Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/620

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
578
THE BLUES.
[ECL. I.

To be sure makes a difference.
Tra.I know what is what:
And you, who're a man of the gay world, no less
Than a poet of t'other, may easily guess
That I never could mean, by a word, to offend
A genius like you, and, moreover, my friend.
Ink. No doubt; you by this time should know what is due
To a man of —— but come—let us shake hands.
Tra.You knew,
And you know my dear fellow, how heartily I,
Whatever you publish, am ready to buy.120
Ink. That's my bookseller's business; I care not for sale;
Indeed the best poems at first rather fail.
There were Renegade's epics, and Botherby's plays,[1]
And my own grand romance ——
Tra.Had its full share of praise.
I myself saw it puffed in the "Old Girl's Review."[2]
Ink. What Review?
Tra.'Tis the English "Journal de Trevoux;"[3]

A clerical work of our Jesuits at home.
  1. [The term "renegade" was applied to Southey by William Smith, M.P., in the House of Commons, March 14, 1817 (vide ante, p. 482). Sotheby's plays, Ivan, The Death of Darnley, Zamorin and Zama, were published under the title of Five Tragedies, in 1814.]
  2. [Compare—

    "I've bribed my Grandmother's Review the British."

    Don Juan, Canto I. stanza ccix. line 9.

    And see "Letter to the Editor of 'My Grandmother's Review,'" Letters, 1900, iv. Appendix VII. pp. 465-470. The reference may be to a review of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, which appeared in the British Review, January, 1818, or to a more recent and, naturally, most hostile notice of Don Juan (No. xviii. 1819).]

  3. [The Journal de Trévoux, published under the title of Mémoires de Trévoux (1701-1775, 265 vols. 12°), edited by members of the Society of Jesus, was an imitation of the Journal des Savants. The original matter, the Mémoires, contain a mine of information for the student of the history of French Literature; but the reviews, critical notices, etc., to which Byron refers, were of a highly polemical and partisan character, and were the subject of attack on the part of Protestant and free-thinking antagonists. In a letter to Moore, dated Ravenna, June 22, 1821, Byron says, "Now, if we were but together a little to combine our Journal of Trevoux!" (Letters, 1901, v. 309). The use of the same illustration in letter and poem is curious and noteworthy.]