introduce him to the House (a ceremony, however, as it appears, by no
means necessary or even usual) was sufficient to rouse in his
sensitive mind a strong feeling of resentment. The indignation, thus
excited, found a vent, but too temptingly, at hand;--the laudatory
couplet I have just cited was instantly expunged, and his Satire went
forth charged with those vituperative verses against Lord Carlisle, of
which, gratifying as they must have been to his revenge at the moment,
he, not long after, with the placability so inherent in his generous
nature, repented.[100]

During the progress of his poem through the press, he increased its
length by more than a hundred lines; and made several alterations, one
or two of which may be mentioned, as illustrative of that prompt
susceptibility of new impressions and influences which rendered both
his judgment and feelings so variable. In the Satire, as it originally
stood, was the following couplet:--

"Though printers condescend the press to soil
With odes by Smythe, and epic songs by Hoyle."

Of the injustice of these lines (unjust, it is but fair to say, to
both the writers mentioned,) he, on the brink of publication,
repented; and,--as far, at least, as regarded one of the intended
victims,--adopted a tone directly opposite in his printed Satire,
where the name of Professor Smythe is mentioned honourably, as it
deserved, in conjunction with that of Mr. Hodgson, one of the poet's
most valued friends:--

"Oh dark asylum of a Vandal race!
At once the boast of learning and disgrace;
So sunk in dulness, and so lost in shame,
That Smythe and Hodgson scarce redeem thy fame."

In another instance we find him "changing his hand" with equal
facility and suddenness. The original manuscript of the Satire
contained this line,--

"I leave topography to coxcomb Gell;"

but having, while the work was printing, become acquainted with Sir
William Gell, he, without difficulty, by the change of a single
epithet, converted satire into eulogy, and the line now descends to
posterity thus:--

"I leave topography to _classic_ Gell."[101]

Among the passages added to the poem during its progress through the
press were those lines denouncing the licentiousness of the Opera.
"Then let Ausonia," &c. which the young satirist wrote one night,
after returning, brimful of morality, from the Opera, and sent them
early next morning to Mr. Dallas for insertion. The