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pious metals most in requisition /On such occasions” (8.81.644-6). As Lockhart’susage of ‘pious’ is not an attack upon piety, but upon hypocrisy, so is Byron’s.The Literary Examiner acquits the poet more firmly, dismissing the poem’s religiouscommentary as any basis for criticism: “What is the crime of Lord Byron with thiscrew – the boldness of his occasional scepticism? – Not a jot.” Instead, it finds thecause of other critics’ hostility in the very hypocrisy which the poem attacks, andclaims that Byron’s contempt “is as it should be”. 136 In terms similar to those used byLockhart, it declares the moral worth of the poem, referring to London asa field altogether uncultivated by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, andtherefore peculiarly demanding the attention of an inflexible and impartialmoralist like the author of Don Juan. […] people of quality swallow doses ofDon Juan with more avidity than religious tracts, or even Mr Irving’s sermons.The article goes on to describe the “inflexible and impartial” poet as uniquely giftedfor this role. 137 In a later issue, the serial says that, in DJ 14.3-6, “the subject ofSuicide is finally, and begging pardon of the exclusively pious, usefully illustrated, inregard to the moral and physical weakness which may lead to it”. 138 The later cantosin particular were coming to be seen as socially-valuable satire.E H Coleridge lists further contemporary positive responses, including those fromScott, Goethe, and Shelley. 139 The last, writing to Byron on October 21, 1821,describes his own “wonder and delight” over Cantos III to V, opining that “Nothinghas ever been written like it in English”, and describing Canto V in particular as“something wholly new and relative to the age, and yet surpassingly beautiful”. 140136 Literary Examiner, July 5, 1823, 6-12; July 12, 1823, 23-7, RR, III, 1358-64: p.7 (1359), p.9 (1360),p.11 (1361).137 Literary Examiner, August 2, 1823, 65-8; August 9, 1823, 81-5; August 16, 1823, 105-10; August23, 1823, 120-3, RR, III, 1370-9: pp.65 (1370), 105-6 (1375).138 Literary Examiner, November 8, 1823, 289-94; November 15, 1823, 305-9; November 22, 1823,321-5; November 29, 1823, 337-41, RR, III, 1380-90: p. 337 (1388).139 E H Coleridge’s ‘Introduction’ to vol 6, p. xix.140 The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 vols, ed. by Frederick L Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1966), II, 357.84