2233339^9 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES ■ NOTICES TI< LIFE OF LORD BYRON The circumstances under which Lord Byron now took leave of England were such as, in the case of any ordinary person, could not be considered otherwise than disastrous and humiliating. He had, in the course of one short year, gone through every variety of domestic misery ; — had seen his hearth ten times profaned by the visitations of the law, and been only saved from a prison by the privileges of his rank. He had alienated (if, indeed, they had ever been his) the affections of his wife ; and now, rejected by her, and condemned by the world, was betaking himself to an exile which had not even the dignity of appear- ing voluntary, as the excommunicating voice of society seemed to leave him no other resource. Had he been of that class of unfeeling and self-satisfied natures from whose hard surface the reproaches of others fall pointless, he might have found in insensibility a sure refuge against reproach ; but, on the contrary, the same sensitiveness that kept him so awake to the applauses of mankind rendered him, in a still more intense degree, alive to their censure. Even the strange, perverse pleasure which he felt in painting himself unamiably to the world did not prevent him from being both startled and pained when the world took him at his word ; and, like a child in a mask before a looking-glass, the dark semblance which he had, half in sport, put on, when reflected back upon him from the mirror of public opinion, shocked even himself. Thus surrounded by vexations, and thus deeply feeling them, it is not too much to say, that any other spirit but his own would have sunk under the struggle, and lost, perhaps irrecoverably, that level of self-esteem which alone affords a stand against the shocks of fortune. But in him, furnished as his mind was with reserves of strength, wait- ing to be called out, — the very intensity of the pressure brought relief by the proportionate re-action which it produced. Had his transgres- sions and frailties been visited with no more than their due portion of punishment, there can be little doubt that a very different result would have ensued. Not only would such an excitement have been insuffi- cient to waken up the new energies still dormant in him, but that con- sciousness of his own errors, which was for ever livelily present in his mind, would, under such circumstances, have been left, undisturbed by any unjust provocation, to work its usual softening and, perhaps, humbling influences on his spirit. But, — luckily, as it proved, for the further triumphs of his genius, — no such moderation was exercised. The storm of invective raised around him, so utterly out of propor- tion with his offences, and the base calumnies that were every where heaped upon his name, left to his wounded pride no other resource than in the same summoning up of strength, the same instinct of resist- A2 8 4 2 8 ] • ■ *± J o D 4 NOTICES OF THE [a.d.1816. mee. to injustice, winch had first fora d <>ut the energies of liis youth- ful genius, md waa now destined to give him a still bolder and loftier range of Its pon It was, indeed, nol without truth, said "i" him by Goethe, that he was inspired by the Genius of Pain,- for, from the first to the hist of his agitated career, ever] freah recruitmenl of Ins faculties was imbibed ;n that bitter source. His chiWAinnntive, when a boy, to distinc- tion was, as we have seen, that mark of deformity on his person, by an acht< bi use of which he was first Btung into the ambition of being great. • As, with an evident reference to Ins own fate, he himself de- scribes tin feeling, — * *■ I leformit] is daring. It i- us essence to o'ertake mankind l'.\ heart and soul, and make itself the equal, \\ . the superior of the rest. There is \ spur m us halt movements, to become All that the others cannot, in such things \ - still are fr< e in both, tn compensate Porstep-dami Nature'B avarice at first. "f Then can.' sappointment of his youthful passion, — the lassi- tude and n mors ■ of premature exc< ss, — the lone friendlessness of bis entrance into life, and the ruth] - lult upon Ins first literary efforts. — all links in that chain <>f trials, errors, and sufferings, by which his great mind was gradually and painfully drawn out; — all bearing their respective shares in accomplishing that destiny which seems to have d< en ed that the triumphal march of his genius should be over the waste and ruins of his heart. He appear* . ed, him- self to have had an instinctive consciousness that it was out of such ordeals his Strength and glorj were !ii arise, as Ins whole life was sed In courting agitation and difficulties ; and whenever the scenes around him wen- too tame to furnish such excitement, he flew to fancy nr memory for * thorns* 1 w hereon to " ban Ins breast." it ut the greatest of his trials, as well as triumphs, was yet to come. The last stage "f this painful, though glorious, course, in which fresh power was, at everj step, wrung from out his bouI, was that at which we are now arrived, ins marriage and its results, — without which, dear as ires the price paid by him in peace and character, his career would have been incomplete, and the world still left in ignorance of the full compass o( his genius. It is Indeed worthy of remark, that it was not nil Ins domestic circumstances began to darken around him that Ins fancy, which had lonL r been idle, again rose upon the wing — both the Siege of Corinth and Parisina having been produced but a short time before the Si paratlon. How conscious he was. too, that the tur- moil which followed was the true element of his restless spirit, may be collected from several p of Ins letters at that period, in one of Which he even mentions that bis health had become all the better * In one of hi- letter* t'» Mr. Hunt, he declares it to bo bis own opinion that 11 »n addiction t" poetry nerally tin- result of l an uneasy mind in an unea»y body ;' ill teformitj .*' he adds, " have been the .'itfenuants of many of our beet. Collins mad Chatterton, / think, mad — Cowper mad rope crooked — Milton blind, 11 fee. Szc t The Deformed Transform a. d. 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 5 for the conflict : — "It is odd," he says, "but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits, and sets me up for the time." This buoyancy it was, — this irrepressible spring of mind, — that now enabled him to bear up, not only against the assaults of others, but what was still more difficult, against his own thoughts and feelings. The muster of all his mental resources, to which, in self-defence, he had been driven, but opened to him the yet undreamed extent and ca- pacity of his powers, and inspired him with a proud confidence that he should yet shine down these calumnious mists, convert censure to wonder, and compel even those who could not approve to admire. The route which he now took, through Flanders and by the Rhine, is best traced in his own matchless verses, which leave a portion of their glory on all that they touch, and lend to scenes, already clothed with immortality by nature and by history, the no less durable asso- ciations of undying song. On his leaving Brussels, an incident oc- curred which would be hardly worth relating, were it not for the proof it affords of the malicious assiduity with which every thing to his dis- advantage was now caught up and circulated in England. Mr. Pryce Gordon, a gentleman who appears to have seen a good deal of him during his short stay at Brussels, thus relates the anecdote. "Lord Byron travelled in a huge coach, copied from the celebrated one of Napoleon, taken at Genappe, with additions. Besides a lit de repos, it contained a library, a plate-chest, and every apparatus for din- ing in it. It was not, however, found sufficiently capacious for his baggage and suite ; and he purchased a caleche at Brussels for his servants. It broke down going to Waterloo, and I advised him to return it, as it seemed to be a crazy machine ; but as he had made a deposite of forty Napoleons (certainly double its value), the honest Fleming would not consent to restore the cash, or take back his pack- ing-case, except under a forfeiture of thirty Napoleons. As his lord- ship was to set out the following day, he begged me to make the best arrangement I could in the affair. He had no sooner taken his de- parture, than the worthy sellier inserted a paragraph in ' The Brussels Oracle,' stating ' that the noble milor Anglaishad absconded with his caleche, value 1800 francs !' " In the Courier of May 13, the Brussels account of this transaction is thus copied. " The following is an extract from the Dutch Mail, dated Brussels, May 8th : — In the Journal de Belgique, of this date, is a petition from a coachmaker at Brussels to the president of the Tribunal de Premier Instance, stating that he has sold to Lord Byron a carriage, &c. for 1882 francs, of which he has received 847 francs, but that his lordship, who is going away the same day, refuses to pay him the remaining 1035 francs; he begs permission to seize the carriage, &c. This being granted, he put it into the hands of a proper officer, who went to sig- nify the above to Lord Byron, and was informed by the landlord of the hotel that his lordship was gone without having given him any thing to pay the debt, on which the officer seized a chaise belonging his lord- ship as security for the amount." It was not till the beginning of the following month that a contra- diction of this falsehood, stating the real circumstances of the case, as above related, was communicated to the Morning Chronicle, in a letter from Brussels, signed "Pryce L. Gordon." Another anecdote, of far more interest, has been furnished from the same respectable source. It appears that the first two stanzas of the 6 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1816. verses relating* to Waterloo, "Stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust,"* were written ;it Brussels, after a visit to tli.it memorable field, and transcribed by Lord Byron, oexl morning', m an album belonging to the lady of the gentleman who communicates the anecdote. "A few weeks after be had written them (says the relator), the well-known artist, R. K. Reinagle, a friend of mine, arrived in Brus- 8els, when I invited him to dine with me, ami showed him the lines, requesting him in embellish them with an appropriate vignette to the following passage : — • Here his last flight the haughty eaule tlew, Then tore, with bloody beak, the fatal plain; Pierced witii the shafts of banded nations through, Ambition's life, and labours, all were vain — He wears the shatter" d links of the world's broken chain.' Mr. Reinagle sketched with a pencil a spirited chained eagle, grasping the earth with his talons. " I had occasion to write to his lordship, and mentioned having got this clever artist to draw a vignette to his beautiful lines, and the liberty he had taken by altering the action of the eagle. In reply to this, he wrote to me — ' Reinagle is a better poet and a better ornithologist than I am; eagles, and all birds of prey, attack with their talons, and not with their beaks, and I have altered the line thus — ' Then tore, with bloody talon, the rent plain. This is, I think, a better line, besides its poetical justice.' I need hardly add, when I communicated tins flattering compliment to the painter, that lie was highlj gratified. 11 Prom Brussels the noble traveller pursued his course along the Rhine, — a line of road which he has strewed over with all the riches of poesy; and, arriving at Geneva, took up his abode at the well-known hotel Sfecheron. After a stay of a few weeks at this place, he re- moved to a \ ilia, in the neighbourhood, called Diodati, very beautifully situated on the high banks of the lake, where he established his resi- dence for the remainder of the Bummer. I shall now give the (■■w letters m ni\ possession written by him at this tune, and then subjoin to them SUCII anecdotes as I have been able to collect relative to the same period. LETTER CCXLIT. TO MR. MUBRAY. " Ouchy, near Lausanne, June 27th, 1S16. "I am thus far (kepi b\ of weather) on my way back to Diodati (near G< neva), from a voyage in myboal round the lake; and I enclose \ .ui a sprig of Gibbon's accu in and some rose-leaves from his garden, which, with pari of bis bousi , I have ju>t Been. N ou will find honourable mention, m his Life, made of this 'acacia,' when he walked out on the nighl of concluding his history. The garden and • Child* Harold, Canto 3, stanza 17. A. d. 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 7 summer-house, where he composed, are neglected, and the last utterly decayed ; but they still show it as his ' cabinet,' and seem perfectly aware of his memory. " My route, through Flanders, and by the Rhine, to Switzerland, was all I expected and more. , " I have traversed all Rousseau's ground, with the Heloise before me, and am struck to a degree that I cannot express with the force and accuracy of his descriptions, and the beauty of their reality. Meillerie, Clarens, and Vevay, and the Chateau de Chillon, are places of which I shall say little, because all I could say must fall short of the impressions they stamp. " Three days ago, we were most nearly wrecked in a squall off Meillerie, and driven to shore. I ran no risk, being so near the rocks, and a good swimmer; but our party were wet, and incommoded a good deal. The wind was strong enough to blow down some trees, as we found at landing : however, all is righted and right, and we are thus far on our return. " Dr. Polidori is not here, but at Diodati, left behind in hospital with a sprained ankle, which he acquired in tumbling from a wall — he can't jump. " I shall be glad to hear you are well, and have received for me certain helms and swords, sent from Waterloo, which I rode over with pain and pleasure. " I have finished a third Canto of Childe Harold (consisting of one hundred and seventeen stanzas), longer than either of the two former, and in some parts, it may be, better ; but of course on that I cannot determine. I shall send it by the first safe-looking opportunity. " Ever, &c." LETTER CCXLIII. fO MR. MURRAY. " Diodati, near Geneva, July 22d, 1816. •* I wrote to you a few weeks ago, and Dr. Polidori received your letter ; but the packet has not made its appearance, nor the epistle, of which you gave notice therein. I enclose you an advertisement,* which was copied by Dr. Polidori, and which appears to be about the most impudent imposition that ever issued from Grub-street. I need hardly say that I know nothing of all this trash, nor whence it may spring, — ' Odes to St. Helena,' — ' Farewells to England,' &c. &c— and if it can be disavowed, or is worth disavowing, you have full au- thority to do so. I never wrote, nor conceived, a line on any thing of the kind, any more than of two other things with which I was saddled — something about 'Gaul,' and another about 'Mrs. La Va^ * The following was the advertisement enclosed : " Neatly printed and hot-pressed, 2s. fid. " Lord Byron's Farewell to England, with three other poems — Ode to St, Helena, to My Daughter on her Birthday, and to the Lily of France. " Printed by J. Johnston, Cheapside, 335 ; Oxford, 9. " The above beautiful Poems will be read with the most lively interest, as it ia probable they will be the last of the author's that will appear in Engr- land." 8 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1816. lette ;' and as to the ' Lily of France,' I should as soon think of cele- brating a turnip. 'On the morning of my daughter's birth,' I had other things to think of khan verses ; and should never have dreamed of such an invention, till Mr. Johnston and his pamphlet's advertisement broke in upon me with a new light on the crafts and subtleties of the demon of printing, — or rather publishing. " 1 did hope thai some succeeding lie would have superseded the thousand and one which were accumulated during last winter. I can forgive whatever may be said of or against me, but not what they make me say or sing for myself. It is enough to answer for what I have written ; but it were too much for Jul) himself to bear what one has not. I suspect that when the Arab patriarch wished that his 'enemy had written a book,' he did not anticipate his own name on the title- page. I feel quite as much bored with this foolery as it deserves, and more than I should be if 1 had not a headache. " Of Glenarvon, Madame de Stael told me (ten days ago, at Copet) marvellous and grievous things ; but I have seen nothing of it but the motto, which promises amiably ' for us and for our tragedy.' If such be the posy, what should the ring be? — ' a name to all succeeding,'* &c. The generous moment selected for the publication is probably its kindest accompaniment, and — truth to say — the time was well chosen. I have not even a guess at the contents, except from the very vague accounts I have heard. " I ought to be ashamed of the egotism of this letter. It is not my fault altogether, and I shall be but too happy to drop the subject, when others will allow me. " 1 am m tolerable plight, and in my last letter told you what I had done in the way of all rhyme. I trust that you prosper, and that your authors are in good condition. I should suppose your stud has received some increase by what I hear. Bertram must be a good horse ; does he run next meeting ? I hope you will beat the Row. " Yours alway, &c." LETTER CCXLIY. TO MR. ROGERS. " Diodati, near Geneva, July 29th, 181fi. " Do you recollect a book, Mathiespn*s Letters, winch you Lent me, which 1 have still, and yet hope to return to your library? Well, I have encountered at Copet and elsewhere (Jray's correspondent, that same Bonstetten, to whom I lent the translation of his correspondent's epistles for a few days ; but all he could remember of tiray amounts to little, except that he was the most ' melancholy and gentlemanlike' of all possible poets. Bonstetten himself is a fine and very lively old man, and much esteemed by his compatriots; he is also a litterateur of good repute, and all Ins friends have a mania of addressing to him volumes of letters — Matlne.sou, M idler the historian, &c. &c. He is * The motto ie " He left a name to all succeeding times, Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes." a.d. 1816.} LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 9 a good deal at Copet, where 1 have met him a few times. All there are well, except Rocca, who, I am sorry to say, looks in a very bad state of health. Schlegel is in high force, and Madame as brilliant as ever. " I came here by the Netherlands and the Rhine route, and Basle, Berne, Morat, and Lausanne. I have circumnavigated the Lake, and go to Chamouni with the first fair weather ; but really we have had lately such stupid mists, fogs, and perpetual density, that one would think Castlereagh had the Foreign Affairs of the kingdom of Heaven also on his hands. I need say nothing to you of these parts, you having traversed them already. I do not think of Italy before Sep- tember. I have read Glenarvon, and have also seen Ben. Constant's Adoiphe, and his preface, denying the real people. It is a work which leaves an unpleasant impression, but very consistent with the con- sequences of not being in love, which is perhaps as disagreeable as any thing, except being so. I doubt, however, whether all such liens (as he calls them) terminate so wretchedly as his hero and heroine's. " There is a third Canto (a longer than either of the former) of Childe Harold finished, and some smaller things, — among them a story on the Chateau de Chillon ; I only wait a good opportunity to transmit them to the grand Murray, who, I hope, flourishes. Where is Moore ? Why is he not out 1 My love to him, and my perfect consideration and remembrances to all, particularly to Lord and Lady Holland, and to your Dutchess of Somerset. " Ever, &c. " P.S. I send you a fac simile, a note of Bonstetten's, thinking you might like to see the hand of Gray's correspondent." LETTER CCXLV. TO MR. MURRAY. " Diodati, Sept. 29th, 1816. " I am very much flattered by Mr. Gifford's good opinion of the MSS., and shall be still more so, if it answers your expectations and justifies his kindness. I liked it myself, but that must go for nothing. The feelings with which most of it was written need not be envied me. With regard to the price, / fixed none, but left it to Mr. Kinnaird, Mr. Shelley, and yourself, to arrange. Of course, they would do their best ; and as to yourself, I knew you would make no difficulties. But I agree with Mr. Kinnaird perfectly, that the concluding five hundred should be only conditional ; and for my own sake-, I wish it to be added, only in case of your selling a certain number, that number to be fixed by yourself. I hope this is fair. In every thing of this kind there must be risk ; and till that be past, in one way or the other, I would not willingly add to it, particularly in times like the present. And pray always recollect that nothing could mortify me more — no failure on my own part — than having made you lose by any purchase from me. " The Monody* was written by request of Mr. Kinnaird for the * A Monody on the death of Sheridan, which was spoken at Drury-Iane theatre. 10 NOTICES OF THE f A . d. 1816. theatre. I did as well as I could ; bill when I have not my choice, I pretend to answei for nothing. Mr. HobhouM and myself are just returned from a journey of lakes and mountains. We have been to the Grindelwaldj and the Jungfrau, and stood on the summit of the Wengen Up; and Been torrents of nine bundled feel in fall, and glaciers of all dimensions; we have heard shepherd's pipes, and avalanches, and looked on the clouds foaming up from the valleys below ns, like the spra\ of the ocean of hell. Chamcuni, and that which it inherits, we saw a month ago; but, though Mont Blanc is higher, it is not equal in wildness to the Jungfrau, the Eighers, the Shreckhorn, and the Rose Glaciers. "We set off for italj next week. The road is within this month infested with bandits, but we must take our chance and such precau- tious as are r< musile. " Ever, &c. " P.S. My best remembrances to Mr. Gifford. Pray say all that can be said from me to him. " I am sorry that Mr. Maturin did not like Phillips' picture. I thought it was reckoned a good one. If he had made the speech on the original, perhaps he would have been more readily forgiven by the proprietor and the painter of the portrait." * * * LETTER CCXLVI. TO MR. MURRAY. " Diodati, Sept. 30th, 1816. M I answered your obliging letters yesterday: to-day the Monody arrived with its W/e-page, which is, I presume, a separate publication, ' The request of a friend :' — 'Obliged by hunger and request of friends.' I will request yoa tp expunge thai same, unless you please to add, 'by a person of qualitj ,' or ' of wil and honour about town.' Merely say, 'written to be spoken al Drury-lane.' To-morrow I dine at Copet. Saturday I strike tents For Italy. This evening, on the lake m my boal with Mr. tlbbhouse, the pole which sustains the mainsail slipped in tacking, and struck me so violently on one of my legs (the st, luckily), as to make me do a foolish thing, viz. to joint — a downright Bwoon; the thing must have jarred b B nerve or other, for the bone is not injured, and hardly painful (it is six hours since), and cost Mr. Hobhouse some apprehension and much sprinkling of water! over me. The Bensation was a very odd one: I never had but two Buch before, :e from a cut on the head from a stone, Beveral years ago, and once (long ago also) in falling into a great wreath id' snow ; — a so i of graj giddiness first, then nothingness and a total loss of memory on beginning to recover. The last part is not disagreeable, it one did nol find it again* •' Y mi want tin final MSS. Mr. Da vies has the first fair copy in my own hand, and I have the rough composition here, and will send or save it for you, since you wish it. M With regard to your new literary project, if any thing falls in the A. d. 1816.] LlFE OF LORD BYRON. 11 way which will, to the best of my judgment, suit you, I will send you what I can. At present I must lay by a little, having pretty well exhausted myself in what I have sent you. Italy or Dalmatia and another summer may, or may not, set me off again. I have no plans, and am nearly as indifferent what may come as where I go. I shall take Felicia Heman's Restoration, &c. with me ; it is a good poem- very. "Pray repeat my best thanks and remembrances to Mr. Gifford for all his trouble and good-nature towards me. "Do not fancy me laid up, from the beginning of this scrawl. I tell you the accident for want of better to say; but it is over, and I am only wondering what the deuse was the matter with me. " I have lately been over all the Bernese Alps and their lakes. I think many of the scenes (some of which were not those usually frequented by the English) finer than Chamouni, which I visited some time before. I have been to Clarens again, and crossed the mountains behind it: of this tour I kept a short journal for my sister, which I sent yesterday in three letters. It is not all for perusal ; but if you like to hear about the romantic part, she will, I dare say, show you what touches upon the rocks, &c. " Christabel — I won't have any one sneer at Christabel : it is a fine wild poem. r # * # * * " Madame de Stael wishes to see the Antiquary, and I am going to take it to her to-morrow. She has made Copet as agreeable as society and talent can make any place on earth. " Yours, ever, "N." From the Journal mentioned in the foregoing letter, I am enabled to give the following extracts. EXTRACTS FROM A JOURNAL. "September, 18th, 1816. "Yesterday, September 17th, I set out with Mr. Hobhouse on an excursion of some days to the mountains " September 17th. "Rose at five; left Diodati about seven, in one of the country carriages (a char-a-banc), our servants on horseback. Weather very fine ; the lake calm and clear ; Mont Blanc and the Aiguille of Argen- tines both very distinct; the borders of the lake beautiful. Reached Lausanne before sunset ; stopped and slept at . Went to bed at nine ; slept till five o'clock. " September 18th. "Called by my courier; got up. Hobhouse walked on before. A mile from Lausanne, the road overflowed by the lake ; got on horse- back, and rode till within a mile of Vevay. The colt young, but went very well. Overtook Hobhouse, and resumed the carriage, which is an open one. Stopped at Vevay two hours (the second time I had visited it) ; walked to the church ; view from the churchyard superb; within it General Ludlow (the regicide's) monument— black marble— 12 NOTK E8 OF THE [ A . D . i 8 ig. long inscription— Latin, bul Bimple; he was an exile two-aod-thirty irs— one of king Charles's judges. Near him Broughton (who read King Charles's sentence to Charh - smart) is buried, with a queer and rather canting, bul still a republican, inscription. Ludlow's house shown; it retains still its inscription—' Omne solum forti patria. 1 Walked down to the lake side; servants, carriage, saddle-horses*- all set oft* and left us olantii Id by some mistake, and we walked on after them towards Clarens ; Hobhouse ran on before, and overtook thrm at last Arrived the second tune (first time was by water) at Clarens. Went to Chillon through scenery worthy of I know not whom; went over the Castle of Chillon again. On our return met an English party in a carriage; a lady in it fast ash ep— fast asleep in the most anti-narcotic spot m the world— excellent! I remember at chamouni, m the very eves of Mom Blanc, hearing another woman, English also, exclaim to her party, ' Did you ev< r Bee any thing more rural /'—as if it was Highgate, or Ilamps'tead, or Hrompton, or Hayes —•Rural!' quotha?— Rocks, puns, torrents, glaciers, clouds, and summits of eternal snow far above them — and 'rural!' " After a slight and short dinner we visited the Chateau de Clarens; an English woman has rented it recently (it was not let when I saw it first); the roses are gone with their summer; the family out, but the servants desired us to walk over the interior of the mansion. Saw on the table of the saloon Blair's Sermons, and somebody else (I forget who's) sermons, and a set pf noisy children. Saw all worth seeing, and then descended to the ' Bosquet de Julie,' &c. &c. ; our guide full of Rousseau, whom he is eternally confounding with St. Pnux, and mixing the man and the book. Wenl again as far as Chillon to revisit the little torrenl from the lull behind it. Sunset reflected in the lake. Have to get ui> at five to-morrow to cross the mountains on horseback; carriage to be sent round; lodged at my old cottage— hospitable and comfortable; tired with a longish ride on the colt, and the subsequent jolting of the char-a-banc, and my scramble in the hot sun. •• Mem. The corporal who showed the wonders of Chillon was as drunk as Blucher; he was deaf also, and thinking every one else so, roared out the legends of the castli 30 fearfully.— However, we saw things from the gallows to the dungeons (thepotmct and the cadwts) t and returned to Clarens with more freedom than belonged to tho fifteenth C( ntiiry. "September 19th. " Rose at live. < !r0BSed the mountains to MontboVOD on horseback, and on mules, and, by dint of scrambling, on fool also; the whole route beautiful as a dream, and now to me almost as indistinct. I am so tired ; — for though healthy, I have not the strength 1 possessed but P few Mar- ago. \t Montbovon we breakfasted; afterward, on a i ascent, dismounted; tumbled down; cut a finger open; the 30 got loose and fell down a ravine, till stopped by a '•• I recovered baggage; horse tired and drooping; mounted mule. \t the approach of the Bummitof DentJumeut* dismounted in with Hobhouse and all the party. Arrived ai in the very bosom of the mountains; left our quadrupeds with a shepherd, and ascended farther; came to some snow in patches, upon which my forehead's perspiration fell like ram, making the - huts as in a * Dent de Jaman. A. b. 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 13 sieve ; the chill of the wind and the snow turned me giddy, but 1 scrambled on and upwards* Hobhouse went to the highest pinnacle; I did not, but paused within a few yards (at an opening of the cliff). In coming down, the guide tumbled three times ; I fell a laughing, and tumbled too-M.he descent luckily soft, though steep and slippery: Hobhouse also fell, but nobody hurt. The whole of the mountains superb. A shepherd on a very steep and high cliff playing upon his pipe ; very different from Arcadia, where I saw the pastors with a long musket instead of a crook, and pistols in their girdles. Our Swiss shepherd's pipe was sweet, and his tune agreeable. I saw a cow strayed ; am told that they often break their necks on and over the crags. Descended to Montbovon ; pretty scraggy village, with a wild river and a wooden bridge. Hobhouse went to fish — caught one. Oui carriage not come ; our horses, mules, &e. knocked up ; ourselves fatigued. " The view from the highest points of to-da^'s journey comprised on one side the greatest part of Lake Leman ; on the other, the valleys and mountain of the canton of Fribourg, and an immense plain, with the lakes of Neufchatel and Morat, and all which the borders of the Lake of Geneva inherit ; we had both sides of the Jura before us in one point of view, with Alps in plenty. In passing a ravine, the guide recommended strenuously a quickening of pace, as the stones fall with great rapidity and occasional damage ; the advice is excellent, but, like most good advice, impracticable, the road being so rough that neither mules, nor mankind, nor horses, can make any violent progress. Passed without fractures or menace thereof. " The music of the cow's bells (for their wealth, like the patriarch's, is cattle) in the pastures, which reach to a height far above any moun- tains in Britain, and the shepherds shouting to us from crag to crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps appeared almost inacces- sible, with the surrounding scenery, realized all that I have ever heard or imagined of a pastoral existence : — much more so than Greece or Asia Minor; for there we are a little too much of the sabre and musket order, and if there is a crook in one hand, you are sure to see a gun in the other : — but this was pure and unmixed — solitary, savage, and patriarchal. As we went, they played the ' Rans des Vaches' and other airs, by way of farewell. I have lately repeopled my mind with nature. " September 20th. " Up at six ; off at eight. The whole of this day's journey at an average of between from 2700 to 3000 feet above the level of the sea. This valley, the longest, narrowest, and considered the finest of the Alps, little traversed by travellers. Saw the bridge of La Roche. The bed of the river very low and deep, between immense rocks, and rapid as anger ; — a man and mule said to have tumbled over without damage. The people looked free, and happy, and rich (which last implies neither of the former) ; the cows superb ; a bull nearly leaped into the char-a-banc — ' agreeable companion in a postchaise ;' goats and sheep very thriving. A mountain with enormous glaciers to the right — the Klitzgerberg ; farther on, the Hockthorn — nice names — so soft ! — Stockhorn, I believe, very lofty and scraggy, patched with snow only ; no glaciers on it, but some good epaulettes of clouds. " Passed the boundaries, out of Vaud and into Berne canton ; French exchanged for bad German; the- district famous for cheese, liberty, ii sfOTIOES OF THE [a. d. 1816. property, and no taxes, llobhouse went to fish — oaughl none. Strolled to the river; saw boy and kid ; kid followed him like a dog; kid could not grel ovei a fence, and bleated piteously; tried myself to help kid, bin nearly overset both self and kid into tbe river. Arrived hereabout six in the evening. Nine o'clock — goingtobed; not tired to-day, but bope to sleep, nevertheless. "September 21st. " Off early. Tbe valley of Simmenthal as before. Entrance to tbe plain of Thoun very narrow; high rocks, wooded to the top; river; new mountains, with fine glaciers. Lake of Thoun; extensive plain with a girdle of Lips. \\ alked do\i n to the < Jhateau de Schadau ; view along the like ; crossed tbe river iii a boat row ed by women. Thoun a very pretty town. The whole day's journey Alpine and proud. " September SSd. " Left Thoun in a boat, which carried us tbe length of the lake in three hours. The lake small ; but the banks fine. Rocks down to the water's edge. Landed at Newhause; passed Interlacben; entered upon a range Of scenes beyond all description, or previous conception. Passed a rock ; inscription — two brothers— one murdered the other; just the place for it. After a variety of windings came to an enormous rock. Arrived at the foot of the mountain (the Juagfrau, that is, the Maiden); glaciers; torrents; one of those torrents nine, hundred feet in height of visible descent. Lodged at the curate's. Set out to i ee the valley ; heard an avalanche fall, Like thunder; glaciers enormous ; storm came on, thunder, lightning, had ; all in perfection, and beautiful. i was on horseback ; guide wanted to carry my cane ; 1 was going to give it him, when 1 recollected thai it was a sword-stick, and 1 thought the lightning might be attracted towards him; kept it myself : a good deal encumbered with it, as it was too heavy for a whip, and the horse was stupid, and stood with every other peal. (Jot in, not very wet, the cloak being stanch, llobhouse wet through ; llobhouse took refuge in cottage; sent man, umbrella, and cloak (from the curate's when 1 arrived) after him. Swiss curate's house very good indeed — much better than most English vicarages. It is immediately opposite the torrent I spoke of. The torrent is in shape curving over the rock, like the tail of a white horse streaming in the wind, BUch as it might be conceived would be that of the • p tl ■ horse' on which Death is mounted in the Apocalypse/ It is neither misl nor water, but a something between both; its Immense heighl (nine hundred feet) gives it a wave or curve, a spreading here, or condensation there, wonderful and inde- scribable. I think, upon the whole, that this day has been better than any of this present excursion. * It is interesting to observe the use to which he afterward converted these hasty memorandums in his sublime drama of Manfred. " It is not noon — the sunbow's rays still arch The torrent with the many hues of heaven, And roll the sheeted silver's waving column O'er the crag'i headlong perpendicular, And fling its lines of foaming li'.dit along, \nd in and fro, like tfu palt eottrter*t tail. Tit GunU steed, t» />• /intrude b;/ Death, As told in the Apocalypse." a. D. 