Page:Modern Parnassus - Leigh Hunt (1814).djvu/80

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If he declar'd, it was the Poet's art
T' inform the judgment^[1] and improve the heart,
I shunn'd the Muse, which strove, with atheist song^[2],
To stab the wretched and corrupt the young.

↑
. . . . . . orientia tempora notis
Instruit exemplis; inopem solatur et aegrum;
Castis cum pueris ignara puella mariti
Disceret unde preces, vatem ni Musa dedisset.
Hor. Ep. lib. ii, 1.
↑ Lord Byron covets the glory of being chiefly distinguished in the overthrow of this poetical canon; otherwise it might possibly survive the destruction of the rest. His lordship seems, however, to have had the twofold ambition of overthrowing the canons for wit, as well as poetry. His glory would be doubled, if, besides his exploits in verse, he could teach mankind to admire a species of wit, utterly unknown to Rabelais, and to him, who is named by the French Rabelais perfectionné, by the English, Dean Swift. I subjoin a specimen of the witticisms recommended by the noble lord's example. If I estimate it rightly, it dispenses with the

[1] 
. . . . . . orientia tempora notis
Instruit exemplis; inopem solatur et aegrum;
Castis cum pueris ignara puella mariti
Disceret unde preces, vatem ni Musa dedisset.
Hor. Ep. lib. ii, 1.

[p60-2] Lord Byron covets the glory of being chiefly distinguished in the overthrow of this poetical canon; otherwise it might possibly survive the destruction of the rest. His lordship seems, however, to have had the twofold ambition of overthrowing the canons for wit, as well as poetry. His glory would be doubled, if, besides his exploits in verse, he could teach mankind to admire a species of wit, utterly unknown to Rabelais, and to him, who is named by the French Rabelais perfectionné, by the English, Dean Swift. I subjoin a specimen of the witticisms recommended by the noble lord's example. If I estimate it rightly, it dispenses with the

[1]

[2]