He whistled as he went for want of thought.

DRYDEN.






BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE TO ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.


The MS. ('MS. M.') of the first draft of Byron's "Satire" (see Letter to
Pigot, October 26, 1807) is now in Mr. Murray's possession. It is
written on folio sheets paged 6-25, 28-41, and numbers 360 lines.
Mutilations on pages 12, 13, 34, 35 account for the absence of ten
additional lines.

After the publication of the January number of 'The Edinburgh Review'
for 1808 (containing the critique on 'Hours of Idleness'), which was
delayed till the end of February, Byron added a beginning and an ending
to the original draft. The MSS. of these additions, which number ninety
lines, are written on quarto sheets, and have been bound up with the
folios. (Lines 1-16 are missing.) The poem, which with these and other
additions had run up to 560 lines, was printed in book form (probably by
Ridge of Newark), under the title of 'British Bards, A Satire'. "This
Poem," writes Byron ['MSS. M.'], "was begun in October, 1807, in London,
and at different intervals composed from that period till September,
1808, when it was completed at Newstead Abbey.--B., 1808." A date, 1808,