Critics all are ready made

Bequest of Harry Elkins Widener, 1916 – HEW 4.1.4 v. 2

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There CLARKE, still striving piteously ‘to please’,
Forgetting doggrel leads not to degrees,
A would-be satirist, a hired Buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low Lampoon,
Condemned to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine,
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind;
Himself a living libel on mankind.

Hewson Clarke (1787-1832?). The Satirist VIII (May 1808).

As the editor of The Satirist, Clarke further provoked Byron by excerpting unfavorable reviews of Hours of Idleness in this number and by publishing scurrilous verses on the poet and his pet bear in the following number. In retaliation, Byron challenged Clarke to a duel in a letter, but it is uncertain whether the letter was ever sent or received. He added these vitriolic lines on Clarke to the second edition of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, referring to him in the postscript as “a very sad dog.”