PREFACE.[1]
All my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be "turned from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," I should have complied with their counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally, who did not commence on the offensive. An Author's works are public property: he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases; and the Authors I have endeavoured to commemorate may do by me as I have done by them. I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings, than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better.
As the Poem has met with far more success than I expected, I have endeavoured in this Edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal.
- ↑ [The Preface, as it is here printed, was prefixed to the Second, Third, and Fourth Editions of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers. The preface to the First Edition began with the words, "With regard to the real talents," etc. (see overleaf, line 11). The text of the poem follows that of the suppressed Fifth Edition, which passed under Byron's own supervision, and was to have been issued in 1812. From that Edition the Preface was altogether excluded. In an annotated copy of the Fourth Edition, of 1811, underneath the note, "This preface was written for the Second Edition, and printed with it. The noble author had left this country previous to the publication of that Edition, and is not yet returned," Byron wrote, in 1816, "He is, and gone again."—MS. Notes from this volume, which is now in Mr. Murray's possession, are marked—B., 1816.]
