paramount importance, that they can never be overlooked in a publication of this kind. With the omission of those three pieces, however, the publishers flatter themselves that the work will still be found to be unique as a compilation; and if it does not comprise the whole body of British Satire, yet for the period which it embraces, it offers to the taste and discrimination of the lovers of that species of poetry, the most classical selection of pieces that has ever been published.

The authors of these pieces, for the most part, stand so high in the estimation of the public, and the merit of the poems themselves has been so long and so gene.. rally recognized, that any particular criticism would now be deemed superfluous. But it is the nature of satire to be so linked with the circumstances, manners, and opinions of the times in which it was written, that without explanation or comment, the justice of its application, and the beauty of the verse in which it is conveyed, pass alike unperceived by the reader. For this reason, the publishers have thought it necessary to subjoin the following short explanatory notices of the various pieces in the volume.

ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.

This caustic but beautiful poem, like many other satires, had its origin in personal motives, and owes all its bitterness to the vindictive feelings which prevailed in the breast of its noble author at the time it was penned. In 1807, the first efforts of Lord Byron's muse, were given to the public under the title of Hours of Idleness. A general criticism on the contents of the volume appeared in the Edinburgh Review for January following, in which the critic, with uncommon virulence, arraigned both the poems and their author. Few youthful productions, as these were represented to be, have ever been handled with more truculent seve rity, and had the mind or disposition of their author been fashioned after that of ordinary men, he must have sunk at once under the castigation. Fortunately it was not so with Lord Byron.. The injustice of the

criticism tended but to rouse his dormant energies, and the malignity of the writer only provoked him to revenge. The effect which it produced, was afterwards well described by himself in a conversation with Captain Medwin. When I first saw the review of my Hours of Idleness," said his Lordship, "I was furious; in such a rage as I have never been in since. I dined that day with Scroope Davies, and drank three bottles of Claret to drown it; but it only boiled the more. That critique was a masterpiece of low wit, a tissue of scurrilous abuse. I remember there was a great deal of vulgar trash in it, which was meant for humour, about people being thankful for what they could get,not looking a gift-horse the mouth, and such stable expressions. The severity of the Quarterly had killed poor Keats, and neglect destroyed Kirke White: but I was made of different stuff, and tougher materials. So far from being bullied or deterred from writing, I was bent on falsifying their raven predictions, and determined to show them, croak as they would, that it was not the last time they should hear from me. I set to work immediately, and in good earnest, and produced in a year 'The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.' For the first four days after it was announced, I was very nervous about its fate. Generally speaking, the first fortnight decides the public opinion of a new book. This made a prodigious impression, more perhaps than any of my works, except "The Corsair.""" Such was the origin of this celebrated satire, which has been more read and admired, and has had a stronger effect on the fate of contemporaneous literary productions, and in fixing the character of various literary men, than any work of the kind since the Dunciad of Pope. In less than a year and a half it passed through four extensive editions, and being afterwards attempted to be suppressed, the price of single copies rose to five guineas. Public interest was the more strongly excited, in consequence of its being known that the suppression was anxiously wished for by the author himself. The motives which prompted such a desire on his

Lordship's part, he afterwards explained to Captain Medwin as follows: "I will tell you my principal reason: I had good grounds to believe that Jeffrey, though perhaps really responsible for whatever appears in the Review, was not the author of the article which had given me offence. He disowned it; and though he would not give up the aggressor, he said he would convince me, if I ever came to Scotland, who the person was. But there was another reason that influenced me even more than my cooled resentment against Jeffrey, to suppress the poem. In the duel scene, I had unconsciously made part of the ridicule fall on Moore. The fact was, that there was no imputation on the courage of either of the principals. One of the balls fell out in the carriage, and was lost, and the seconds not having a farther supply, drew the remaining one." Wholly to suppress the work, however, proved quite unavailing. Galignani reprinted it in Paris, and a numerous impression was again circulated all over Europe.

Without being malignant, this poem is perhaps the severest satire in our language, and though his Lordship never retracted his opinion of the works of any of the authors who fell under the lash of his criticism, yet there can be little doubt he must often have regretted the literary crucifixion to which he had compelled many of them to submit. There is this to be said, however, in behalf of the satirist, that throughout the whole poem, he displays the most fearless impartiality. The high and the low are consigned with indiscriminate justice to the literary rack, and the joints of Sir Walter Scott are dislocated with the same merciless indifference, as those of Amos Cottle. It may be remarked also, that the victims are uniformly punished with dig nity; for no similar poem, except the Dunciad, so completely maintains, from its commencement to its close, the utmost elevation of thought, and the highest pomp of poetical expression. Probably to this circumstance, it may in some degree be owing, that so little resentment has been shown by any of the characters

satirised. None of them, with the exception of Dr. Southey, ever attempted to take literary revenge, and many of them afterward, even became the friends and correspondents of the satirist himself. The repentance which the noble author displayed in his attempt to suppress the poem, would no doubt have its due weight with some. But that no vindictive spirit should have afterward been exhibited, except in one solitary instance, shows, as his Lordship was accustomed to remark, that there are men, who can 'forgive and forget,' and the circumstance does honour to the literary temper of the age.

NEW MORALITY.

This elegant satire was originally contributed to a noted political work entitled the Anti-jacobin, started in London during the effervescence of the French Revolution, and conducted with great spirit and bitterness in opposition to a host of democratic Journals which at that time advocated, in their widest latitude, the political and moral principles of Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and others of the French Philosophers. Mr. Canning is very generally understood to have supported the Anti-jacobin throughout, with occasional contributions, both in verse and prose; but the only avowed production of his composition is the poem of New Morality.

The general scope of the satire in this piece is directed against a prevailing mania at that period, the great object of which was to push every principle in politics and morals to excess. The extravagant notions entertained on these topics by individuals, were propagated through a thousand channels by the press, and a species of moral and political furor raged from one end of the kingdom to the other. The system of opinions which became thus fashionable, was generally recognised by the affected title of The New Philosophy, but never was the name of Philosophy so abominably prostituted, and never was satire more justly directed than when it aimed at driving so vile a species of imposture and quackery

from the land. A poem on such a subject behoved necessarily to be exceedingly general in its views. Hence, in New Morality the reader will find that there is not much personality, and very little of the customary virulence of satirical writing, the object of the author being rather to convince by reasoning, than to rouse by invective. There is a fine strain of moral indignation, however, breathed in every sentiment it contains, with which the elegance and dignity of the verse is at all times in admirable keeping. It conveys also an impression of the loftiest patriotism, which must always endear it to every reader of real English feeling and sound judgment. Though Mr. Canning had never been otherwise known than as the author of this poem, it would of itself have entitled him to rank as a man of genius. But it has so happened that politics have left him little leisure to cultivate the, muses, and his poetical talents have been either lost in the pursuit of higher aims, or obscured in the blaze of his other accomplishments. As an orator, a statesman, and a wit, he is acknowledged to be without a rival-Leisure alone, has been wanting to constitute him also a poet of the first rank. He has at least written enough to prove this-and to verify the truth of his possessing the universal genius which has been so justly ascribed to him. A POETICAL AND CONGRATULATORY EPISTLE TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

In 1773, Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell carried into effect, a resolution, which they had formed several years before, of paying a visit to the Hebrides. They afterward gave the result of their respective observations to the world, in separate publications, which attracted universal attention. Mr. Boswell's volume, which appeared under the title of The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, L. L. D. unfortunately for himself, exhibited so many of the peculiarities which afterward distinguished his amusing but desultory labours on the Doctor's biography, that, as a literary production, it excited very general