A. G. K. L'Estrange

Byron—Vision of Judgment—Lines to Hodgson—Beppo—Humorous Rhyming—Profanity of the Age.

Moore considered that the original genius of Byron was for satire, and he certainly first became known by his "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." Nevertheless, his humorous productions are very small compared with his sentimental. It might perhaps have been expected that his mind would assume a gloomy and cynical complexion. His personal infirmity, with which, in his childhood, even his mother was wont to taunt him, might well have begotten a severity similar to that of Pope. The pressure of friends and creditors led him, while a mere stripling, to form an uncongenial alliance with a stern puritan, who, while enjoying his renown, sought to force his soaring genius into the trammels of commonplace conventionalities. On his refusing, a clamour was raised against him, and those who were too dull to criticise his writings were fully equal to the task of finding fault with his morals. It may be said that he might have smiled at these attacks, and conscious of his power, have replied to his social as well as literary critics

"Better to err with Pope than shine with Pye,"

and so he might, had he possessed an imperturbable temper, and been able to forecast his future fame. But a man's career is not secure until it is ended, and the throne of the author is often his tomb. Moreover, the same hot blood which laid him open to his enemies, also rendered him impatient of rebuke. Coercion roused his spirit of opposition; he fell to replies and retorts, and to "making sport for the Philistines." He would show his contempt for his foes by admitting their charges, and even by making himself more worthy of their vituperation. And so a great name and genius were tarnished and spotted, and a dark shadow fell upon his glory. But let us say he never drew the sword without provocation. In condemning the wholesale onslaught he made in the "Bards and Reviewers," we must remember that it was a reply to a most unwarrantable and offensive attack made upon him by the "Edinburgh Review," written as though the fact of the author being a nobleman had increased the spleen of the critic. It says:—

"The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction for that exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below the level than if they were so much stagnant water.... We desire to counsel him that he forthwith abandon poetry and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account."[15]

So his profanity in the "Vision of Judgment," was in answer to Southey's poem of that name, the introduction of which contained strictures against him. Accused of being Satanic, he replies with some profanity, and with that humour which he principally shows in such retorts—

"Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate,
His keys wore rusty, and the lock was dull,
So little trouble had been given of late—
Not that the place by any means was full;
But since the Gallic era 'eighty-eight'
The devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull,
And 'a pull together,' as they say
At sea—which drew most souls another way.
"The angels all were singing out of tune,
And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon,
Or curb a runaway young star or two,
Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon
Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue,
Splitting some planet with its playful tail
As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale."

The effect of Southey reading his "Vision of Judgment" is thus given:—

"Those grand heroics acted as a spell,
The angels stopped their ears, and plied their pinions,
The devils ran howling deafened down to hell,
The ghosts fled gibbering, for their own dominions."

His poem on a lady who maligned him to his wife, seems to show that he did not well distinguish where the humorous ends and the ludicrous begins. He represents her—

"With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown
A cheek of parchment and an eye of stone,
Mark how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze at her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
A darker greenness of the scorpion's scale,
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined."

No one suffered more than Byron from his humour being misapprehended. His letters abound with jests and jeux d'esprit, which were often taken seriously as admissions of an immoral character. We gladly turn to something pleasanter—to some of the few humorous pieces he wrote in a genial tone—

Epigram.
The world is a bundle of hay
Mankind are the asses who pull
Each tugs in a different way,
The greatest of all is John Bull.

Lines to Mr. Hodgson (afterwards Provost of Eton) written on board the packet for Lisbon,

Huzza! Hodgson, we are going,
Our embargo's off at last,
Favourable breezes blowing
Bend the canvas o'er the mast,
From aloft the signal's streaming
Hark! the farewell gun is fired,
Women screeching, tars blaspheming,
Tell us that our time's expired.
Here's a rascal
Come to task all,
Prying from the custom house;
Trunks unpacking,
Cases cracking,
Not a corner for a mouse,
'Scapes unsearched amid the racket
Ere we sail on board the packet....
Now our boatmen quit the mooring,
And all hands must ply the oar:
Baggage from the quay is lowering,
We're impatient, push from shore.
"Have a care that case holds liquor—
Stop the boat—I'm sick—oh Lord!"
"Sick, ma'am, d—me, you'll be sicker,
Ere you've been an hour on board."
Thus are screaming
Men and women,
Gemmen, ladies, servants, tacks;
Here entangling,
All are wrangling,
Stuck together close as wax,
Such the general noise and racket
Ere we reach the Lisbon packet.
Fletcher! Murray! Bob! where are you?
Stretched along the deck like logs—
Bear a hand, you jolly tar, you!
Here's a rope's end for the dogs.
Hobhouse muttering fearful curses
As the hatchway down he rolls,
Now his breakfast, now his verses,
Vomits forth and d—ns our souls.

In Beppo there is much gay carnival merriment and some humour—a style well suited to Italian revelry. When Laura's husband, Beppo, returns, and is seen in a new guise at a ball, we read—

"He was a Turk the colour of mahogany
And Laura saw him, and at first was glad,
Because the Turks so much admire philogyny,
Although the usage of their wives is sad,
'Tis said they use no better than a dog any
Poor woman, whom they purchase like a pad;
They have a number though they ne'er exhibits 'em,
Four wives by law and concubines 'ad libitum."

On being assured that he is her husband, she exclaims—

"Beppo. And are you really truly, now a Turk?
With any other women did you wive?
Is't true they use their fingers for a fork?
Well, that's the prettiest shawl—as I'm alive!
You'll give it me? They say you eat no pork.
And how so many years did you contrive
To—Bless me! did I ever? No, I never
Saw a man grown so yellow! How's your liver?"