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 15 " September 23d. " Before ascending- the mountain, went to the torrent (seven in the morning) again ; the sun upon it, forming a rainbow of the lower part of all colours, but principally purple and gold; the bow moving as you move ; I never saw any thing like this ; it is only in the sunshine. Ascended the Wengen mountain ; at noon reached a valley on the summit ; left the horses, took off my coat, and went to the summit, seven thousand feet (English feet) above the level of the sea, and about five thousand above the valley we left in the morning. On one side, our view comprised the Jungfrau, with all her glaciers ; then the Dent d'Argent, shining like truth ; then the Little Giant (the Kleine Eigher) ; and the Great Giant (the Grosse Eigher), and last, not least, the Wetterhom. The height of the Jungfrau is 13,000 feet above the sea, 11,000 above the valley : she is the highest of this range. Heard the avalanches falling every five minutes nearly. From whence we stood, on the Wengen Alp, we had all these in view on one side ; on the other, the clouds rose from the opposite valley, curling up perpen- dicular precipices like the foam of the ocean of hell, during a spring tide — it was white, and sulphury, and immeasurably deep in appear- ance.* The side we ascended was (of course) not of so precipitous a nature ; but on arriving at the summit, we looked down upon the other side upon a boiling sea of cloud, dashing against the crags on which we stood (these crags on one side quite perpendicular). Stayed a quarter of an hour ; began to descend ; quite clear from cloud on that side of the mountain. In passing the masses of snow, I made a snowball and pelted Hobhouse with it. " Got down to our horses again ; eat something ; remounted ; heard the avalanches still ; came to a morass ; Hobhouse dismounted to get over well ; I tried to pass my horse over ; the horse sunk up to the chin, and of course he and I were in the mud together ; bemired, but not hurt ; laughed, and rode on. Arrived at the Grindelwald ; dined, mounted again, and rode to the higher glacier — like a frozen hurricane.^ Starlight, beautiful, but a devil of a path ! Never mind, got safe in; a little lightning, but the whole of the day as fine in point of weather as the day on which Paradise was made. Passed whole woods of withered pines, all withered; trunks stripped and lifeless, branches lifeless ; done by a single winter.J * " Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down In mountainous overwhelming, come and crush me ! / hear ye momently above, beneath, Crash with a frequent conflict. ****** •' The mists boil up around the glaciers ; clouds Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, Like foam from the roused ocean of deep hell.'" — Manfred. t " O'er the savage sea, The glassy ocean of the mountain ice, Wo skim its rugged breakers, which put on The aspect of a tumbling tempest's foam, Frozen in a, moment." — Ibid. ".Like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless." — Ibid. 16 NOTICES OF THE [a. n. J616. " September 94th. " Set off at seven ; up at five. Passed the black glacier, the moun- tain YYetterhorn on the right; crossed the Sdieideck mountain; came to the Rose glacier, said to be the largest and finest in Switzerland /think the Bossons glacier at Chamouni as fine; Hobhouse does not. fame to the Reichenbach waterfall, two hundred feet high ; halted to rest the horses. Arrived in the valley of Oberland; rain came on; drenched a little ; only four hours' rain, however, in eight days. Came to the lake of Bnent'/., then to the town of Brientz; changed. In the evening, four Swiss peasant girls of Oberhasli came and sang the airs of their country ; two of the voices beautiful — the tunes also; so wild and original, and at the same time of great sweetness. The singing is over; but below stairs 1 hear the notes of a fiddle, which bode no good to my night's rest ; I shall go down and see the dancing. " September 25th. " The whole town of Brientz were apparently gathered together in the rooms below; pretty music and excellent waltzing: none but pea- sants ; the dancing much better than in England ; the English can't waltz, never could, never will. One man with his pipe in his mouth, but danced as well as the others; some other dances in pairs and in fours, and very good. I went to bed, but the revelry continued below late and early. Brientz but a village. Rose early. Embarked on the lake of Brieiitz; rowed by the women in a long boat; presently we put to shore, and another woman jumped in. It seems it is the custom here for the boats to be manned by women ; four or five nun and three women in our hark, all the women took an oar, and but one man. " Got to Interlachen in three hours; pretty lake; not so large as that of Thoun. Dmed at Interlachen. (iirl rave me some flowers, and made me a speech in German, of which I know nothing; I do not know whether the speech was pretty, but as the woman was, I hope so. Re-embarked on the lake of Thoun ; fell asleep part of the way ; sent our horses round ; found people on the shore, blowing up a rock with gunpowder; they blew it up mar our boat, only telling us a minute before; — mere stupidity, but they might have broken our nod- dles. Got to Thoun in the evwjing ; the weather has been tolerable the whole day. But as the -wild part of our tour is finished, it don't matter to us; in all the desirable part, we have been most lucky in warmth and clearness of atmosphere. "September 26th. "Being out of the mountains, my jonmal must be as flat as my journey. From Thoun to Berne, good road, hedges, villages, industry, property, and all sorts of tokens of insipid civilization. From Berne to Fribourg ; different canton ; Catholics ; passed a field of battle ; Swiss beat the French in one of the late wars against the French republic. Bought a dog. The greater part of this tour has been on horseback, on foot, and on mule. " September 28th. "Saw the tree planted in honour of the battle of Morat; three hundred and forty years old; a good deal decayed. Left Fribourg, but first saw the cathedral ; high tower. Overtook the baggage of the nuns of La Trappe, who are removing to Normandy; afterward a a. d. 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRO.V 17 coach, with a quantity of nuns in it. Proceeded along the banks of the lake of Neufehatel ; very pleasing and soft, but not so mountainous —at least, the Jura, not appearing so, after the Bernese Alps. Reached Yverdun in the dusk ; a long line of large trees on the border of the lake ; fine and sombre j the Auberge nearly full— a German Princess and suite ; got rooms. " September 29th. "Passed through a fine and flourishing country, but not moun- tainous. In the evening reached Aubonne (the entrance and bridge something like that of Durham), which commands by far the fairest view of the Lake of Geneva ; twilight ; the moon on the lake ; a grove on the height, and of very noble trees. Here Tavernier (the eastern traveller) bought (or bihlt) the chateau, because the site resembled and equalled that of Erivan, a frontier city of Persia ; here he finished his voyages, and I this little excursion,— for I am within a few hours of Diodati, and have little more to see, and no more to say." Among the inmates at Secheron, on his arrival at Geneva, Lord Byron had found Mr. and Mrs. Shelley, and a female relative of the latter, who had about a fortnight before taken up their residence at this hotel.' It was the first time that Lord Byron and Mr. Shelley ever met ; though, long before, when the latter was quite a youth,— being the younger of the two by four or five years, — he had sent to the noble poet a copy of his Queen Mab, accompanied by a letter, in which, after detailing at full length all the accusations he had heard brought against his character, he added, that should these charges not have been true, it would make him happy to be honoured with his acquaintance. The book alone, it appears, reached its destination,— the latter having mis- carried, — and Lord Byron was known to have expressed warm admi- ration of the opening lines of the poem. There was, therefore, on their present meeting at Geneva, no want of disposition towards acquaintance on either side, and an intimacy almost immediately sprung up between them. Among the tastes common to both, that for boating was not the least strong ; and in this beautiful region they had more than ordinary temptations to indulge in it. Every evening, during their residence under the same roof at Secheron, they embarked, accompanied by the ladies and Polidori, on the lake ; and to the feelings and fancies inspired by these excursions, which were not unfrequently prolonged into the hours of moonlight, we are indebted for some of those enchanting stanzas,* in which the poet has given way to his passionate lqve of Nature so fervidly. " There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear Drips the light drop of the suspended oar. # At intervals, some bird from out the brakes Starts into voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill, But that is fancy, — for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instil, Weeping themselves away." * Childe Harold. Canto 3. Vol. II.— B 18 NOTICES <»i THE [a. i>. 18 1i \ J- rsonwho was of these parties has thus described lomconeol" their t\ eningi •■ w hen the sue or imnh-i ast wind blows, the waters • >i the lake are driven towards the town* and, with the stream of the Rhone, w hich Bets Btrongly in the same direction, combine to make a \ rapid current towards the harbour. < 'arelesslj , our evening', we had" yielded to its course, till we found ourselves almost driven on the piles ; and it required all our row ers' Btrength to master the tide. The waves w< re high and inspiriting, — we were all animated by our contest with the elements. '1 will sing yon an Ubanian song-,' cried Lord B) ron ; • now, be sentimental and give me all your attention.' It was trange, wild howl that he gave forth; bul Buch as, he declared, was an exact imitation of the Bavage Albanian mode,— laughing, the while. at our disappointment, who had expected a wild Eastern melody." Sometimes the party landed, for a walk upon the shore, and, on BUCh occasions, Lord Byron would loiter behind the rest, lazily trailing his sword-stick along, and moulding, as he went. Ins thronging thoughts into shape. Often too, when in the boat, he would lean abstracted!) over the side and surrender himself up, in silence, to the same absorb- ing task. 'The conversation of Mr. Shelley, from the extent of his poetic reading, and the strange, mystic speculations into which his system of philosophy led him, was of a nature strongly to arrest and interest the attention of Lord Byron, and to turn him away from worldly . Bsociations and topics mto more abstract ami untrodden ways of thought. \s far as contrast, indeed, is an enlivening ingredient of ,-iich intercourse, it would be difficult to find two persons more formed to w bet each other's faculties by discussion, as on few points of com- mon interest between them did their opinions agree; and that tlu- difference had Us root deep in the conformation of their respective minds needs but a glance through the neb, glittering labyrinth of Mr Shelley's pages to assure us. In Lord Myron, the real was never forgotten in the fanciful. How- ever imagination had placed her Whole realm at his disposal ; he was no a man of this world than a ruler of hers; and, accordingly, through the airiest and ino.-t subtile creations of bis brain still the life blood of truth and reality circulates. With Shelley it was far other- e; — Ins fancy (ami be had sufficient for a whole generation of te) was the medium through which he saw all things, bis facts as his theories ; and not only the greater part of his poetry, but the political ami philosophical speculations in. which he indulged, were all distilled through the same ovrr-refuum_ r and unrealizing alembic. Hav- ing started as a teacher and reformer id" the world, at an age w hen he could know nothing of the world but from fancy, the persecution he w ith .(ii the threshold of this boyish enterprise but confirmed aim in his first paradoxical views of human ills and their remedies ; and, instead of waiting to take lessons of authority and experience, lie. with a COUrage, admirable bad it been but wisely directed, made war i both. Prom this sort of Belf-Willed start in the world, an impulse was at once given to his opinion- and powers directly contrary, it would seem, to their natural bias, and from which his life was too short to allow him time to recover. With a mind, by nature, fervidly pious, be vet refused to acknowledge a Supreme Providence, and -Htuted some airv abst racl ion of " Universal Love" in its place. \n aristocrat by birth, and. as 1 understand, also m appearance am manm r-. he w i leveller in politics, and to sucn an I a. b. 1816.J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 19 extent as to be, seriously, the advocate of a community of property. With a delicacy and even romance of sentiment, which lends such grace to some of his less poems, he could notwithstanding contem- plate a change in the relations of the sexes, which would have led to results fully as gross as his arguments for it were fastidious and refined; and though benevolent and generous to an extent that seemed to exclude all idea of selfishness, he yet scrupled not, in the pride of system, to disturb wantonly the faith of his fellow-men, and, without substituting an equivalent good in its place, to rob the wretched of a hope, which, even if false, would be worth all this world's best truths. Upon no point were the opposite tendencies of the two friends, — to long established opinions and matter of fact on one side, and to all that was most innovating and visionary on the other, — more observa- ble than in their notions on philosophical subjects ; Lord Byron being, with the great bulk of mankind, a believer in the existence of Matter and Evil, while Shelley so far refined upon the theory of Berkeley as not only to resolve the whole of Creation into Spirit, but to add also to this immaterial system some pervading principle, some abstract nonentity of Love and Beauty, of which — as a substitute, at least, for Deity — the philosophic bishop had never dreamed. On such sub- jects, and on poetiy, their conversation generally turned; and, as might be expected from Lord Byron's facility in receiving new im- pressions, the opinions of his companion were not altogether without some influence on his mind. Here and there, among those fine bursts of passion and description that abound in the Third Canto of Childe Harold, may be discovered traces of that mysticism of meaning, — that sublimity, losing itself in its own vagueness,- which so much characterized the writings of his extraordinary friend ; and in one of the notes we find Shelley's favourite Pantheism of Love thus glanced at : — " But this is not all : the feeling with which all around Clarens and the opposite rocks of Meillerie is invested, is of a still higher and more comprehensive order than the mere sympathy with individual passion ; it is a sense of the existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own participation of its good and of its glory : it is the great principle of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less manifested ; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole." Another proof of the ductility with which he fell into his new friend's tastes and predilections, appears in the tinge, if not something deeper, of the manner and cast of thinking of Mr. Wordsworth, which is traceable through so many of his most beautiful stanzas. Being natu- rally, from his love of the abstract and imaginative, an admirer of the great poet of the Lakes, Mr. Shelley omitted no opportunity of bringing the beauties of his favourite writer under the notice of Lord Byron ; and it is not surprising, that once persuaded into a fair perusal, the mind of the noble poet should — in spite of some personal and political prejudices which unluckily survived this short access of admiration — not only feel the influence, but, in some degree, even reflect the hues of one of the very few real and original poets that this age (fertile as it is in rhymers quales ego et Cluvienus) has had the glory of producing. When Polidori was of their party (which, till he found attractions elsewhere, was generallv the case), their more elevated subjects of B2 NOTICES escape from anger but in laughter, kmong other pretensions, he had set ins heart upon Bhining as an author, and one evening, al Mr. Shelley's, producing a tragedy of his own writing, insisted thai they should undergo the operation of hear- ■ ii Li it. To lighten the infliction, Lord Byron took upon himself the task of reader ; and the whole seem-, from the description 1 have heard of it, must have been not a. little trying to gravity. In spite of the jealous watch kept upon every countenance by the author, it was impossible to withstand the smile lurking in the eye of the reader, whose only resource against the outbreak of his own laughter lay in lauding, from tune to time, most vehemently, the sublimity of the verses; — particularly some that began "Tis tints the gotter'd idiot of the Alps*'— and then adding, al the close of every such eulogy, "I assure you. when I was in the Drury-lane Committee, much worse things were offered to us." \fter passing a fortnight under the same roof with Lord Byron at Secheron, Mr. and Mrs. Shelley removed to S small house on the Mont- Blanc side of the Lake, within about ten minutes' walk of the villa Which their noble friend had taken, upon the high banks, called Belle Rive, that rose immediately behind them. During the fortnight thai Lord Byron outstaid them al Secheron, though the weather had changed and was become windy and cloudy, he every evening crossed the Lake, with Polidori, to visit them; and. "as he returned again (says in\ informant) over the darkened waters, the wind, from far aero--, bore us his POice Singing J our TyTOlese Song Of Liberty. Which I then first heard, and which is to me ineMricahly linked with his remembrance.* 1 In the mean nine. Polidori had become jealous of the growing inti macy of Ins noble patron with Shelley; and the plan which be now understood them to have formed of making a tour of the Lake without him completed his mortification. In the soreness of his feelings on tins subject, he indulged in some intemperate remonstrances, which Lord Byron indignantly resented; and the usual bounds of eourl beina passed on both sides, the dismissal of Polidori appeared, even to himself, inevitable. With this prospect, which he considered nothing less than ruin, before his eyes, the poor young man was* it ... in-, on the point of committing that fatal act which, two or three yean afterward, he actually did perpetrate. Retiring to his own room, he had already drawn forth the poison from Ins medicine chest, and was pausing to consider whether he should write a letter before betook it. when Lord Byron (without, however, the least suspicion of his intention) tapped at the dour and entered, with his band held forth in sil'ii of reconciliation. The Buddeo revulsion was too much foi t Polidori, who bursi into 'car--, and, in relating all thi ciroum- a. d. 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. stances of the occurrence afterward, he declared that nothing could exceed the gentle kindness of Lord Byron in soothing his mind and restoring him to composure. Soon after this the noble poet removed to Diodati. He had, on his first coming to Geneva, with the good-natured view of introducing Polidori into company, gone to several Genevese parties ; but, this task performed, he retired altogether from society, till late in the sum- mer, when, as we have seen, he visited Copet. His means were at this time very limited, and though he lived by no means parsimoniously, all unnecessary expenses were avoided in his establishment. The young physician had been, at first, a source of much expense to him, being in the habit of hiring a carriage, at a louis a day (Lord Byron not then keeping horses) to take him to his evening parties ; and it was some time before his noble patron had the courage to put this luxury down. The liberty, indeed, which this young person allowed himself was, on one occasion, the means of bringing an imputation upon the poet's hospitality and good-bi-eeding, which, like eveiy thing else, true or false, tending to cast a shade upon his character, was tor some time circulated with most industrious zeal. Without any authority from the noble owner of the mansion, he took upon himself to invite some Genevese gentlemen (M. Pictet, and, I believe, M. Bonstetten) to dine at Diodati ; and the punishment which Lord Byron thought it right to inflict upon him for such freedom was, " as he had invited the guests, to leave him also to entertain them." This step, though merely a consequence of the physician's indiscretion, it was not difficult, of course, to convert into a serious charge of caprice and rudeness against the host himself. By such repeated instances of thoughtlessness (to use no harsher term), it is not wonderful that Lord Byron should at last be driven into a feeling of distaste towards his medical companion, of whom he one day remarked, that " he was exactly the kind of person to whom, if he fell overboard, one would hold out a straw to know if the adage be true that drowning men catch at straws." A few more anecdotes of this young man, while in the service of Lord Byron, may, as throwing light upon the character of the latter, be not inappropriately introduced. While the whole party were, one day, out boating, Polidori, by some accident, in rowing, struck Lord Byron violently on the knee-pan with his oar ; and the latter, without speaking, turned his face away to hide the pain. After a moment he said, " Be so kind, Polidori, another time, to take more care, for you hurt me very much." " I am glad of it," answered the other, " I am glad to see you can suffer pain." In a calm, suppressed tone, Lord Byron replied, " Let me advise you, Polidori, when you, another time, hurt any one, not to express your satisfaction. People do n't like to be told that those who give them pain are glad of it ; and they cannot always command their anger. It was with some difficulty that I refrained from throwing you into the water, and, but for Mrs. Shelley's presence, I should probably have done some such rash thing." This was said without ill-temper, and the cloud soon passed away. Another time, when the lady just mentioned was, after a shower of rain, walking up the hill to Diodati, Lord Byron, who saw her from his balcony where he was standing with Polidori, said to the latter, " Now, you who wish to be gallant ought to jump down this small height and offer your arm." Polidori chose the rasiest part of the NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1816. declivity and leaped ;— but, the ground being wit, his foot slipped and he Bprained Ins ancle.* Lord Byron instantlj helped to carry him in and procure COld water for the fool ; and, alter lie was laid on the sofa, perceiving that he was uneasy, went up stairs himself (an exertion which Ins lameness made painful and disagreeable) to fetch a pillow for him. "Weil, I did ool believe you had so much feeling, was Polidon's gracious remark, which, it may he supposed, not a little clouded the noble port's brow. \ dialogue which Lord Byron himself used to mention as having taken place between them during then- journey on the Rhine, is amusingly characteristic of hoth the persons concerned. M After all," Baid the ph\ sician, " what is there \ on can do that 1 cannot !" — " Why, since you force me to say,*' answered the other, -> I think there are three things l can do which yon cannot." Polidori defied him to name them. - i can," said Lord Byron, "swim across that river — I can snuff out that candle with a pistol-shot at the distance of twenty paces — and I have written a poemf of which 14,000 copies were sold in one day." 'The jealous pique of the doctor against Shelley was constantly breaking out, and on the occasion of some victory which the latter had gained over him in a Bailing-match, he took it into his head that his antagonist had treated him with contempt; and went so far, in consequence, notwithstanding Shelley's known sentiments against duelling, as to proffer him a sort of challenge, at winch Shelle] mighl he expected, only laughed. Lord Byron, however, fearing that the vivacious physician might still farther take advantage of tins peculiarity of his friend, said to him, " Recollect, that though Shelley lias some scruples about duelling, 1 have none; and shall be, at all times, ready to take his place." At Diodati, his life was passed in the same regular round of habits .mil occupations into which, when left to himself, lie always naturally bll; a late breakfast, then a visit to the Shelley*' COttage and an ■ scuraion on the Lake; — at five, dinner} (when he usually preferred being alone), and then, if the weather permitted, an excursion again. lie and Shelley had joined in purchasing a boat, for which they gave twenty-five lotti$,—rZ small sailing vessel, fitted to stand the usual Squalls id" the climate, and, at that lime, the only keeled boat on the Lake. When the weather did not allow of their excursions after dinner,— on occurrence uot unfrequent during this ver\ wet summer, — the inmates of the cottage passed their evenings at Diodati, and, when the ram rendered it inconvenienl for them to return home, remained there to sleep. "We often," Bays one, who was not the least ornamental of the party, " sat up in conversation till the morning light. There was never any lack of subjects, and, grave or gay, we were always interested.' 1 * To this lameness of Polidori ono of the preceding letters of Lord Byron alludes. t The Corsair. f His system df diet here was regulated by an abstinence almost incredible. A thin slice of bread, with tea, at breakfast — a lighl vegetable dinner, with .! bottle ->r two of Beltze water, tinged with via de Grave — and in the eve- ning, a cup of green tea, without milk or sugar, formed the whole of his sus- tenance. The pal banger he a lipeasml by privately chewing tobacco ■ i,i i mok ing a. d. 1816.] LIFE. OF LORD BYRON. During a week of rain at this time, having amused themselves with reading German ghost-stories, they agreed, at last, to write something in imitation of them. " You and I," said Lord Byron to Mrs. Shelley. •• will publish ours together." He then began his tale of the Vampire ; and, having the whole arranged in his head, repeated to them a sketch of the story* one evening, — but, from the narrative being in prose. made but little progress in filling up his outline. The most memorable result, indeed, of their story-telling compact, was Mrs. Shelley's wild and powerful romance of Frankenstein, — one of those original con- ceptions that take hold of the public mind at once, and for ever. Towards the latter end of June, as we have seen in one of the pre- ceding letters, Lord Byron, accompanied by his friend Shelley, made •i tour in his boat round the Lake, and visited, "with the Heloise before him," all those scenes around Meillerie and Clarens, which have become consecrated for ever by ideal passion, and by thatpowei which Genius alone possesses, of giving such life to its dreams as to make them seem realities. In the squall off Meillerie, which he men- tions, their danger was considerable.! In the expectation, every moment, of being obliged to swim for his life, Lord Byron had already thrown off his coat, and, as Shelley was no swimmer, insisted upon endeavouring, by some means, to save him. This offer, however, Shelley positively refused ; and seating himself quietly upon a locker, and grasping the rings at each end firmly in his hands, declared his determination to go down in that position, without a struggle.^ Subjoined to that interesting little work, the " Six Weeks' Tour," there is a letter by Shelley himself, giving an account of this excur- sion round the Lake, and written with all the enthusiasm such scenes should inspire. In describing a beautiful child they saw at the village of Nerni, he says, " My companion gave him a piece of money, which he took without speaking, with a sweet smile of easy thankfulness, * From his remembrance of this sketch, Polidori afterward vamped up his strange novel of the Vampire, which, under the supposition of its being Lord Byron's, was received with such enthusiasm in France. It would, indeed, not a little deduct from our value of foreign fame, if what some French writers have asserted be true, that the appearance of this extravagant novel among our neighbours first attracted their attention to the genius of Byron. t " The wind," says Lord Byron's fellow-voyager, " gradually increased in violence until it blew tremendously ; and, as it came from the remotest extremity of the Lake, produced waves of a frightful height, and covered the whole surface with a chaos of foam. One of our boatmen, who was a dread- fully stupid fellow, persisted in holding the sail at a time when the boat was on the point of being driven under water by the hurricane. On discovering this error, he let it entirely go, and the boat for a moment refused to obey the helm ; in addition, the rudder was so broken as to render the manage- ment of it very difficult ; one wave fell in and then another." % " I felt, in this near prospect of death," says Mr. Shelley, " a mixture of sensations, among which terror entered, though but subordinately. My feelings would have been less painful, had I been alone ; but I knew that my companion would have attempted to save me, and I was overcome with humiliation, when I thought that his fife might have been risked to preserve mine. When we arrived at St. Gingoux, the inhabitants, who stood on the shore, unaccustomed to see a vessel as frail as ours, and fearing to venture at all on such a sea, exchanged looks of wonder and congratulation with our boatmen, who. as well as ourselves, were well pleased to sot foot on shore," NOTK KS OF THE [a. d. 181C. nnd then with an unembarrassed air turned to his play." There were, indeed, few things Lord Byron more delighted in than to watch beautiful children al play ; — " many a lovely Swiss child (says a person who saw him daily at this tunc) received crowns from him as the nw.iid of their grace and sweetnei -." Speaking of their lodgings al Nerni, which were gloomy and dirty, Mr. Shelle) Bays, "On returning to our inn, we found that the servant had arranged our rooms, and deprived them of the greater portion of tin ir former disconsolate appearance. They reminded my companion of Greece ; — a was IJve y< are, be said, since he had slept in such beds." Luckily for Shelley's full enjoymi at of these scenes, he had never ire happened to read the Heloise; and though ins companion had long been familiar with that romance, the Bighl of the region iiself, the •• birthplace of deep Lov< ." every Bpol of which seemed instinct with the passion of the story, gave to the whole a fresh and actual exist? enc< m Ins mind. Bom were under the spell of the genius of the place, — both full of emotion; end as they walked sihnih through the \ ineyards that were once the "bosquet de Julie," Lord Byron sud- denly exclaimed, "Thank God, Polidori is not here." That the glowing stanzas suggested to him by this scene were Written upon the spot itself appears almost certain, from the letter ad- dressed to Mr. Murray on his way back to Diodati, in which he an- nounces the Thud Canto as complete, and consisting; of 117 stanzas. \i Ouchy, near Lausanne, — the place from which that letter is dated, — he and his friend were detained two days, in a small inn, by the weather; and it was there, in that short interval, that he wrote his "Prisoner of Chillon," adding one more deatldess association to the already immortalized localities of the Lake. On his return from this excursion to Diodati, an occasion was afforded for the gratification of bis jesting propensities by the avowal of the young physician that — lie had fallen in love. On the evening of this tender confession they both appeared at Shelley's cottage — Lord Byron, m the highest and most boyish spirits, rubbing his hands as he walked about the room, and in that utter incapacity of retention which was one of ins foibles, making jesting allusions to the secret he had just heard. The brow of the doctor darkened as this plea- santry went on, and, at last, he angrily accused Lord Byron of hard- - of heart. " I never,' 1 said he, " met with a person so unfeeling." This sally, though the poet had evidently brought it upon himself, an- noyed him mosl deeply. "Call me cold hearted -me insensible!" he exclaimi d, with manifest emotion — "as well might you Baj that glass is not brittle, which lias been cast down a precipice, and lies (lashed tO pieces at the foot !" In the mouth of July he paid a visit to Copet, and was received by the distinguished hostess with a cordiality the more sensibly felt bj him, as, from his pi rsonal unpopularity al this time, he had hardly yen? lured to count ujion it." In her usual frank Style, she took him to * In the account of tins visit to Copet in his Memoranda, ho spoke in high term* of the daughter of hie hostess, the present Dutchess de lkoglie, and, in noticing how maob she appeared t>> lie attached to her husband, remarked that " Nothing was more pleasing t.i see the developcmcnt of the domestic :i'V.