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Quotes from English Bards and Scotch Reviewers — Lord Byron

1788–1824 England

← All quotes by Lord Byron

18 quotes

A man must serve his time to every trade
Save censure — critics are ready-made.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

With just enough of learning to misquote.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that's false.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

Perverts the Prophets and purloins the Psalms.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

'Tis pleasure, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,
Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

Oh! nature's noblest gift—my gray-goose quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent-bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

May Moorland weavers boast Pindaric skill,
And tailors' lays be longer than their bill!
While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes,
And pay for poems—when they pay for coats.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

When fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast,
Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last;
And glory, like the phoenix midst her fires,
Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

I'll publish right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

Yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact, in virtue's name, let Crabbe attest,—
Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

Oh, Amos Cottle! Phœbus! what a name!

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

As soon
Seek roses in December, ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics, who themselves are sore.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,
The scourge of England and the boast of France!
Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch,
Behold her statue plac'd in glory's niche;
Her fetters burst, and just releas'd from prison,
A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Lord Byron (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.