy that you still retain your predilection, and that the public allow me some share of praise.

I

am of so much importance that a most violent attack is preparing for me in the next number of the

Edinburgh Review

. This I had from the authority of a friend who has seen the proof and manuscript of the critique. You know the system of the Edinburgh gentlemen is universal attack. They praise none; and neither the public nor the author expects praise from them. It is, however, something to be noticed, as they profess to pass judgment only on works requiring the public attention. You will see this when it comes out; — it is, I understand, of the most unmerciful description; but I am aware of it, and hope

you

will not be hurt by its severity.

Tell Mrs. Byron not to be out of humour with them, and to prepare her mind for the greatest hostility on their part. It will do no injury whatever, and I trust her mind will not be ruffled.

They

defeat their object by indiscriminate abuse, and they never praise except the partisans of Lord Holland and Co

It

is nothing to be abused when Southey, Moore, Lauderdale, Strangford, and Payne Knight, share the same fate

I am sorry — but "Childish Recollections" must be suppressed during this edition. I have altered, at your suggestion, the

obnoxious allusions

in the sixth stanza of my last ode.

And now, my dear Becher, I must return my best acknowledgments for the interest you have taken in me and my poetical bantlings, and I shall ever be proud to show how much I esteem the

advice

and the

adviser

Believe me, most truly, etc.

Footnote 1:

The Rev. John Thomas Becher (1770-1848), educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, was appointed Vicar of Rumpton, Notts., and Midsomer Norton, 1801; Prebendary of Southwell in 1818; and chairman of Newark Quarter Sessions in 1816. In all matters relating to the condition of the poor he made himself an acknowledged authority. He was the originator of a house of correction, a Friendly Society, and a workhouse at Southwell. He was one of the "supervisors" appointed to organize the Milbank Penitentiary, which was opened in June, 1816. On Friendly Societies he published three works (1824, 1825, and 1826), in which,

inter alia

, he sought to prove that labourers, paying sixpence a week from the time they were twenty, could secure not only sick-pay, but an annuity of five shillings a week at the age of sixty-five. His

Anti-Pauper System

(1828) pointed to indoor relief as the true cure to pauperism. It was by Becher's advice that Byron destroyed his

Fugitive Pieces

. No one who has read the silly verses which Becher condemned, can doubt that the counsel was wise (see Byron's Lines to Becher,

Poems

, vol. i. pp. 112-114, 114-116, 247- 251). The following are the lines in which Becher expostulated with Byron on the mischievous tendency of his verses:—

"Say, Byron! why compel me to deplore
Talents designed for choice poetic lore,
Deigning to varnish scenes, that shun the day,
With guilty lustre, and with amorous lay?
Forbear to taint the Virgin's spotless mind,
In Power though mighty, be in Mercy kind,
Bid the chaste Muse diffuse her hallowed light,
So shall thy Page enkindle pure delight,
Enhance thy native worth, and proudly twine,
With Britain's Honors, those that are divine."

return to footnote mark

Footnote 2:

See, for the Review itself,

Appendix II

"As an author," writes Byron to Hobhouse, February 27, 1808, "I am cut to atoms by the E — — - Review; it is just out, and has completely demolished my little fabric of fame. This is rather scurvy treatment for a Whig Review; but politics and poetry are different things, and I am no adept in either. I therefore submit in silence."

Among the less sentimental effects of this Review upon Byron's mind, he used to mention that, on the day he read it, he drank three bottles of claret to his own share after dinner; that nothing, however, relieved him till he had given vent to his indignation in rhyme, and that "after the first twenty lines, he felt himself considerably better" (Moore,

Life

, p. 69).

"I was sitting with Charles Lamb," H. Crabb Robinson told De Morgan, "when Wordsworth came in, with fume in his countenance and the Edinburgh Review in his hand.

'I have no patience with these Reviewers,' he said; 'here is a young man, a lord, and a minor, it appears, who publishes a little volume of poetry; and these fellows attack him, as if no one may write poetry unless he lives in a garret. The young man will do something, if he goes on.'