More than half the poem is taken up with digressions, more or less amusing, such as—

"Oh, mirth and innocence! Oh milk and water!
Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!
In these sad centuries of sin and slaughter
Abominable man no more allays
His thirst with such pure beverage. No matter,
I love you both, and both shall have my praise!
Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy!
Meantime I drink to your return in brandy."

We may observe that there is humour in the rhymes in the above stanzas. He often used absurd terminations to his lines as—

"For bating Covent garden, I can hit on
No place that's called Piazza in Great Britain."

People going to Italy, are to take with them—

"Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar and Harvey,
Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye."

We are here reminded of the endings of some of Butler's lines. Such rhymes were then regarded as poetical, but in our improved taste we only use them for humour. Lamb considered them to be a kind of punning, but in one case the same position, in the other the same signification is given to words of the same sound. The following couplet was written humorously by Swift for a dog's collar—

"Pray steal me not: I'm Mrs. Dingley's
Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies."

Pope has the well known lines,

"Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow,
And all the rest is leather and prunella."

Miss Sinclair also, in her description of the Queen's visit to Scotland, has adopted these irregular terminations with good effect—

"Our Queen looks far better in Scotland than England
No sight's been like this since I once saw the King land.
Edina! long thought by her neighbours in London
A poor country cousin by poverty undone;
The tailors with frantic speed, day and night cut on,
While scolded to death if they misplace a button.
And patties and truffles are better for Verrey's aid,
And cream tarts like those which once almost killed Scherezade."

The parallelism of poetry has undergone very many changes, but there has generally been an inclination to assimilate it to the style of chants or ballad music. The forms adopted may be regarded as arbitrary—the rythmical tendency of the mind being largely influenced by established use and surrounding circumstances. We cannot see any reason why rhymes should be terminal—they might be at one end of the line as well as at the other. We might have—

"Early rose of Springs first dawn,
Pearly dewdrops gem thy breast,
Sweetest emblem of our hopes,
Meetest flower for Paradise."

But there are signs that all this pedantry, graceful as it is, will gradually disappear. Blank verse is beginning to assert its sway, and the sentiment in poetry is less under the domination of measure. No doubt the advance to this freer atmosphere will be slow, music has already adopted a wider harmony. Ballads are being superseded by part singing, and airs by sonatas. The time will come when to produce a jingle at the end of lines will seem as absurd as the rude harmonies of Dryden and Butler now appear to us.

It would not be just to judge of the profanity of Byron by the standard of the present day. We have seen that two centuries since parodies which to us would seem distasteful, if not profane, were written and enjoyed by eminent men. Probably Byron, a man of wide reading had seen them, and thought that he too might tread on unforbidden ground and still lay claim to innocence. The periodicals and collections of the time frequently published objectionable imitations of the language of Scripture and of the Liturgy, evidently ridiculing the peculiarities inseparable from an old-fashioned style and translation. In the "Wonderful Magazine" there was "The Matrimonial Creed," which sets forth that the wife is to bear rule over the husband, a law which is to be kept whole on pain of being "scolded everlastingly."

A litany supposed to have been written by a nobleman against Tom Paine, was in the following style.

The Poor Man's Litany.
"From four pounds of bread at sixteen-pence price,
And butter at eighteen, though not very nice,
And cheese at a shilling, though gnawed by the mice,
Good Lord deliver us!"

The "Chronicles of the Kings of England," by Nathan Ben Sadi were also of this kind, parodies on Scripture were used at Elections on both sides, and one on the Te Deum against Napoleon had been translated into all the European languages. But a most remarkable trial took place in the year 1817, that of William Hone for publishing profane parodies against the Government. From this we might have hoped that a better taste was at length growing up, but Hone maintained that the prosecution was undertaken on political grounds, and that had the satires been in favour of the Government nothing would have been said against them. He also complained of the profanity of his accuser, the Attorney-General, who was perpetually "taking the Lord's name in vain" during his speech. Some parts of Hone's publications seem to have debased the Church Services by connecting them with what was coarse and low, but the main object was evidently to ridicule the Regent and his Ministers, and this view led the jury to acquit him. Still there was no doubt that his satire reflected in both ways. His Catechism of a Ministerial member commenced—

The supplications in his Litany were of the following kind—

Some of Gillray's caricatures would not now be tolerated, such as that representing Hoche ascending to Heaven surrounded by Seraphim and Cherubim—grotesque figures with red nightcaps and tri-coloured cockades having books before them containing the Marseillaise hymn. In another Pitt was going to heaven in the form of Elijah, and letting his mantle drop on the King's Ministers.

It must be admitted that there is often a great difficulty in deciding whether the intention was to ridicule the original writing or the subject treated in the Parody. A variety of circumstances may tend to determine the question on one side or the other, but regard should especially be had as to whether any imperfection in the original is pointed out. The fault may be only in form, but in the best travesties the sense and subject are also ridiculed, and with justice.

Such was the aim in the celebrated "Rejected Addresses," and it was well carried out. This work now exhibits the ephemeral character of humour, for, the originals having fallen into obscurity, the imitations afford no amusement. But we can still appreciate a few, especially the two respectively commencing:—

"My brother Jack was nine in May,
And I was eight on New Year's day;
So in Kate Wilson's shop,
Papa, (he's my papa and Jack's,)
Bought me, last week, a doll of wax,
And brother Jack a top."...

And—

"O why should our dull retrospective addresses,
Fall damp as wet blankets on Drury Lane fire?
Away with blue devils, away with distresses,
And give the gay spirit to sparkling desire.
"Let artists decide on the beauties of Drury,
The richest to me is when woman is there;
The question of houses I leave to the jury;
The fairest to me is the house of the fair."

The point in these will be recognised at once, as Wordsworth and Moore are still well known.