[Footnote i:
'Truth be my theme, and Censure guide my song.'
['MS. M.']
[Footnote ii:
'But thou, at least, mine own especial quill
Dipt in the dew drops from Parnassus' hill,
Shalt ever honoured and regarded be,
By more beside no doubt, yet still by me.'
['MS. M.'] ]
[Footnote iii:
'And men through life her willing slaves obey.'
['MS. Second, Third, and Fourth Editions.']]
[Footnote iv:
'Unfolds her motley store to suit the time.'--
['MS. Second, Third, and Fourth Editions.']]
[Footnote v:
'When Justice halts and Right begins to fail.'
['MS. Second, Third, and Fourth Editions.']]
[Footnote vi:
'A mortal weapon'.
['MS. M.']
[Footnote vii:
'Yet Titles sounding lineage cannot save
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave,
Lamb had his farce but that Patrician name
Failed to preserve the spurious brat from shame.'
['MS.']]
[Footnote viii:
'a lucky hit.'
['Second, Third, and Fourth Editions.']]
[Footnote ix:
'No dearth of rhyme.'
['British Bards'.] ]
[Footnote x:
'The Press oppressed.'
['British Bards'.] ]
[Footnote xi:
'While Southey's Epics load.'
['British Bards'.] ]
[Footnote xii:
'O'er taste awhile these Infidels prevail.'
['MS.']]
[Footnote xiii:
'Erect and hail an idol of their own.'
['MS.']]
[Footnote xiv:
'Not quite a footpad-----.'
['British Bards'.] ]
[Footnote xv:
'Low may they sink to merited contempt.'
['British Bards'.]]
'And Scorn reimmerate the mean attempt!'--
['MS. First to Fourth Editions']]
[Footnote xvi:
'--though lesser bards content--'
['British Bards']
[Footnote xvii:
'How well the subject.'
['MS. First to Fourth Editions.']]
[Footnote xviii:
'A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.'--
['British Bards, First to Fourth Editions.']]
[Footnote xix:
'Who fain would'st.'
['British Bards, First to Fifth Editions'.]]
[Footnote xx:
'Mend thy life, and sin no more.'
['MS.']]
[Footnote xxi:
'And o'er harmonious nonsense.'
['MS. First Edition.']]
[Footnote xxii:
'In many marble-covered volumes view
Hayley, in vain attempting something new,
Whether he spin his comedies in rhyme,
Or scrawls as Wood and Barclay [A] walk, 'gainst Time.'
['MS. British Bards', and 'First to Fourth Editions.']
[Sub-Footnote A: Captain Robert Barclay (1779-1854) of Ury,
agriculturalist and pedestrian, came of a family noted for physical
strength and endurance. Byron saw him win his walk against Wood at
Newmarket. (See Angelo's 'Reminiscences' (1837), vol. ii. pp. 37-44.) In
July, 1809, Barclay completed his task of walking a thousand miles in a
thousand hours, at the rate of one mile in each and every hour. (See,
too, for an account of Barclay, 'The Eccentric Review' (1812), i.
133-150.)]]
[Footnote xxiii:
'Breaks into mawkish lines each holy Book'.
['MS. First Edition'.] ]
[Footnote xxiv:
'Thy "Sympathy" that'.
['British Bards'.] ]
[Footnote xxv:
'And shows dissolved in sympathetic tears'.
'----in thine own melting tears.--'
['MS. First to Fourth Editions'.]]
[Footnote xxvi:
'Whether in sighing winds them seek'st relief
Or Consolation in a yellow leaf.--'
['MS. first to Fourth Editions.'] ]
[Footnote xxvii:
'What pretty sounds.'
['British Bards.'] ]
[Footnote xxviii:
'Thou fain woulds't----'
['British Bards.'] ]
[Footnote xxix:
'But to soft themes'.
['British Bards, First Edition'.] ]
[Footnote xxx:
'The Bard has wove'.
['British Bards'.] ]
[Footnote xxxi:
'If Pope, since mortal, not untaught to err
Again demand a dull biographer'.
['MS'.]]
[Footnote xxxii:
'Too much in Turtle Bristol's sons delight
Too much in Bowls of Rack prolong the night.--'
['MS. Second to Fourth Editions'.]
'Too much o'er Bowls.'
['Second and Third Editions'.]]
