is not as old as Jeremy Taylor; and, entre nous, the best parts of my friends' books were either written or suggested by myself."
In the Noctes Ambrosianæ, Coleridge gets a contemporary
thrust for his conceit and dogmatism, with the conclusion,—
"The author o' Christabel, and The Auncient Mariner, had
better just continue to see visions, and to dream dreams—for
he's no fit for the wakin' world."
The most direct attack on Southey is in the comment on
Mr. Feathernest:[1]
"* * * to whom the Marquis had recently given a place
in exchange for his conscience. The poet had, in consequence,
burned his old 'Odes to Truth and Liberty,' and published a
volume of Panegyrical Addresses 'to all the crowned heads in
Europe,' with the motto, 'Whatever is at court, is right.'"
In Disraeli's Ixion, Enceladus has been identified as
Wellington, Hyperion as Sir Robert Peel, Jupiter as George
the Third, and Apollo as Byron. Byronism indeed is one
of the shining marks loved by the nineteenth century, a
fact that not only labels the British temper, but illustrates
the irony of time's revenges. The last great satirist of
the old school himself becomes the prime object of satire
for the new, partly through mutual lack of understanding,
and partly because Byron, like some other brilliant wits,
lacked a real sense of humor. Both these reasons enabled
Lytton to flatter himself that his Pelham had "contributed
to put an end to the Satanic Mania—to turn the thoughts
and ambitions of young gentlemen without neckcloths, and
- ↑ Melincourt, 80. In his Review of Southey's Colloquies of Society, Macaulay points out the Laureate's two unique faculties,—"of believing without a reason, and of hating without a provocation."