-« •linn- in i very young woman.* Of Madame de Stael, in that Memoir, lie spoke thui u Madame He St.T.I v .-us a pood woman at. heart and the a. D. 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYROV 26 task upon his matrimonial conduct— but in a way that won upon his mind, and disposed him to yield to her suggestions. He must endea- vour, she told him, to bring about a reconciliation with his wife, and must submit to contend no longer with the opinion of the world. In vain did he quote her own motto to Delphine, " Un homme peut braver, une femme doit se succomber aux opinions du monde ;" — her reply was, that all this might be very well to say, but that, in real life, the duty and necessity of yielding belonged also to the man. Her eloquence, in short, so far succeeded, that he was prevailed upon to write a letter to a friend in England, declaring himself still willing to be reconciled to Lady Byron, — a concession not a little startling to those who had so often, lately, heard him declare that, " having done all in his power to persuade Lady Byron to return, and with this view put off as long as he could signing the deed of separation, that step being once taken, they were now divided for ever." Of the particulars of this brief negotiation that ensued upon Ma- dame de Stael's suggestion, I have no very accurate remembrance ; but there can be little doubt that its failure, after the violence he had done his own pride in the overture, was what first infused any mixture of resentment or bitterness into the feelings hitherto entertained by him throughout these painful differences. He had, indeed, since his arrival in Geneva, invariably spoken of his lady with kindness and regret, imputing the course she had taken, in leaving him, not to her- self, but others, and assigning whatever little share of blame he would allow her to bear in the transaction to the simple, and, doubtless, true cause — her not at all understanding him. " I have no doubt," he would sometimes say, " that she really did believe me to be mad." Another resolution connected with his matrimonial affairs, in which he often, at this time, professed his fixed intention to persevere, was that of never allowing himself to touch any part of his wife's for- tune. Such a sacrifice, there is no doubt, would have been, in his situation, delicate and manly : but though the natural bent of his dis- position led him to make the resolution, he wanted — what few, per- haps, could have attained — the fortitude to keep it. The effects of the late struggle on his mind, in stirring up all its resources and energies, was visible in the great activity of his genius during the whole of this period, and the rich variety, both in character and colouring, of the works with which it teemed. Besides the Third Canto and the Prisoner of Chillon, he produced also his two poems, " Darkness" and " The Dream," the latter of which cost him many a tear in writing, — being, indeed, the most mournful, as well as picturesque " story of a wandering life" that ever came from the pen and heart of man. Those verses, too, entitled " The Incantation," which he intro- duced afterward, without any connexion with the subject, into Man- fred, were also (at least, the less bitter portion of them) the produc- tion of this period ; and as they were written soon after the last fruit- less attempt at reconciliation, it is needless to say who was in his thoughts while he penned some of the opening stanzas. "Though thy slumber must be deep, Yet thy spirit shall not sleep ; cleverest at bottom, but spoiled by a wish to be — she knew not what. In her own house she was amiable : in any other person's, you wished her gone, and in her own again." NOTICES OF Till. [aJd. 1814 1 1,. re are shades which will not vanish, There are thoughts thou canst not banish, iu a power to thee unknown, Thou canst never be alone ; Thou art wrapt as with a shroud, Thou art gath< red in a cloud ; And for ever Bhalt thou dwell In the spirit of tins spi 11. "Though thou seest me not pass by, Thou si. alt fee] me with thine i A? a thing that, though unseen, Musi he mar thee, ami hath been ; And when, in that secret dread, Thou ha-i tuin'ii around thy In Thou shall marvel I am not As thy shadow on the spot, And the power which thou dost feel Shall be what thou must conceal." Besides the unfinished "Vampire," he began also, at this time, another romance in prose, founded upon the story of the Marriage of Belphcgor, and intended to shadow out his own matrimonial fate. A devil, under the guise of an English gentleman, of the name of Lovel, was supposed to arrive at Seville, ami by his rubes and mode of life to attract some attention, which was considerably increased when he came to display his powers of fiddling — all the world, far and near, flocking to hear his music. The ladies, in particular, were so capti- vated by it, that Ins life became exceedingly pleasant; till the painful idea crossed him, "If 1 forget the Devil, what the devil will the Devil Baj to me !" lie then described the future wife of this Satanic per- sonage, much in the same spirit that pervades his delineation of Donna lues in the first Canto of Don Juan. While engaged, however, in writing this story, he heard from England that Lad} Myron was ill, and, his heart Boftening at the intelligence, he threw the manuscript into the fire. — So constant!) were the good and evil principles of his nature conflicting lor mastery over bun.'* The two following Poems, so different from each other in their charai ter, — the fust prj ing with an awful skepticism into the darkness of another world, and the second breathing all that is most natural ami tender m the affections of this, — were also written at this tune, and have never before been published. • Upon the same occasion, indeed, In: wrote some versos in a spirit not. quito so generous, of which a feu of the opening lines is all I shall five: " Ami thou wert sad yet was I not with thee : And thou wert siek — and yet 1 was not near. Methought that Joy and Health alone could be When I WBJ nut. and pain and sorrow here. And is it thus? — it is as I foretold, And shall be more so :"— &c. A. ». 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. EXTRACT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. " Could 1 remount the river of my years To the first fountain of our smiles and tears, I would not trace again the stream of hours Between their outworn banks of wither'd flowers, But bid it flow as now — until it glides Into the number of the nameless tides. What is this Death 1 — a quiet of the heart ? The whole of that of which we are a part 1 For Life is but a vision — what I see Of all which lives alone is life to me, And being so — the absent are the dead, Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread A dreary shroud around us, and invest With sad remembrancers our hours of rest. " The absent are the dead — for they are cold, And ne'er can be what once we did behold ; And they are changed, and cheerless, — or if yet The unforgotten do not all forget, Since thus divided — equal must it be If the deep barrier be of earth or sea ; It may be both — but one day end it must In the dark union of insensate dust. " The utider-earth inhabitants — are they But mingled millions decomposed to clay ? The ashes of a thousand ages spread Wherever man has trodden or shall tread ? Or do they in their silent cities dwell Each in his incommunicative cell ? Or have they their own language ? and a sense Of breathless being 1 — darken'd and intense As midnight in her solitude 1 — Oh, Earth ! Where are the past? — and wherefore had they birth? The dead are thy inheritors — and we But bubbles on thy surface ;— and the key Of thy profundity is in the grave, The ebon portal of thy peopled cave, Where I would walk in spirit, and behold Our elements resolved to things untold, And fathom hidden wonders, and explore The essence of great bosoms now no more." "TO AUGUSTA. I. " My sister ! my sweet sister ! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine : NOTICES OF THK [a. n. 1816. Go where I will, to me thou art the same — A loved regret which 1 would Dot resign. There yet arc two things in my destiny! — A world to roam through, and a home with thee. II. •• The first were nothing— had I still the last, It were the haven ol an happiness ; But other claims and other ties thou hast, And nunc is not the wish to make them less. A strange doom is thj fathi r's son's, and past Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; Reversed for him your grandsire's 4 fate of yore,— He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. III. " If my inheritance of storms hath hern In other elements, and on the rocks Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen, I have sustained my share of worldly shocks, The fault was mine; nor do 1 seek to screen My errors u it li pretence or paradox ; I have been cunning in mine overthrow. The careful pilot of my proper wo. IV. •• Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. My whole life was a contest, since the day That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd The gift, — a fate, or will, that walk'd astray; And 1 at times have found the struggle hard, and thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: But now I fain would for a time survive, If but to see what next can well arrive. V. •■ Kingdoms and empires in my little day I have outlived, and yd I am not old ; And when I look on this, the petty spray Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd lake a wild ba\ of breakers, melts away: Something — I know not what — does still uphold A spirit of Blighl patience ; — not in vain. Even for ii> own sake, do we purchase pain. * " Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without a tempest He was known t>> the sailors by the facetious name of ' Foul- weather Jack.' • nut. though it were tempest-tossM, Still Ins bark could not be lost.' He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager (in Anson's Voyage), and subsequently circumnavigated the world, many years after, as commander of n similar expedition." a. D. 1616.J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. -^ VI. " Perhaps the workings of defiance stir Within me, — or perhaps a cold despair, Brought on when ills habitually recur, — Perhaps a kinder clime, a purer air, (For ev'n to this may change of soul refer, And with light armour we may learn to bear,) Have taught me a strange quiet which was not The chief companion of a calmer lot. VII. " I feel almost at times as I have felt In happy childhood ; trees, and flowers, and brooks, Which -do remember me of where I dwelt Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, Come as of yore upon me, and can melt My heart with recognition of their looks ; And ev'n at moments I would think I see* Some living things I love — but none like thee. VIII. " There are the Alpine landscapes which create A fund for contemplation ; — to admire Is a brief feeling of a trivial date ; But something worthier do such scenes inspire : Here to be lonely is not desolate, For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. IX. " Oh that thou wert but with me ! — but I grow The fool of my own wishes, and forget The solitude which I have vaunted so Has lost its praise in this but one regret ; There may be others which I less may show ; — I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet I feel an ebb in my philosophy, And the tide rising in my alter'd eye. X. " I did remind you of our own dear lake,* By the old hall which may be mine no more, Leman's is fair ; but think not I forsake The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore : Sad havoc Time must with my memory make Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before ; Though, like all things which I have loved, they are Resign'd for ever, or divided far. XL ** The world is all before me ; I but ask Of nature that with which she will comply— * The lake of Newstead Abbe v. NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1816. It is but in her summer's bud to busk. To mingle with the quiel of her sky. To mi in r gentle face without a mask. Ami mi mi gaze im; it with apathy. She was mj earl] friend, and now shall be My sister — till 1 look again on thee. Ml. " 1 can reduce all feelings but this on . Ami that I would not ; — for at length I Such scenes as those wherein my life begun, The earlieal wen- the only paths for me: Had I Inn sooner learn'd the crowd to slum, l had been better than I now can be ; The passions which have torn me would have slept; I had not suU'cr'd, and ihou hadsl not wept. XIII. u With false ambition what had I to do 1 Little with love, and least of all with fame; \ m 1 yet they came unsought, and with me grew, \nd made me all winch they can make — a name. Ye! tins was not the end 1 did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over-*- 1 am one the more To baffled millions who have gone befon XIV. •• \nd for the future, this world's future m;.\ Troin me demand but little of my care ; I have outlived myself for many a daj ; Having survived so many things thai were, My years have been no slumber, but the prey of all sensations; — I have had such share Of life as might have HUM a century, Before its fourth in tune had pass'd me by. \\. "And for the remnants winch may he to conn I am content ; and for the past I bid Not thankless, — for within the crowded sum of struggles, happiness at tunes would steal. Ami lor the present, I would not benumb My feelings farther. — .Nor shall I conceal Thai with all this 1 still can look around \nd worship nature with a thought profound. Wl. •■ lor thee, my own swei t sister, in thy heart I know in\ self secure, as thou in mine ; We were and are— 1 am, ev'n as thou art — Beings who ue'< r each other can resign ; It is the same together or apart, From life's cornmenci menl to in long decline." a.d. 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 31 In the month of August, Mr. M. G. Lewis arrived to pass some time with him ; and he was soon after visited by Mr. Richard Sharpe, of whom he makes such honourable mention in the Journal already given, and with whom, as I have heard this gentleman say, it now gave him evident pleasure to converse about their common friends in Eng- land. Among those who appeared to have left the strongest impres- sions of interest and admiration on his mind was (as easily will be believed by all who know this distinguished person) Sir James Mack- intosh. Soon after the arrival of his friends, Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. S. Davies, he set out, as we have seen, with the former on a tour through the Bernese Alps, — after accomplishing which journey, about the begin- ning of October he took his departure, accompanied by the same gen- tleman, for Italy. The first letter of the following series was, it will be seen, written a few days before he left Diodati. LETTER CCXLVII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Diodati, Oct. 5, 18 1U. fr ^ t£ 9f ^ ^ * " Save me a copy of ' Buck's Richard III.' republished by Longman ; but do not send out more books — I have too many. " The ' Monody' is in too many paragraphs, which makes it unintel- ligible to me ; if any one else understands it in the present form, they are wiser ; however, as it cannot be rectified till my return, and has been already published, even publish it on in the collection — it will fill up the place of the omitted epistle. " Strike out ' by request of a friend,' which is sad trash, and must have been done to make it ridiculous. " Be careful in the printing the stanzas beginning, ' Though the day of my destiny 's,' &c. which I think well of as a composition. " ' The Antiquary' is not the best of the three, but much above all the last twenty years, saving its elder brothers. Holcroft's Memoirs are valuable, as showing the strength of endurance in the man, which is worth more than all the talent in the world. " And so you have been publishing ' Margaret of Anjou' and an Assyrian tale, and refusing W. W.'s Waterloo, and the ' Hue and Cry.' I know not which most to admire, your rejections or acceptances. I believe that prose is, after all, the most reputable ; for certes, if one could foresee — but I won't go on — that is, with this sentence ; but poetry is, I fear, incurable. God help me ! if I proceed in this scrib- bling, I shall have frittered away my mind before I am thirty ; but it is at times a real relief to me. For the present — good evening." •JC NOTICES OF THE [k. d. ldlo. LETTEH rr\ j.vill. TO MB. HURRA1 . M Martigny, October 9th, iMo. "Thus far on my way to Italy. Wehavejusl passed the ' Fisse- v'ailir' (one <»r the first torrents in Switzerland) in time to view th< iris which the sun flings along it before noon. " I have written to j ou tWice lately. .Mr. Davies, I hear, iB arrived. He brings the original MS. which you wished to Bee. Beeollecl that the printing is to be from that which Mr. Shelley brought ; and recollect also, thai the concluding stanzas of Ohilde Harold (those to my daughter) which I had not made up my mind whether to publish or not When they were first written (as yon will sec marked on the margin of the first copy), I had (and have) fully determined to publish with the rest of the Canto, as in the copy which you received by Mr. Shelley, before I sent it to England. " Our weather is very fine, which is more than the summer has been. — At Milan 1 shall expect to hear from you. Address either to Milan, poste restante, or by way of Geneva, to the care of Monsr. Hentsch, Banquicr. I write these few lines in ease my other letter should not reach you ; 1 trust one of them will. "P.s. My best respects and regards to Mr. Giffbrd. Will you tell him, it may perltaps be as well to put a short note to that part relating to Clan us. merely to say, that of eourse the description does not refer to that particular spot so much as to the command of scenery round it ? I do not know that this is necessary, and leave it to Mr. G.'s choice, as my editor, — if he will allow me to call him so at this distance." LETTER CCXL1X. TO MR. MURRAY. •■ Milan. October 15th, 181(J. " 1 hear that Mr. Davies has arrived in England, — but that of somi letter-. \e., committed to his care by Mr. 11., only half have been delivered. Tins intelligence naturally makes me fel I a little anxious for mine, and among them for the MS., which I wished to have com- pared with the one sent by me through the hands of Mr. Shelley. I trust thai it has arrived safely , —and indeed not less BO, that some little crystals, \e., from Mont Blanc, for my daughter and my nieces, have reached their address. Pray have the goodness to ascertain from Mr. Davies that no accident (bj custom-house or loss) has befallen them. • ni satisfy me on this point at your earliest convenience. "If 1 recollect rightly, you told me thai Mr. Giffbrd had kindly un- dertaken to cornel the press (at my request) during my absence — at least I hope so. It will add to my many obligations to thai gentleman. " 1 wrote to you, on my way here, a short note, dated Martigny. Mr. Hobhouse and in\ Belf arrived here a few days ago, by the Snnplon and Lago Maggiore route, of course we visited the Borromean Islands, which arc fine, but too artificial. Tie snnplon is magnificent in its nature and its art, — both God and man have done wonders, — to iv nothing of the Devil, who must certainly have had a hand (or a A.u. lslb.j LIFE OF LORD BYROiV 33 hoof) in some of the rocks and ravines through and over which the works are carried. " Milan is striking — the cathedral superb. The city altogether re- minds me of Seville, but a little inferior. We had heard divers bruits, and took precautions on the road, near the frontier, against some 'many worthy fellows (i. e. felons) that were out,' and had ransacked some preceding travellers, a few weeks ago, near Sesto, — or Cesto, I forget which, — of cash and raiment, besides putting them in bodily fear, and lodging about twenty slugs in the retreating part of a courier belonging to Mr. Hope. But we were not molested, and, I do not think, in any danger, except of making mistakes in the way of cock- ing and priming whenever we saw an old house, or an ill-looking thicket, and now and then suspecting the ' true men,' who have very much the appearance of the thieves of other countries. What the thieves may look like, I know not, nor desire to know, for it seems fhey come upon you in bodies of thirty (' in buckram and Kendal green') at a time, so that voyagers have no great chance. It is some- thing like poor dear Turkey in that respect, but not so good, for there you can have as great a body of rogues to match the regular banditti ; but here the gens-d'armes are said to be no great things, and as for one's own people, one can't carry them about like Robinson Crusoe with a gun on each shoulder. " 1 have been to the Ambrosian library — it is a fine collection — full of MSS. edited and unedited. I enclose you a list of the former re- cently published : these are matters for your literati. For me, in my simple way, I have been most delighted with a correspondence of let- ters, all original and amatory, between Lucretia Borgia and Cardinal Bembo, preserved there. I have pored over them and a lock of her hair, the prettiest and fairest imaginable — I never saw fairer — and shall go repeatedly to read the epistles over and over ; and if I can obtain some of the hair by fair means, I shall try. I have already persuaded the librarian to promise me copies of the letters, and I hope lie will not disappoint me. They are short, but very simple, sweet, and to the purpose ; there are some copies of verses in Spanish also by her ; the tress of her hair is long, and as I said before, beautiful. The Brera gallery of paintings has some fine pictures, but nothing of a collection. Of painting I know nothing ; but I like a Guercino — a picture of Abraham putting away Hagar and Ishmael — which seems to me natural and goodly. The Flemish school, such as I saw it in Flan- ders, I utterly detested, despised, and abhorred ; it might be painting, but it was not nature ; the Italian is pleasing, and their ideal very noble. "The Italians I have encountered here are very intelligent and agreeable. In a few days I am to meet Monti. By-the-way, I have just heard an anecdote of Beccaria, who published such admirable things against the punishment of death. As soon as his book was out, his servant (having read it, I presume) stole his watch ; and his master, while correcting the press of a second edition, did all he could to have him hanged by way of advertisement. " I forgot to mention the triumphal arch begun by Napoleon, as a gate to this city. It is unfinished, but the part completed worthy of another age and the same country. The society here is very oddly carried on, — at the theatre, and the theatre only, — which answers to our opera. People meet there as at a rout, but in vory small circles. I'rom Milan I shall go to Venice. If you write, write to Geneva, as before — the letter will be forwarded. " Yours ever." Vol. n.-r 34 NOTICES OF THE La. ... isle LETTER CCL. i <> UB. Ml BRAT. ■• Milan, November 1st, i*ic. •• l have rec( ntly written to you rather frequently, but without anj Jate answer. Mr. Hobhouse and myself set out for Venice in a few days; but you bad better still address to me at Mr. Hentsch's, Ban- i|iiicr, Geneva ; he will forward your letters. "I do not know whether] mentioned to you, some time ago, that I had parted with the Dr. Polidori a few weeks previous to my leaving Diodati. I know no great harm of him; but be had an alacrity of getting into scrapes, and was too young and heedless ; and ha\ enough to attend to in my own concerns, and without timetobecomi his tutor, 1 thought it much better to give him his conge. He arrived at Milan some weeks before Mr. Hobhouse and myself. About a week ago, in consequence of a quarrel at the theatre with an Austrian offi- cer, in which he was exceedingly in the wrong, he has contrived to get sent out of the territory, and is gone to Florence. I was not pre- sent, the pit having been the scene of altercation; but on being sent for from the Cavalier Breme's box, where I was quietly staring at the ballet, I found the man of medicine begirt with grenadiers, arrested by the guard, conveyed into the guard-room, where there was much swearing in several languages. They were going to keep him there for the night ; but on my giving my name, and answering for his appa- rition next morning, he was permitted egress. Next day he had an order from the government to be gone in twenty-four hours, and ac- cordingly gone he is, some days ago. We did what we could for him, out to no purpose ; and indeed he brought it upon himself, as far as 1 could learn, for 1 was not present at the squabble itself. I believe this is the real state of his ease; and I tell it you because 1 believe things sometimes reach you in England in a false or exaggerated form. We found Milan very polite and hospitable,' and have the same hop - of Verona and Venice. 1 have filled my paper. •• liver yours, &C." * With Milan, however, or its Bociety, the noble traveller was far from being plowed, and in Ins Memoranda, I recollect, he described his stay there to be " like a ihip under quarantine." Among other persons whom lie met in the society of that place was M. Beyle, the ingenious author of " L'His- toiro de la Peinture en Italic,*' who thus describes the impression their first interview left upon him. " Cc fut pendant Tautomno dc l!;i»i, que je lc rencontrai an theatre de la Srala, a Milan, dans la logo de M. Louis de Breme. Je fus frappe des yeux de Lord Byron an moment on il ecoutait un sestetto d'un opera de Mayer intitule* Elena. Je n'ai vu de ma vie, ricn do plus beau ni de plus ezpressif. Encore aujourd'hui, si je viens a penser a l'expression qn*un grand peintre devrait donner an g£nie, cette tete sublime reparai' tout-a-coup devant moi. J'cus un instant d'enthousiasme, el oubliant la juste repugnance que tout liomme un pen ficr doit avoir ,\ se faire pr£sentei i un pur de'Angleterre, je pri.n M. de Breme, de mlntroduire a Lord Byron. Je me tronvai le lendemain i dmer chez M. de Breme, avec lui, ct !.■ . • . - 1 . bre Monti, 1'immortcl auteur de la. Iiasi,_ i >n parts poesie, on en vint a demander quels etaient b dou/e p; i rers faits depute un siecle, en Francais, en Italien, en An- a. d. 181b.J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 35 LETTER CCLI. TO MK. MOORE. "Verona, November 6th, 1816". "MY DEAR MOORE, '•Your letter, written before my departure from England, and addressed to me in London, only reached me recently. Since that period, I have been over a portion of that part of Europe which I had not already seen. About a month since, I crossed the Alps from Switzerland to Milan, which I left a few days ago, and am thus far on my way to Venice, where I shall probably winter. Yesterday I was on the shores of the Benacus, with his Jluctibus etfremitu. Catullus's Sirmium has still its name and site, and is remembered for his sake ; but the very heavy autumnal rains and mists prevented our quitting our route (that is, Hobhouse and myself, who are at present voyaging together), as it was better not to see it at all than to a great disadvantage. " I found on the Benacus the same tradition of a city still visible in calm weather below the waters, which you have preserved of Lough Neagh, ' When the clear, cold eve 's declining.' I do not know that it is authorized by records ; but they tell you such a story, and say that the city was swallowed up by an earthquake. We moved to-day over the frontier to Verona, by a road suspected of thieves — 'the wise convey it call,' — but without molestation. I shall remain here a day or two to gape at the usual marvels — amphitheatre, paintings, and all that time-tax of travel — though Catullus, Claudian, and Shakspeare have done more for Verona than it ever did for itself. They still pre- tend to show, I believe, the ' tomb of all the Capulets' — we shall see. "Among many things at Milan, one pleased me particularly, viz. the correspondence (in the prettiest love-letters in the world) of Lu- cretia Borgia with Cardinal Bembo (who, you say, made a very good cardinal), and a lock of her hair, and some Spanish verses of hers, — the lock very fair and beautiful. I took one single hair of it as a relic, and wished sorely to get a copy of one or two of the letters ; but it is prohibited : that I do n't mind ; but it was impracticable ; and so I only got some of them by heart. They are kept in the Ambrosian Library, which I often visited to look them over — to the scandal of the libra- rian, who wanted to enlighten me with sundry valuable MSS., classi- cal, philosophical, and pious. But I stick to the Pope's daughter, and wish myself a cardinal. " I have seen the finest parts of Switzerland, the Rhine, the Rhone. to glais. Les Italiens presens s'accorderent a designer les douze premiers vers de la Mascheroniana de Monti, comme ce que l'on avait fait de plus beau dans leur langue, depuis cent ans. Monti voulut bien nous les reciter. Je regardai Lord Byron, il fut ravi. La nuance de hauteur, ou plutot l'air d'un horame qui se Irouve avoir a repousser une imporhmite, qui deparait un peu sa belle figure, disparut tout-a-coup pour faire a l'expression du bonheur. Le premier chant de la Mascheroniana, que Monti recita presque en entier, vaincu par les acclamations des auditeurs, causa la plus vive sensation a. Tauteur de Childe Harold. Je n'oublierai jamais l'expression divine de ses traits ; c'etait Pair serein de la puissance et du g£nie, et suivant moi, Lord Jivron n'avait, en ce moment- aucune affectation a se reprocher," C3 36 NOTICES OF THE la. o. loio. and the Swiss and Italian lakes; for the beauties of which I refer \«iu to the Guide-book. The north of Italy is tolerably free from the English; but the south swarms with them, 1 am told. Madame de Stael 1 saw frequently at Copet, which she renders remarkably pleasant. She lias been particularly kind to me. 1 was for some months her neighbour, in a country bouse called Diodati, which I had on the Lake of Geneva. My plans are very uncertain; but it is pro- bable thai von will sec me in England in the spring. 1 have some business there. If yon write to me, will you address to the care of Mens. Hentseh, Banquier, Geneva, who receives and forwards my letters. Remember me to Rogers, who wrote to me lately, with a short account of your poem, which, 1 trust, is near the light. He speaks of it most highly. " My health is very endurable, except that I am subject to casual giddiness and faintnesses, which is so like a fine lady, that I am rather ishamed of the disorder. When I sailed, I had a physician with me, whom, after some months of patience, 1 found it expedient to part with, before 1 left Geneva some time. On arriving at Milan, I found this gentleman in very good society, where he prospered for some weeks ; but, at length, at the theatre he quarrelled with an Austrian officer, and was sent out by the government in twenty-four hours. I was not present at his squabble ; but on hearing that he was put under arrest, I went and got him out of his confinement, but could not prevent his being sent off, which, indeed, he partly deserved, being quite in the wrong, and having begun a row for row's sake. I had preceded the Austrian government some weeks myself, in giving him his conge from Geneva. He is not a bad fellow, but very young and hot-headed, and more likely to incur diseases than to cure them. Hobhouse and myself found it useless to intercede for him. This happened some time before we left Milan. He is gone to Florence. " At Milan 1 saw, and was visited by, Monti, the most celebrated of the living Italian poets. He seems near sixty : in face he is like the late Cooke the actor. His frequent changes in politics have made him very unpopular as a man. I saw many more of their literati; but none whose names are well known in England, except Aeerbi. I lived much with the Italians, particularly with the Marquis of B rente's family, who are very able and intelligent men, especially the Abate. There was a famous improvisatore who held forth while I was there. His fluencj astonished me; but although I understand Italian, and speak it (with more readiness than accuracy), I could only carry off a few very commonplace mythological images, and one line about Artemisia, and anothei aboul Ugiers, with sixty words of an entire jedy about Eteocles and Polynioes. Some of the Italians liked him— others called bis performance ' Beccat'ura* (a devilish good word, !>v-lhe-wa\j— and all Milan was in controversy about him. ' '• The state of morals m these parts is in somo sort lax. A mother and son w* re pointed out al the theatre, as being pronounced by the Milanese wmld to be of the Tliehau dynasty — but this was all. The narrator (one of the first men in Milan) seemed to be not sufficiently scandalized by the taste or the tie. All society in Milan is carried on .it the opera: they have private boxes, where they play at cards, or talk, or any thing else; but (except at the Cassino) there are no open houses, or balls, &c. &c. • ' • * * * * * * * * a. i). 