It was only the misstatement in the 'Athenaeum' which overset him, only the first fire which made him wink.

Now he turns a hero's face to all this cannonading.

He doesn't care a straw, he says, and what's more, he doesn't, really.

So I, who was only sorry for him, can't care.

Observe, Isa, if there had been less violence and more generosity, the poems would obviously have been less deserved.
The English were not always so thin-skinned.