When I became acquainted with Lady Byron, I told her this story, and she said,

'Ah! if Byron had known that, he would never have attacked Wordsworth. He once went out to dinner where Wordsworth was to be; when he came home, I said,

"Well, how did the young poet get on with the old one?"

"To tell you the truth," said he, "I had but one feeling from the beginning of the visit to the end — reverence!"'"

Diary,

iii. 488.)

cross-reference: return to Footnote 1 of Letter 53

cross-reference: return to Footnote 3 of Letter 74

Footnote 3:

That is to say, the

Edinburgh Review

praised only Whigs. Henry Richard Vassall Fox, third Lord Holland (1773-1840), the "nephew of Fox, and friend of Grey," married, in 1797, Elizabeth Vassall, the divorced wife of Sir Godfrey Webster. He held the office of Lord Privy Seal in the Ministry of All the Talents (October, 1806, to March, 1807). During the long exclusion of the Whigs from office (1807-32), when there seemed as little chance of a Whig Administration as of "a thaw in Nova Zembla," Holland, in the House of Lords, supported Catholic Emancipation, advocated the emancipation of slaves, opposed the detention of Napoleon as a prisoner of war, and moved the abolition of capital punishment for minor offences. From November, 1830, to his death, with brief intervals, he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the administrations of Lord Grey and of Lord Melbourne. Outside the House he kept the party together by his great social gifts. An admirable talker,

raconteur

, and mimic, with a wit's relish for wit, the charm of his good temper was irresistible.

"In my whole experience of our race," said Lord Brougham, "I never saw such a temper, nor anything that at all resembled it"

Statesmen of the Time of George III

., ed. 1843, 3rd series, p. 341). Greville speaks of

"his imperturbable temper, unflagging vivacity and spirit, his inexhaustible fund of anecdote, extensive information, sprightly wit"

Memoirs

, iii. 446). Leslie, in his

Autobiographical Recollections

(vol. i. p. 100), adds the tribute that

"he was, without any exception, the very best-tempered man I have ever known."

Lord John Russell (preface to vol. vi. of the

Life of Thomas Moore

) says that

"he won without seeming to court, instructed without seeming to teach, and he amused without labouring to be witty."

George Ticknor (

Life

, vol. i. p. 264)

"never met a man who so disarms opposition in discussion, as I have often seen him, without yielding an iota, merely by the unpretending simplicity and sincerity of his manner."

Sydney Smith (

Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith

, chap. x. p. 187) considered that his

"career was one great, incessant, and unrewarded effort to resist oppression, promote justice, and restrain the abuse of power. He had an invincible hatred of tyranny and oppression, and the most ardent love of public happiness and attachment to public rights."

A lover of art, a scholar, a linguist, he wrote memoirs, satires, and verses, collected materials for a life of his uncle, Charles James Fox, and translated both from the Spanish and Italian. His

Account of the Life and Writings of Lope Felix de Vega Carpio

(1806) was reviewed favourably by the

Edinburgh Review

for October, 1806. Byron attacked him in

English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers

(lines 540-559, and

notes

), on the supposition that Lord Holland had instigated the article in the

Edinburgh Review

on

Hours of Idleness

(January, 1808). In 1812, learning his mistake, and hearing from Rogers that Lord and Lady Holland desired the satire to be withdrawn, he gave orders that the whole impression should be burned (see

Introduction to English Sards, and Scotch Reviewers, Poems,

vol. i. p. 294). In his

Journal

(November 17, 1813) he writes,

"I have had a most kind letter from Lord Holland on The Bride of Abydos, which he likes, and so does Lady H. This is very good-natured in both, from whom I do not deserve any quarter. Yet I did think at the time, that my cause of enmity proceeded from Holland House, and am glad I was wrong, and wish I had not been in such a hurry with that confounded Satire, of which I would suppress even the memory; but people, now they can't get it, make a fuss, I verily believe out of contradiction."

Footnote 4:

In the early numbers of the

Edinburgh Review

reviews were published of Southey's

Thalaba

and

Madoc;

of Moore's

Odes of Anacreon

and

Poems;

of Lord Lauderdale's

Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth;

of Lord Strangford's

Translations from Camoëns;

of Payne Knight's

Principles of Taste.

List of Letters