[Footnote xxxiii:
'And yet why'.
['British Bards'.] ]
[Footnote xxxiv:
'Or old or young'.
['British Bards'.] ]
[Footnote xxxv:
--'yes, I'm sure all may.'
['Quarto Proof Sheet']
[Footnote xxxvi:
'While Cloacina's holy pontiff Lambe [3]
As he himself was damned shall try to damn'.
['British Bards'.]
[Sub-Footnote A. We have heard of persons who "when the Bagpipe sings in
the nose cannot contain their urine for affection," but Mr. L. carries
it a step further than Shakespeare's diuretic amateurs, being notorious
at school and college for his inability to contain--anything. We do not
know to what "Pipe" to attribute this additional effect, but the fact is
uncontrovertible.--['Note' to Quarto Proof bound up with 'British
Bards'.]]
[Footnote xxxvii:
'Lo! long beneath'--.
['British Bards'.]]
[Footnote xxxviii:
'And grateful to the founder of the feast
Declare his landlord can translate at least'.--
['MS. British Bards. First to Fourth Editions'.]]
[Footnote xxxix:
'--are fed because they write.'
['British Bards'.]]
[Footnote xl:
'Princes in Barrels, Counts in arbours pent.--
[MS. British Bards'.]]
[Footnote xli:
'His "damme, poohs."'
['MS. First Edition.']]
[Footnote xlii:
'While Kenny's World just suffered to proceed
Proclaims the audience very kind indeed'.--
['MS. British Bards. First to Fourth Editions'.]]
[Footnote xliii:
'Resume her throne again'.--
['MS. British Bards. First to Fourth Editions.']]
[Footnote xliv:--
'and Kemble lives to tread'.--
['British Bards. First to Fourth Editions.']]
[Footnote xlv:
'St. George [A] and Goody Goose divide the prize.'--
[MS. alternative in British Bards.]
[Sub-Footnote A: We need not inform the reader that we do not allude to
the Champion of England who slew the Dragon. Our St. George is content
to draw status with a very different kind of animal.--[Pencil note to
'British Bards'.]]]
[Footnote xlvi:
'Its humble flight to splendid Pantomimes'.
['British Bards. MS']]
[Footnote xlvii:
'Behold the new Petronius of the times
The skilful Arbiter of modern crimes.'
['MS.']
[Footnote xlviii:
'----a Paget for your wife.'
['MS. First to Fourth Editions.']]
[Footnote xlix:
'From Grosvenor Place or Square'.
['MS. British Bards'.]]
[Footnote l:
'On one alone Apollo deigns to smile
And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle.'
['MS. Addition to British Bards.']
'Nor e'en a hackneyed Muse will deign to smile
On minor Byron, or mature Carlisle.'
[First Edition.]
[Footnote li:
'Yet at their fiat----'
'Yet at their nausea----.'
['MS. Addition to British Bards'.]]
[Footnote lii:
'Such sneering fame.'
['British Bards']
[Footnote liii:
'Though Bell has lost his nightingales and owls,
Matilda snivels still and Hafiz howls,
And Crusca's spirit rising from the dead
Revives in Laura, Quiz, and X. Y. Z.'--
['British Bards. First to Third Editions', 1810.]]
[Footnote liv:
'None since the past have claimed the tribute due'.
['British Bards. MS'.]]
[Footnote lv:
'From Albion's cliffs to Caledonia's coast.
Some few who know to write as well as feel'.
['MS'.]]
[Footnote lvi:
'The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.--'
['First to Fourth Editions']]
[Footnote lvii:
'On him may meritorious honours tend
While doubly mingling,'.
['MS. erased'.]]
Footnote lviii:
'And you united Bards'.
['MS. Addition to British Bards'.]
'And you ye nameless'.
['MS. erased'.]]
[Footnote lvix:
'Translation's servile work at length disown
And quit Achaia's Muse to court your own'.
['MS. Addition to British Bards'.]]
[Footnote lx:
'Let these arise and anxious of applause'.
['British Bards. MS'.]]
[Footnote lxi:
'But not in heavy'.
['British Bards. MS'.]]
[Footnote lxii:
'Let prurient Southey cease'.
['MS. British Bards'.]]
[Footnote lxiii:
'still the babe at nurse'.
['MS'.]
