Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, through whom this was sent, judiciously suppressed
it, and the author's thirst for literary blood was destined to remain
unquenched. Meanwhile he had written his own _Vision of Judgment_. This
extraordinary work, having been refused by both Murray and Longman,
appeared in 1822 in the pages of the _Liberal_. It passed the bounds of
British endurance; and the publisher, Mr. John Hunt, was prosecuted and
fined for the publication.
Readers of our day will generally admit that the "gouty hexameters" of the
original poem, which celebrates the apotheosis of King George in heaven,
are much more blasphemous than the _ottava rima_ of the travesty, which
professes to narrate the difficulties of his getting there. Byron's
_Vision of Judgment_ is as unmistakably the first of parodies as the
_Iliad_ is the first of epics, or the _Pilgrim's Progress_ the first of
allegories. In execution it is almost perfect. _Don Juan_ is in scope and
magnitude a far wider work; but no considerable series of stanzas in _Don
Juan_ are so free from serious artistic flaw. From first to last, every
epithet hits the white; every line that does not convulse with laughter
stings or lashes.
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