Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/416

374 A would-be satirist, a hired Buffoon,

A monthly scribbler of some low Lampoon, even unto Berwick upon Tweed. These have since been abundantly scurrilous upon the [town] of Newcastle, his native spot, Mr. Mathias and Anacreon Moore. What these men had done to offend Mr. Hewson Clarke is not known, but surely the town in whose markets he had sold meat, and in whose weekly journal he had written prose deserved better treatment. Mr. H. C. should recollect the proverb "'tis a villainous bird that defiles his own nest." He now writes in the Satirist. We recommend the young man to abandon the magazines for mathematics, and to believe that a high degree at Cambridge will be more advantageous, as well as profitable in the end, than his present precarious gleanings. [Hewson Clarke (1787-circ. 1832) was entered at Emmanuel Coll. Camb. circ. 1806 (see Postscript). He had to leave the University without taking a degree, and migrated to London, where he devoted his not inconsiderable talents to contributions to the Satirist, the Scourge, etc. He also wrote: An Impartial History of the Naval, etc., Events of Europe ... from the French Revolution ... to the Conclusion of a General Peace (1815); and a continuation of Hume's History of England, 2 vols. (1832). The Satirist, a monthly magazine illustrated with coloured cartoons, was issued 1808-1814. Hours of Idleness was reviewed Jan. 1808 (i. 77-81). "The Diary of a Cantab" (June, 1808, ii. 368) contains some verses of "Lord B—n to his Bear. To the tune of Lachin y gair." The last verse runs thus:—

In August, 1808 (iii. 78-86), there is a critique on Poems Original and Translated, in which the bear plays many parts. The writer "is without his bear and is himself muzzled," etc. Towards the close of the article a solemn sentence is passed on the author for his disregard of the advice of parents, tutors, friends; "but," adds the reviewer, "in the paltry volume before us we think we observe some proof that the still small voice of conscience will be heard in the cool of the day. Even now the gay, the gallant, the accomplished bear-leader is not happy," etc. Hence the castigation of "the sizar of Emmanuel College."]