English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers is an 1809 satirical poem written by Lord Byron published by James Cawthorn in London. Background. It was first published, anonymously, in March 1809, and a second, expanded edition followed in 1809, with Byron identified as the author. The opening parodies the of Juvenal. Byron published his first book of poetry, "Hours of Idleness", in 1807. It received a brutal, scathing review by Henry Brougham, published anonymously in the "Edinburgh Review". That review is a classic of humiliating criticism, often published with Byron's works. Destructive as it seemed, it  was probably the making of Byron's career. That first work was juvenile and not particularly distinguished. Byron reacted to the review with this poem. Though he incorrectly attributed the criticism to Francis Jeffrey, his fury stimulated him to write it with a passion and with such care that made him a first rate poet; and those characteristics never left him. In "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers", Byron used heroic couplets in imitation of Alexander Pope's "The Dunciad" to attack the reigning poets of Romanticism, including William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Francis Jeffrey, the editor of the  Edinburgh Review. He praised instead such Neoclassical poets as Pope and John Dryden. The poem went through several editions, but Byron finally suppressed the 5th edition in 1812 because he had come to regret his attitude toward those he had attacked. The text is referred to in Tom Stoppard's play "Arcadia". It is also referenced in John Edward Williams' novel "Stoner", in which it is mistaken by an incompetent graduate student as John Keats' work.