'Let Lewis jilt our nurseries with alarm
With tales that oft disgust and never charm'.
[Footnote lxiv:
'But thou with powers--'
['MS. British Bards'.]]
[Footnote lxv:
'Let MOORE be lewd; let STRANGFORD steal from MOORE'.
['MS. First to Fourth Editions'.]]
[Footnote lxvi:
'For outlawed Sherwood's tales.'
['MS. Brit. Bards. Eds.' 1-4.]
[Footnote lxvii:
'And even spurns the great Seatonian prize.--'
['MS. First to Fourth Editions' (a correction in the Annotated Copy).]]
[Footnote lxviii:
'With odes by Smyth [A] and epic songs by Hoyle,
Hoyle whose learn'd page, if still upheld by whist
Required no sacred theme to bid us list.--'
['MS. British Bards.']
[Sub-Footnote A: William Smyth (1766-1849). Professor of Modern History
at Cambridge, published his 'English Lyrics' (in 1806), and several
other works.]
[Footnote lxix:
'Yet hold--as when by Heaven's supreme behest,
If found, ten righteous had preserved the Rest
In Sodom's fated town--for Granta's name
Let Hodgson's Genius plead and save her fame
But where fair Isis, etc.'
['MS.' and 'British Bards.']]
[Footnote lxx:
'See Clarke still striving piteously to please
Forgets that Doggrel leads not to degrees.--'
['MS. Fragment' bound up with 'British Bards'.]
[Footnote lxxi:
'So sunk in dullness and so lost in shame
That Smythe and Hodgson scarce redeem thy fame.--'
['MS. Addition to British Bards. First to Fourth Editions'.]]
[Footnote lxxii:
'----is wove.--'
[MS. British Bards' and 'First to Fourth Editions'.]]
[Footnote lxxiii:
'And modern Britons justly praise their sires.'--
['MS. British Bards' and 'First to Fourth Editions]]
[Footnote lxxiv:
'--what her sons must know too well.'
['British Bards]]
[Footnote lxxv:
'Zeal for her honour no malignant Rage,
Has bade me spurn the follies of the age.--'
['MS. British Bards'. First Edition]]
[Footnote lxxvi:
'--Ocean's lonely Queen.'
['British Bards']]
'--Ocean's mighty Queen.'
['First to Fourth Editions']]
[Footnote: lxxvii.
'Like these thy cliffs may sink in ruin hurled
The last white ramparts of a falling world'.--
['British Bards MS.']]
[Footnote: lxxviii.
'But should I back return, no lettered rage
Shall drag my common-place book on the stage:
Let vain Valentia [A] rival luckless Carr,
And equal him whose work he sought to mar.--'
['Second to Fourth Editions'.]
[Sub-Footnote: A. Lord Valentia (whose tremendous travels are
forthcoming with due decorations, graphical, topographical,
typographical) deposed, on Sir John Carr's unlucky suit, that Mr.
Dubois's satire prevented his purchase of 'The Stranger' in
Ireland.--Oh, fie, my lord! has your lordship no more feeling for a
fellow-tourist?--but "two of a trade," they say, etc. [George Annesley,
Viscount Valentia (1769-1844), published, in 1809, 'Voyages and Travels
to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt in the Years
1802-6'. Byron calls him "vain" Valentia, because his "accounts of
ceremonies attending his lordship's interviews with several of the petty
princes" suggest the thought "that his principal errand to India was to
measure certain rank in the British peerage against the gradations of
Asiatic royalty."--'Eclectic Review', August, 1809. In August, 1808, Sir
John Carr, author of numerous 'Travels', brought an unsuccessful action
for damages against Messrs. Hood and Sharpe, the publishers of the
parody of his works by Edward Dubois,--'My Pocket Book: or Hints for a
Ryghte Merrie and Conceitede Tour, in 4to, to be called "The Stranger in
Ireland in 1805,"' By a Knight Errant, and dedicated to the papermakers.
(See Letter to Hodgson, August 6, 1809, and suppressed stanza (stanza
Ixxxvii.) of the first canto of 'Childe Harold'.)]]
[Footnote lxxix:
'To stun mankind, with Poesy or Prose'.
['Second to Fourth Editions'.]
[Footnote lxxx:
'Thus much I've dared to do, how far my lay'.--
['First to Fourth Editions'.]]