When Byron read the review, a bystander has told us he turned red, then
livid green. He straightway ordered and drank two bottles of claret, said
nothing, but looked like a man who had sent a challenge.

A challenge! that was exactly what Byron proposed. He would fight Jeffrey
first, and then take up in turn every man who had ever contributed to the
magazine--he would kill them all. And to that end he called for his
pistols and went out to practise firing at ten paces. Wiser counsel
prevailed, and he decided to attack the enemy in their own citadel, and
with their own weapons. He ordered ink, and began "English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers."

It took time to get this enormous siege-gun into position and find the
range. Finally, it was loaded with more kinds of missiles, in the way of
what Augustine Birrell has called literary stinkpots, than were ever
before rammed home in a single charge.

It was an audacious move--to reverse the initiative and go after a whole
race of critics, scribblers and reviewers, who had been badgering honest
folks, and blow 'em into kingdom come.

But at the last moment Byron's heart failed him, his wrath gave way to
caution, and "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" appeared anonymously.

The edition was soon exhausted--the shot had at least raised a mighty
dust.

The author got his nerve back, fathered the book, made corrections; and
this edition, too, sold with a rush. Byron returned to Newstead, invited a