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRO.V ;;: " The peasant girls have all very fine dark eyes, and many of them are beautiful. There are also two dead bodies in fine preservation — one Saint Carlo Boromeo, at Milan ; the other not a saint, but a chief, named Visconti, at Monza — both of which appeared very agreeable. In one of the Boromean isles (the Isola bella), there is a large laurel — the largest known — on which Buonaparte, staying there just before the battle of Marengo, carved with his knife the word ' Battaglia.' I saw the letters, now half worn out and partly erased. " Excuse this tedious letter. To be tiresome is the privilege of old age and absence : I avail myself of the latter, and the former I have anticipated. If I do not speak to you of my own affairs, it is not from want of confidence, but to spare you and myself. My day is over — what then 1 — I have had it. To be sure, I have shortened it ; and if I had done as much by this letter, it would have been as well. But you will forgive that, if not the other faults of " Yours, ever and most affectionately, "B. " P.S. Nov. 7, 1816. " I have been over Verona. The amphitheatre is wonderful — beats oven Greece. Of the truth of Juliet's story, they seem tenacious to a degree, insisting on the fact — giving a date (1303), and showing a tomb. It is a plain, open, and partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual garden, once a cemetery, now ruined to the very graves. The situation struck me as very appropriate to the legend, being blighted as their love. I have brought away a few pieces of the granite, to give to my daughter and my nieces. Of the other marvels of this city, paintings, antiquities, &c. excepting the tombs of the Scaliger princes, I have no pretensions to judge. The Gothic monuments of the Scaligers pleased me, but 'a poor virtuoso am I,' and " Ever yours." It must have been observed, in my account of Lord Byron's life previous to his marriage, that, without leaving altogether unnoticed (what, indeed, was too notorious to be so evaded) certain affairs of gallantry in which he had the reputation of being engaged, I have thought it right, besides refraining from such details'in my narrative, to suppress also whatever passages in his Journals and Letters might be supposed to bear too personally or particularly on the same delicate lopics. Incomplete as the strange history of his mind and heart must, in one of its most interesting chapters, be left by these omissions, still a deference to that peculiar sense of decorum in this country, which marks the mention of such frailties as hardly a less crime than the commission of them, and, still more, the regard due to the feelings of the living, who ought not rashly to be made to suffer for the errors of the dead, have combined to render this sacrifice, however much it may be regretted, necessary. We have now, however, shifted the scene to a region where less caution is requisite ; — where, from the different standard applied to female morals in these respects, if the wrong itself be not lessened by the diminution of the consciousness of it, less scruple may be, at least, felt towards persons so circumstanced, and whatever delicacy we may think right to exercise in speaking of their frailties must be with reference rather to our views and usages than theirs. / I *•- f M , - jtf NOTICES OF THE (a. d. 1811 Availing myself, with this latter Qualification, of the greater latitudi thus allowed me, I Bhall venture bo far tt» depart from tin? plan hitherto pursued, as to give, with but little suppression, the noble poet's letters relative to his Italian adventures. To throw a veil altogether over these irregularities of his private life would be to afford — were it even practicable— but a partial portraiture id' bis character ; while, on the other hand, to rob him of the advantage of being himself the historian of his errors (where no injury to others can flow from the disclosure), would be to deprive him of whatever softening lighl can be thrown round such transgressions by the vivacity and fancy, the passionate love of beauty, and the strong yearning after affection, which, with the uid of the clew he himself alone can furnish, will be found to have mingled, more or less, with even the hast refined of ins attachments. Neither is any greal danger to be apprehended from the sanction or seduction of such an example; as they who would dare to plead the authority of Lord Byron for their errors must first be aide to trace them to the same palliating sources, — to that sensibility, whose very excesses showed its strength and depth, — that stretch of imagination, to the very verge, perhaps, of what reason can bear without giving way, — that whole combination, in short, of grand but disturbing powers, which alone could be allowed to extenuate such moral derangement, but which, even in him thus dangerously gifted, were insufficient to excuse it. Having premised these few observations, I shall now proceed, with less interruption, to lay his correspondence, during this and the two succeeding years, before the reader. LETTER ('(1,11. TO MR. MOORE. •• Venice, November it, lsit;. '•I wrote to y r ou from Verona the other day in my progress hither, which letter 1 hope you will receive. Some three years ago, or it may- be more, I recollect your telling me that you bad received a letter from our friend Sam, dated ' On board his gondola.' .My gondola is, at this present, waiting for me on the canal; but I prefer writing to you in the house, ii being autumn — and rather an English autumn than other- wise. It is my intention to remain at \ enice during the winter, pro- bably, as it has always been (ne.\t to the Hast) the greenesl island of jny imagination. It has not disappointed me; though its evident decay would, perhaps, have that effect upon others. Bui I have been familiar with ruins too long to dislike desolation. Besides, 1 have fallen m love, which, next to falling into the canal (which would be of DO use, as 1 can swim), is the best or the worst thing I could do. 1 have got some extremely good apartments in the house of a • Merchant of Venice,' who is a good deal occupied with business, and has a wife in her twenty-second year. Marianna (that is her name) is in her appearance altogether like an antelope. She has the large, black, oriental eyes, with that peculiar expression in them which is seen rarely among European! — even the Italians — and which many of the Turkish women give; themselves by tinging the eyelid, — an art no! known out of that country, I believe. This expression she has natu- rally, — and something more than this. In short. T cannot describe a. d. 1816.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 39 the effect of this kind of eye, — at least upon me. Her features are regular, and rather aquiline — mouth small — skin clear and soft, with a kind of hectic colour — forehead remarkably good : her hair is of the dark gloss, curl, and colour of Lady J * *'s : her figure is light and pretty, and she is a famous songstress — scientifically so : her natural voice (in conversation, I mean) is very sweet ; and the naivete of the Venetian dialect is always pleasing in the mouth of a woman. " November 23. M You will perceive that my description, which was proceeding with the minuteness of a passport, has been interrupted for several days. In the mean time, * * * * * * # # * * * # * * »* * * * * * # * " December 5. " Since my former dates, I do not know that I have much to add on the subject, and, luckily, nothing to take away ; for I am more pleased than ever with my Venetian, and begin to feel very serious on that point — so much so, that I shall be silent. ***** r " By way of divertisement, I am studying daily, at an Armenian monastery, the Armenian language. I found that my mind wanted something craggy to break upon ; and this — as the most difficult thing I could discover here for an amusement — I have chosen, to torture me into attention. It is a rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of learning it. I try, and shall go on ; but I answer for nothing, least of all for my intentions or my success. There are some very curious MSS. in the monastery, as well as books ; transla- tions also from Greek originals, now lost, and from Persian and Syriac, &c. ; besides works of their own people. Four years ago the French instituted an Armenian professorship. Twenty pupils presented them- selves on Monday morning, full of noble ardour, ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. They persevered, with a courage worthy of the nation and of universal conquest, till Thursday ; when fifteen of the twenty succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the alphabet. It is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an alphabet — that must be said for them. But it is so like these fellows, to do by it as they did by their sovereigns — abandon both ; to parody the old rhymes, ' Take a thing and give a thing' — ' Take a King and give a King.' They are the worst of animals, except their conquerors. " I hear that H — n is your neighbour, having a living in Derbyshire. You will find him an excellent-hearted fellow, as well as one of the cleverest ; a little, perhaps, too much japanned by preferment in the church and the tuition of youth, as well as inoculated with the disease of domestic felicity, besides being overrun with fine feelings about woman and constancy (that small change of Love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal) ; but, otherwise, a very worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (I suppose) a child by this time. Pray remember me to him, and say that I know not which to envy most — his neighbourhood, him, or you. " Of Venice I shall say little. You must have seen many descrip- tions ; and they are most of them like. It is a poetical place ; and clas- sical, to us. from Shakspeare and Otway. I have not yet sinned against '" VMM ES 01 THE [A.D, i-.. it in verse, nor do I know that I shall n»b printed compositions of mine. ■ \ Pilgrimage to Jerusalem !' a. d. 1816.J LIFE OF LURD BYRlLV 47 how the devil should I write about Jerusalem, never having yet been there ? As for ' A Tempest,' it was not a tempest when I left England, but a very fresh breeze : and as to an ' Address to little Ada' (who, by-the-way, is a year old to-morrow), I never wrote a line about her. except in ' Farewell' and the third Canto of Childe Harold." LETTER CCLVII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, Dec. 2?th, 181o. "As the demon of silence seems to have possessed you, I am determined to have my revenge in postage : this is my sixth or seventh letter since summer and Switzerland. My last was an injunction to contradict and consign to confusion that Cheapside impostor, who (I heard by a letter from your island) had thought proper to append my name to his spurious poesy, of which I know nothing, nor of his pre- tended purchase or copyright. I hope you have, at least, received that letter. " As the news of Venice must be very interesting to you, I will regale you with it. " Yesterday, being the feast of St. Stephen, ever) 7 mouth was put in motion. There was nothing but fiddling and playing on the virginals, and all kinds of conceits and divertisements, on every canal of this aquatic city. I dined with the Countess Albrizzi and a Paduan and Venetian party, and afterward went to the opera, at the Fenice theatre (which opens for the Carnival on that day), — the finest, by-the-way, I have ever seen : it beats our theatres hollow in beauty and scenery, and those of Milan and Brescia bow before it. The opera and its sirens were much like other operas and women, but the subject of the said opera was something edifying; it turned — the plot and conduct thereof— upon a fact narrated by Livy of a hundred and fifty married ladies having poisoned a hundred and fifty husbands in good old times. The bachelors of Rome believed this extraordinary mortality to be merely the common effect of matrimony or a pestilence ; but the sur- viving Benedicts, being all seized with the colic, examined into the matter, and found that 'their possets had been drugged;' the conse- quence of which was, much scandal ana several suits at law. This is really and truly the subject of the musical piece at the Fenice ; and you can't conceive what pretty things are sung and recitativoed about the horrenda strage. The conclusion was a lady's head about to be chopped off by a lictor, but (I am sorry to say) he left it on, and she got up and sung a trio with the two Consuls, the Senate in the back ground being chorus. The ballet was distinguished by nothing remarkable, except that the principal she-dancer went into convulsions because she was not applauded on her first appearance ; and the manager came forward to ask if there was ' ever a physician in the theatre.' There was a Greek one in my box, whom I wished very much to volunteer his services, being sure that in this case these would have been the last convulsions which would have troubled the ballarina; but he would not. The crowd was enormous, and in coming out, having a lady under my arm, I was obliged, in making way, almost to ' beat a Venetian and traduce the state,' being com- pelled to regale a person with an English punch in the guts, which 46 NOTICES OF THE [*.». 1817. sent hnn as lar back as the squeeze and the passage would admit, lie did not ask lor another, but, with great signs of disapprobation and dismay, appealed to his conipatriois, who laughed at him. " I am going on with my Armenian studies m a morning, and assist- ing and stimulating in the English portion of an English and Armenian grammar, now publishing at tin- convent of St. Lazarus. "The superior of tin friars is a bishop, and a fine old fellow, with the beard of a meteor. Father Paschal is also a learned and pious soul. He was two years in England. u I am still dreadfully m love with the Adriatic lady whom I spake of in a former letter (and not in this— I add, for fear of mistakes, for the only one mentioned in the first part of this epistle is elderly and bookish, two things which 1 have ceased to admire), and love in this part of the world is no sinecure. This is also the season when every- body make up their intrigues for the ensuing year, and cut for partners for the next deal. " And now, if you do n't write, I do n't know what I won't say or do, nor what 1 will. Send me some news— good news. " Yours, very truly, &c. &c. &c. "B- " P.S. Remember me to Mr. Cifford, with all duty. " I hear that the Edinburgh Review has cut up Coleridge's Christa- bel, and me for praising it, which omen, I think, bodes no great good to your forthcome or coming ("auto and Castle (of (Million). My run of luck within the last year seems to have taken a turn every wa\ ; but never mind, I will bring myself through in the end— if not, 1 can lie but where 1 began. In the mean time, 1 am not displeased to be where I am— 1 mean at Venice. My Adriatic nymph is this moment here, and I must therefore repose from this letter." LETTER CCLVIU. TO MR. MLRRAV. ■ \ emcc, Jan. 2, 1817. " Your letter has arrived. Pray, in publishing the Third Canto, have you omitted any passages ? 1 "hope not ; and indeed wrote to yon on niv v.av over the Alps to prevent such an incident. Sa> in your next whether or not the nlwle of the Canto (as sent to you) has been published. 1 wrote to you again the other day (Juice, 1 think), and shall be glad to hear of the reception of those letters. "To-day is the 2d of January. On this day three years ago the I 'orsan's publication is dated, 1 think, in my letter to Moore. On this dav tn'o yean I married ('Whom the Lord lovcth he chastencth," — 1 sha'n't forget the day in a hurry), and it is odd enough that I this lav received a letter from you announcing the publication ol Childe Harold, &c. &c. on the day of the date of the • Corsair;' and I also received one from my sister* written on the loth of December, my daughter's birth-day (and relative chiefly to my daughter), and arriving 0D the day of the date of my marriage, tins present -Jd of January, the month of my lurth, — and various Other astrologOUS matters, which 1 have no time to enumerate. 1 By-the-wav, vou might as well write t-» Hentsch, mv c.cnova a. D. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 49 banker, and inquire whether the two packets consigned to his care were- or were not delivered to Mr. St. Aubj n, or if they are still in his keep, ing. One contains papers, letters, and all the original MS. of your Third Canto, as first conceived ; and the other some bones from the field of Morat. Many thanks for your news, and the good spirits in which your letter is written. " Venice and I agree very well ; but I do not know that I have any thing new to say except of the last new opera, which I sent in my late letter. The Carnival is commencing, and there is a good deal of fun here and there— besides business ; for all the world are making up their intrigups for the season, changing, or going on upon a renewed lease. 