At the close of the first canto of _Don Juan_, its noble author, by way
of propitiating the reader for the morality of his poem, says:--
“The public approbation I expect,
And beg they’ll take my word about the moral,
Which I with their amusement will connect,
As children cutting teeth receive a coral;
Meantime, they’ll doubtless please to recollect
My epical pretensions to the laurel;
For fear some prudish reader should grow skittish,
I’ve bribed my Grandmother’s Review--the British.
I sent it in a letter to the editor,
Who thank’d me duly by return of post--
I’m for a handsome article his creditor;
Yet if my gentle muse he please to roast,
And break a promise after having made it her,
Denying the receipt of what it cost,
And smear his page with gall instead of honey,
All I can say is--that he had the money.”
_Canto I. st._ ccix. ccx.
Now, “the British” was a certain staid and grave high-church review, the
editor of which received the poet’s imputation of bribery as a serious
accusation; and, accordingly, in his next number after the publication
of _Don Juan_, there appeared a postscript, in which the receipt of any
bribe was stoutly denied, and the idea of such connivance altogether
repudiated; the editor adding that he should continue to exercise his
own judgment as to the merits of Lord Byron, as he had hitherto done in
every instance! However, the affair was too ludicrous to be at once
altogether dropped; and, so long as the prudish publication was in
existence, it enjoyed the _sobriquet_ of “My Grandmother’s Review.”
By the way, there is another hoax connected with this poem. One day an
old gentleman gravely inquired of a printseller for a portrait of
“Admiral Noah”--to illustrate _Don Juan_!