The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 111

[Footnote 33: His speech on the Licensing Act [in which he opposed the Bill], is reckoned one of his most eloquent efforts.

[The following sentences have been extracted from the speech which was delivered:--

"The bill is not only an encroachment upon liberty, it is likewise an encroachment on property. Wit, my lords, is a sort of property; it is the property of those who have it, and too often the only property they have to depend on...

"Those gentlemen who have any such property are all, I hope, our friends; do not let us subject them to any unnecessary or arbitrary restraint...

"The stage and the press, my lord, are two of our out-sentries; if we remove them, if we hoodwink them, if we throw them into fetters, the enemy may surprise us. Therefore I must now look upon the bill before us as a step for introducing arbitrary power into this kingdom."

Lord Chesterfield's sentiments with regard to laughter are contained in an apophthegm, repeated more than once in his correspondence: "The vulgar laugh aloud, but never smile; on the contrary, people of fas.h.i.+on often smile, but seldom or never laugh aloud."--'Chesterfield's Letters to his G.o.dson', Oxford, 1890, p. 27.]]

[Footnote 34: Archer and Squire Sullen are characters in Farquhar's play (1678-1707), 'The Beaux' Stratagem', March 8, 1707.]]

[Footnote 35: Michael Perez, the "Copper Captain," in [Fletcher's]

'Rule a Wife and Have a Wife' [licensed October 19, 1624].]

[Footnote 36: The Rev. Dr. Francis Willis died in 1807, in the 90th year of his age. He attended George III. in his first attack of madness in 1788. The power of his eye on other persons is ill.u.s.trated by a story related by Frederick Reynolds ('Life and Times', ii. 23), who describes how Edmund Burke quailed under his look. His son, John Willis, was entrusted with the entire charge of the king in 1811. Compare Sh.e.l.ley's 'Peter Bell the Third', part vi.--

"Let him shave his head: Where's Dr. Willis?"

(See, too, 'Bland-Burges Papers' (1885), pp. 113-115, and 'Life of George IV'., by Percy Fitzgerald (1881), ii. 18.)]]

[Footnote 37: Dr. Johnson was of the like opinion.

"Highwaymen and housebreakers," he says, in his Life of Gay, "seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in any elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage."

'Lives of the Poets', by Samuel Johnson (1890), ii. 266. It was a.s.serted, on the other hand, by Sir John Fielding, the Bow-street magistrate, that on every run of the piece, 'The Beggar's Opera', an increased number of highwaymen were brought to his office; and so strong was his conviction, that in 1772 he remonstrated against the performance with the managers of both the houses.]

[Footnote 38: Jerry Collier's controversy with Congreve, etc., on the subject of the drama, is too well known to require further comment.

[Jeremy Collier (1650-1756), non-juring bishop and divine. The occasion of his controversy with Congreve was the publication of his 'Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage' (1697-8).

Congreve, who had been attacked by name, replied in a tract ent.i.tled 'Amendments upon Mr. Collier's false and imperfect citations from the'

OLD BATCHELEUR, etc.]]

[Footnote 39: A few months after lines 370-381 were added to 'The Hints', in September, 1812, Byron, at the request of Lord Holland, wrote the address delivered on the opening of the theatre, which had been rebuilt after the fire of February 24, 1809. He subsequently joined the Committee of Management]

[Footnote 40: Mr. Simeon is the very bully of beliefs, and castigator of "good works." He is ably supported by John Stickles, a labourer in the same vineyard:--but I say no more, for, according to Johnny in full congregation,'"No hopes for them as laughs."'

[The Rev. Charles Simeon (1758-1836) was the leader of the evangelical movement in Cambridge. The reference may be to the rigour with which he repelled a charge brought against him by Dr. Edwards, the Master of Sidney Suss.e.x, that a sermon which he had preached in November, 1809, savoured of antinomianism. It may be noted that a friend (the Rev. W.

Parish), to whom he submitted the MS. of a rejoinder to Pearson's 'Cautions, etc.', advised him to print it, "especially if you should rather keep down a lash or two which might irritate." Simeon was naturally irascible, and, in reply to a friend who had mildly reproved him for some display of temper, signed himself, in humorous penitence, "Charles proud and irritable." (See 'Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Mr.

Simeon', by Rev. W. Carus (1847), pp. 195, 282, etc.)]]

[Footnote 41: 'Baxter's Shove to heavy-a--d Christians', the veritable t.i.tle of a book once in good repute, and likely enough to be so again.

["Baxter" is a slip of the pen. The tract or sermon, 'An Effectual Shove to the heavy-a.r.s.e Christian', was, according to the t.i.tle-page, written by William Bunyan, minister of the gospel in South Wales, and "printed for the author" in London in 1768.]]

[Footnote 42: Ambrose Philips (1675?-1749) published his 'Epistle to the Earl of Dorset' and his 'Pastorals' in 1709. It is said that Pope attacked him in his satires in consequence of an article in the 'Guardian', in which the 'Pastorals' were unduly extolled. His verses, addressed to the children of his patron, Lord Carteret, were parodied by Henry Carey, in 'Namby Pamby, or a Panegyric on the New Versification'.]

[Footnote 43: See letters to Murray, Sept. 15, 1817; Jan. 25, 1819; Mar.

29, 1820; Nov. 4, 1820; etc. See also the two 'Letters' against Bowles, written at Ravenna, Feb. 7 and Mar. 21, 1821, in which Byron's enthusiastic reverence for Pope is the dominant note.]

[Footnote 44: As famous a tonsor as Licinus himself, and better paid [and may be like him a senator, one day or other: no disparagement to the High Court of Parliament.--'MS.L.(b)'], and may, like him, be one day a senator, having a better qualification than one half of the heads he crops, viz.--Independence.

[According to the Scholiast, Ca.s.sar made his barber Licinus a senator, "quod odisset Pompeium." Blake (see Letter to Murray, Nov. 9, 1820) was, presumably, Benjamin Blake, a perfumer, who lived at 46, Park Street, Grosvenor Square.]]

[Footnote 45: There was some foundation for this. When Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy called on Daniel Stuart, editor of the 'Courier', at his fine new house in Harley Street, the butler would not admit them further than the hall, and was not a little taken aback when he witnessed the deference shown to these strangely-attired figures by his master.--Personal Reminiscence of the late Miss Stuart, of 106, Harley Street.]

[Footnote 46:

"'Bayes'. If I am to write familiar things, as sonnets to Armida, and the like, I make use of stewed prunes only; but when I have a grand design in hand, I ever take physic and let blood; for when you would have pure swiftness of thought, and fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive part. In fine, you must purge."

'Rehearsal', act ii. sc. 1.

This pa.s.sage is instanced by Johnson as a proof that "Bayes" was a caricature of Dryden.

"Bayes, when he is to write, is blooded and purged; this, as Lamotte relates, ... was the real practice of the poet."

'Lives of the Poets' 1890), i. 388.]]

[Footnote 47: Cant term for 100,000.]

[Footnote 48: I have not the original by me, but the Italian translation runs as follows:--

"E una cosa a mio credere molto stravagante, che un Padre desideri, o permetta, che suo figliuolo coltivi e perfezioni questo talento."

A little further on:

"Si trovano di rado nel Parnaso le miniere d' oro e d' argento,"

'Educazione dei Fanciulli del Signer Locke' (Venice, 1782), ii. 87.

["If the child have a poetic vein, it is to me the strangest thing in the world, that the father should desire or suffer it to be cherished or improved."--"It is very seldom seen, that any one discovers mines of gold or silver on Parna.s.sus."