insert the following stanzas, ‘But Donna Inez,’ etc.”
—[B.]]The text is based on a second or revised copy of stanzas CXC–CXCVIII. Many of the corrections and emendations which were inserted in the first draft are omitted in the later and presumably improved version. Byron’s first intention was to insert seven stanzas after stanza CLXXXIX, descriptive and highly depreciatory of Brougham, but for reasons of “fairness” (vide infra) he changed his mind. The casual mention of “blundering Brougham” in English Bards, etc. (line 524, Poetical Works, 1898, I 338, note 2), is a proof that his suspicions were not aroused as to the authorship of the review of Hours of Idleness (Edin. Rev., January, 1808), and it is certain that Byron’s animosity was due to the part played by Brougham at the time of the Separation. (In a letter to Byron, dated February 18, 1817, Murray speaks of a certain B. “as your incessant persecutor—the source of all affected public opinion respecting you.”) The stanzas, with the accompanying notes, are not included in the editions of 1833 or 1837, and are now printed for the first time.
I
“ ’Twas a fine cause for those in law delighting—
’Tis pity that they had no Brougham in Spain,
Famous for always talking, and ne’er fighting,
For calling names, and taking them again;
For blustering, bungling, trimming, wrangling, writing,
Groping all paths to power, and all in vain—
Losing elections, character, and temper,
A foolish, clever, fellow—Idem semper!II
“Bully in Senates, skulker in the Field,1213
The Adulterer’s advocate when duly feed,
The libeller’s gratis Counsel, dirty shield
Which Law affords to many a dirty deed;
A wondrous Warrior against those who yield—
A rod to Weakness, to the brave a reed—
The People’s sycophant, the Prince’s foe,
And serving him the more by being so.III
“Tory by nurture, Whig by Circumstance,
A Democrat some once or twice a year,
Whene’er it suits his purpose to advance
His vain ambition in its vague career:
A sort of Orator by sufferance,
Less for the comprehension than the ear;
With all the arrogance of endless power,
Without the sense to keep it for an hour.IV
“The House-of-Commons Damocles of words—
Above him, hanging by a single hair,
On each harangue depend some hostile Swords;
And deems he that we always will forbear?
Although Defiance oft declined affords
A blotted shield no Shire’s true knight would wear:
Thersites of the House. Parolles1214 of Law,
The double Bobadill1215 takes Scorn for Awe.V
“How noble is his language—never pert—
How grand his sentiments which ne’er run riot!
As when he swore ‘by God he’d sell his shirt
To head the poll!’ I wonder who would buy it
The skin has passed through such a deal of dirt
In grovelling on to power—such stains now dye it—
So black the long-worn Lion’s hide in hue,
You’d swear his very heart had sweated through.VI
“Panting for power—as harts for cooling streams—
Yet half afraid to venture for the draught;
A go-between, yet blundering in extremes,
And tossed along the vessel fore and aft;
Now shrinking back, now midst the first he seems,
Patriot by force, and courtisan1216 by craft;
Quick without wit, and violent without strength—
A disappointed Lawyer, at full length.VII
“A strange example of the force of Law,
And hasty temper on a kindling mind—
Are these the dreams his young Ambition saw?
Poor fellow! he had better far been blind!
I’m sorry thus to probe a wound so raw—
But, then, as Bard my duty to Mankind,
For warning to the rest, compels these raps—
As Geographers lay down a Shoal in Maps.”
Note to the Annexed Stanzas on Brougham
“Distrusted by the Democracy, disliked by the Whigs, and detested by the Tories, too much of a lawyer for the people, and too much of a demagogue for Parliament, a contestor of counties, and a Candidate for cities, the refuse of half the Electors of England, and representative at last upon sufferance of the proprietor of some rotten borough, which it would have been more independent to have purchased, a speaker upon all questions, and the outcast of all parties, his support has become alike formidable to all his enemies (for he has no friends), and his vote can be only valuable when accompanied by his Silence. A disappointed man with a bad temper, he is endowed with considerable but not first-rate abilities, and has blundered on through life, remarkable only for a fluency, in which he has many rivals at the bar and in the Senate, and an eloquence in which he has several Superiors. ‘Willing to wound and not afraid to strike, until he receives a blow in return, he has not yet betrayed any illegal ardour, or Irish alacrity, in accepting the defiances, and resenting the disgraceful terms which his proneness to evil-speaking have (sic) brought upon him. In the cases of Mackinnon and Manners,1217 he sheltered himself behind those parliamentary privileges, which Fox, Pitt, Canning, Castlereagh, Tierney, Adam, Shelburne, Grattan, Corry, Curran, and Clare disdained to adopt as their buckler. The House of Commons became the Asylum of his Slander, as the Churches of Rome were once the Sanctuary of Assassins.
“His literary reputation (with the exception of one work of his early career) rests upon some anonymous articles imputed to him in a celebrated periodical work; but even these are surpassed by the Essays of others in the same Journal. He has tried everything and succeeded in nothing; and he may perhaps finish as a Lawyer without practice, as he has already been occasionally an orator without an audience, if not soon cut short in his career.
“The above character is not written impartially, but by one who has had occasion to know some of the baser parts of it, and regards him accordingly with shuddering abhorrence, and just so much fear as he deserves. In him is to be dreaded the crawling of the
