Time was, ere these degenerate days

Gift of Morris Hicky Morgan, 1910 – *EC8.G3666.791b

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It must not, cannot be; for I was born
To brand obtrusive ignorance with scorn.

William Gifford (1756-1826). The Baviad: a Paraphrastic Imitation of the First Satire of Persius (London, 1791).

The Baviad and its sequel The Mæviad (1794) mocked the sentimental verse of the Della Cruscan school and contemporary British drama. Gifford gave up original satire, however, for translation and criticism, serving as the first editor of the Anti-Jacobin and John Murray’s Quarterly Review. Byron respected Gifford’s neoclassical taste and, after becoming a Murray author himself, submitted to his editorial judgment: “I always considered Gifford as my literary father – and myself as his ‘prodigal Son.’”