f 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,