Shelley) and Jane Clairmont. Byron not only denied the charge, but
retorted upon him, in his "Observations upon an Article in 'Blackwood's
Magazine'" (March 15, 1820), as the author of 'Wat Tyler' and poet
laureate, the man who "wrote treason and serves the King," the
ex-pantisocrat who advocated "all things, including women, in common."
Southey's 'Vision of Judgment', an apotheosis of George III., published
in 1821, gave Byron a second provocation and a second opportunity, by
speaking in the preface of his "Satanic spirit of pride and audacious
impiety." Byron again replied in prose; and Southey (January 5, 1820),
in a letter to the 'London Courier', invited him to attack him in rhyme.
In Byron's 'Vision of Judgment' he found his invitation accepted, and
himself pilloried in that tremendous satire. Southey overvalued his own
narrative poetry. It is as a man, a prominent figure in literary
history, a leader in the romantic revival, a master of prose, and the
author of the best short biography in the English language--the 'Life of
Nelson' (1813)--that he lives at the present day. His name also deserves
to be remembered with gratitude by all who have read the nursery classic
of "'The Three Bears'." Byron parodies a stanza in Southey's "Queen
Orraca and the Five Martyrs of Morocco" ('Works', vol. vi. pp. 166-173):
"What news, O King Affonso,
What news of the Friars five?
Have they preached to the Miramamolin;
And are they still alive?"
The blanks stand for Scott or Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lloyd, and
Lamb(e), with the lines from 'New Morality' in his mind:
"Coleridge and Southey, Lloyd and Lamb and Co.
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