1 am very well off with Marianna, who is not at all a person to tire me ; firstly, because I do not tire of a woman personally, but because they are generally bores in their disposition ; and, secondly, because she is amiable, and has a tact which is not always the portion of the fair creation ; and, thirdly, she is very pretty ; and, fourthly,— but there is no occasion for farther specification. * So far we have gone on vgry well ; as to the future, I never anticipate* — carpe diem — the past at least is one's own, which is one reason for making sure of the present. So much for my proper liaison. " The general state of morals here is much the same as in the Doges' time : a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover ; those who have two, three, or more, are a little mild ; but it is only those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low connexion, such as the Princess of Wales with her cou- rier (who, by-the-way, is made a knight of Malta), who are considered as overstepping the modesty of marriage. In Venice, the nobility have a trick of marrying with dancers and singers ; and, truth to say* the women of their own order are by no means handsome ; but the general race, the women of the second and other orders, the wives of the merchants, and proprietors, and untitled gentry, are mostly beV sangue, and it is with these that the more amatory connexions are usually formed. There are also instances of stupendous constancy. I knew a woman of fifty who never had but one lover, who dying early, she became devout, renouncing all but her husband. She piques herself, as may be presumed, upon this miraculous fidelity, talking of it occasionally with a species of misplaced morality, which is rather amusing. There is no convincing a woman here that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of right or the fitness of things in having an amoroso. The great sin seems to lie in conceal- ing it, or having more than one, that is, unless such an extension of the prerogative is understood and approved of by the prior claimant. In my case, I do not know that I had any predecessor, and am pretty sure that there is no participator; and am inclined to think, from the youth of the party, and from the frank, undisguised way in which eveiy body avows every thing in this part of the world, when there is any thing to avow, as well as from some other circumstances, such as the marriage being recent, &c. &c. &c, that this is the premier pas. It does not much signify. " In another sheet, I send you some sheets of a grammar, English and Armenian, for the use of the Armenians, of which 1 promoted, and indeed induced, the publication. (It cost me but a thousand francs — French livres.) I still pursue my lessons in the language without any rapid progress, but advancing a little daily. Padre Paschal, with some little help from me, as translator of his Italian into English, is Vol. II.— D 50 NOTICES OF Tin. I a. p. 1817. also proceeding in .1 Ms. Grammar for tlie English acquisition of Armenian, which will be printed also, when finished. " We \\:nii to know if there are any Armenian types and letter- press m England, al Oxford, 'Cambridge, or elsewhere ' ¥bu know, 1 suppose, that, mam yean ago, the two Whistons published in England an original text of 1 a histon of Armenia, with their own Latin trans- lation 1 Do those types still exist 1 and where 1 Pray inquire among your learned acquaintance. " When tins Grammar (1 mean the one now printing) is done, will you have any objection to take forty or fifty copies, which will not cost in all above five or ten guineas, and try the curiosity of the Learned with a sale of them? Say \ es or no, as you like. 1 ran assure you that they have some very curious books and MSS., chiefly translations from Greek originals now lost. They arc, besides, a much-respected and learned community, and the study of their language was taken ii[)\\itli great ardour by some literary Frenchmen in Buonaparte's lime. " I have not done a stitch of poetry since I left Switzerland, and have not at present the estro upon me. The truth is, that you are tif raid of having a Fourth Canto before September, and of another copyright, but I have at present no thoughts of resuming that poem, nor of beginning any other. If 1 write, 1 think of trying prose, but I dread introducing living people, or applications which might be made to living people. Perhaps one day or other I may attempt some wink of fancy in prose descriptive Of Italian manners and 01 human pas- sions; but at present 1 am preoccupied. As for poesy, mine is the dream of the sleeping passions ; when they are awake, 1 cannot speak their language, only in their somnambulism, and just now they are not dormant. " If Mr. Gifford wants carte blanche as to the Siege of Corinth, he has it, and may do as he likes with it. "I sent you a letter contradictory of the Cheapside man (who in- vented the ston you speak of ) the other day. I\1y besl respects to Mr. Gifford, and such Of my friends as you may see at your house. I wish you all prosperity and new year's gratulation, and am " yours, &c." LETTER CCL1X. TO mil UOOBI • " Venice, January 88th, 1817. "Your letter of the 8th is before me. The remedy for your p]< thora is simple— abstinence. I was obliged to have recourse to tin- like some \ears ago, I mean in point of dirt, and, with the exception of some convivial weeks and days (il mfghl be months now ami then), have kept to 1 '\ I bagOl as e\er since, for all this, let me hear that you are better. You must nol indulge in 'filthy beer,' nor in porter, nor eat turner*— the lasl are the devS to those who swallow dinner. • * * • * "I am truly sorry to hear of your father's misfortune— cruel at any time, bui doubly cruel in advanced life. However, you will, at least, have the satisfaction <>i doing your part by bim, and. depend upon it, i1 will not be in vain. Fortune, to be sure, is a female, but not such a a. d. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 5). b — h as the rest (always excepting your wife and my sister from such sweeping terms) ; for she generally has some justice in the long rum I have no spite against her, though, between her and Nemesis, I have had some sore gauntlets to run — but then I have done my best to de- serve no better. But to you, she is a good deal in arrear, and she will come round — mind if she do n't : you have the vigour of life, of independence, of talent, spirit, and character, all with yon. What you can do for yourself, you have done and will do ; and surely there are some others in the world who would not be sorry to be of use, if you would allow them to be useful, or at least attempt it. " I think of being in England in the spring. If there is a row, by the sceptre of King Ludd, but I '11 be one ; and if there is none, and only a continuance of ' this meek, piping time of peace,' I will take a cottage a hundred yards to the south of your abode, and become your neighbour ; and we will compose such canticles, and hold such dia- logues, as shall be the terror of the times (including the newspaper of that name), and the wonder, and honour, and praise of the Morn- ing Chronicle and posterity. " I rejoice to hear of your forthcoming in February — though I tremble for the magnificence which you attribute to the new Childe Harold. I am glad you like it ; it is a fine, indistinct piece of poetical desolation, and my favourite. I was half mad during the time of its composition, between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love unextin- guishable, thoughts unutterable, and the night-mare of my own de- linquencies. I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mo- ther-in-law ; and, even then, if I could have been certain to haunt her, and fling the shattered scalp of my sinciput and occiput in her fright- ful face — but I won't dwell upon these trifling family matters. " Venice is in the estro of her Carnival, and I have been up these last two nights at the ridottoand the opera, and all that kind of thing. Now for an adventure. A few days ago a gondolier brought me a billet without a subscription, intimating a wish on the part of the writer to meet me either in gondola, or at the island of San Lazaro, or at a third rendezvous indicated in the note. ' I know the country's disposition well,' — in Venice ' they do let heaven see those tricks they dare not show,' &c. &c. ; so, for all response, I said that neither of the three places suited me ; but that I would either be at home at ten at night ctlone, or be at the ridotto at midnight, where the writer might meet me masked. At ten o'clock I was at home and alone (Marianna was gone with her husband to a conversazione), when the door of my apartment opened, and in walked a well-looking and (for an Italian) bionda girl of about nineteen, who informed me that she was married to the brother of my amorosa, and wished to have some conversation with me. I made a decent reply, and we had some talk in Italian and Romaic (her mother being a' Greek of Corfu) ; when, lo ! in a very few minutes in marches, to my very great astonishment, Marianna S * *, in propria persond, and, after making a most polite courtesy to her sister-in-law and to me, without a single word, seizes her said sister-in-law by the hair, and bestows upon her some sixteen slaps, which would have made your ear ache only to hear their echo. I need not describe the screaming which ensued. The luckless visiter took flight. I seized Marianna, who, after several vain efforts to get away in pursuit of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; and, in spite of reasoning, eau de Cologne, vinegar, half a pint of water, D 3 52 MOTH ES OF THE [a, d. im. and God knows w bal other water besides, continued so till past mid- night. " After damning my Ha i ants for letting pi ople in without apprizing me, I round thai Mananna in the morning had seen her Bister-in-law's gondolier on the stairs ; ami, BUBpecting that Ins apparition boded her no good, had either returned <>f her own accord, or been followed by her maids or some other spj of her people to tin conversazione, from whence she returned to perpetrate this piece of pugilism. 1 had seen fits before, and also some small scenery of the same genus in and out of our island; but this was not all. After about an hour, in comi - — who? why. Signer S * ', ber lord and husband, and finds me with his wife fainting upon a sofa, and all the apparatus of confusion, dishevelled hair, hats, handkerchiefs, salts, smelling bottles — and the lady as pale as ashes, without sen» or motion. His first question was, 'What is all this?' The lady could not repl) — SO 1 did. 1 told him the explanation was the easiest thing in the world; but in the mean tune, it would be as well to recover his wilt — at least, ber -i uses. This came about in due time of suspiration and respiration. " You need not be alarmed — jealousy is not the order of the day in Venice, and daggers are out of fashion, while duels, on love matters, are unknown — at least, with the husbands. But, for all this, it was an awkward affair; and though he must have known that 1 made love to Mananna, yet 1 believe he was not, till that evening, aware of thi extent to which it had gone. It is very well known that almost all the married women have a lover ; but it is usual to keep up the forms, as m other nations. 1 did not, therefore, know what the devil to say. i could not out with the truth, out of regard to her, and I did not choose to lie for my sake; — besides, the thing told itself. I thought. the best way would be to let her explain it as she chose (a woman being never at a loss — the Devil always sticks by them) — oidy deter mining to protect and carry her off, in case of any ferocity on the part of the Signor. I saw that he was quite calm. She went to bed, and next day — how they settled it, I know not, but settle it they did. Well — then I had to explain to Mananna about this never to be suffi- ciently confounded sisier-in-law ; which I did by swearing innocence, eternal constancy, &c. &c. * * * Hut the sister-m-law, very much discomposed with being treated in such wise, has (not having ber own shame before her eyes) told tin affair to half Venice, and the servants (who were summoned by the fight and the fainting) to the other half. Bui here, nobody minds su-li trifles, except to be amused by them. 1 don't know whether you will be so, but I have ^crawled a long letter out of these follies. " Believe me ever, <\e." LETTER CCLX. TO MR. Ml/RRAY. •■ Venice, January 24th, 1817. • • * • « " I have been requested by the Countess Allui/.zi here to present her with ' the Works ;' and wish you therefore to send me a copy, that I may comply with her requisition. You may include the last pub- a. d. 1817.] LIFE OP LORD BYRON. 5.3 lished, of which I have seen and know nothing, but from your letter of the 13th of December. " Mrs. Leigh tells me that most of her friends prefer the first two Cantos. I do not know whether this be the general opinion or not (it is not hers) ; but it is natural it should be so. I, however, think differ- ently, which is natural also ; but who is right, or who is wrong, is of very little consequence. " Dr. Rfrlidori, as I hear from him by letter from Pisa, is about to return to England, to go to the Brazils on a medical speculation with the Danish consul. As you are in the favour of the powers that be, could you not get him some letters of recommendation from some of your government friends to some of the Portuguese settlers ] he un- derstands his profession well, and has no want of general talents ; his faults are the faults of a pardonable vanity and youth. His remaining with me was out of the question : I have enough to do to manage my own scrapes ; and as precepts without example are not the most gracious homilies, I thought it better to give him his conge: but I know no great harm of him, and some good. He is clever and ac- complished; knows his profession, by all accounts, well; and is honourable in his dealings, and not at all malevolent. I think, with luck, he will turn out a useful member of society (from which he will lop the diseased members) and the College of Physicians. If you can be of any use to him, or know any one who can, pray be so, as he has his fortune to make. He has kept a medical journal under the eye of Vacca (the first surgeon on the continent) at Pisa : Vacca has corrected it, and it must contain some valuable hints or information on the practice of this country. If you can aid him in publishing this also, by your influence with your brethren, do; I do not ask you to publish it yourself, because that sort of request is too personal and embarrassing. He has also a tragedy, of which, having seen nothing, I say nothing : but the very circumstance of his having made these efforts (if they are only efforts), at one-and-twenty, is in his favour, and proves him to have good dispositions for his own improvement. So if, in the way of commendation or recommendation, you can aid his objects with your government friends, I wish you would. I should think some of your Admiralty Board might be likely to have it in their power." LETTER CCLXI. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, February 15th, 1817. " I have received your two letters, but not the parcel you mention. As the Waterloo spoils are arrived, I will make you a present of them, if you choose to accept of them ; pray do. " I do not exactly understand from your letter what has been omitted, or what not, in the publication ; but I shall see probably some day or other. I could not attribute any but a good motive to Mr. Gifford or yourself in such omission ; but as our politics are so very opposite, we should probably differ as to the passages. However, if it is only a note or notes, or a line or so, it cannot signify. You say ' a poem; 1 what poem ? You can tell me in your next. "Of Mr. Hobhouse's quarrel with the Quarterly Review, I know .,i \0T1CES OF THE La. d. 1817. very little except ' ""> article itself, which was certainly harsh enough: bul l quite agree thai it would have been better not to an- swer— particularlj after Mr. It'. /!'., who never mure will trouble you, trouble you. I have been uneasy, because Mr. ll. told me that his letter or preface was to be addressed to me. Now, be and I are friends of man] years; 1 have main obligations to him, and he none tome, which have not been cancelled and mure than repaid: but Mr. Gilford and I arc friends also, and lie has inoreo\er been litfrarily SO, through thick and thin, in despite of difference of years, morals, habits, and even polities; ami therefore I leel in a very awkward Mtuatioii between the two, Mr. Gilford and mj friend Hobhouse, and can only wish that thej had no difference, or thai such as thej have were ac- commodated. The Answer 1 have not se< n, for — il is odd enough for people bo mtnnali — but Mr. Hobhouse and I are \eiy sparing of our literary confidences. For i sample, the other daj he wished to have a Ms. of the Third Canto to read over to his brother, &c. w hich w as refused; — and 1 have never seen his journals, nor he mini — (I only kept the short one of the mountains for my sister) — nor do I think that hardly ever he or I saw any of the other's productions previous to their publication. "The article in the Edinburgh Review on Coleridge 1 have not seen; but whether I am attacked in it or not, or in any other of the same journal, I shall never think ill of Mr. Jeffrey on that account, nor forgel tli.it his conduct towards me has been certainly most hand- some during the last four or more years. "I forgot to mentiowto you that a kind of poem in dialogue* (in blank verse) or drama, from which ' The Incantation' is an extract, begun last summer in Switzerland, is finished; it is in three acts ; but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind. Almost all the persons — but two or three — are Spirits of the earth and air, or the waters; the scene is in the Alps; the hero a kind of magician, who is tormented by a species of remorse, the cause of which is left half unexplained. He wanders about invoking these Spirits, which appear to him, and are of no use; he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil Principle, in propria persond, to evocate a ghost, which appears, and gives him an ambiguous and disagreeable answer; and in the third act he is found by Ins attendants dying in a tower where he had studied his art. Sou may perceive by this outline that I have no great opinion of this piece of phantasy; but I have at least rendered it quite impossible for the stage, for which my intercourse with Drury- lane has given me the greatest contempt. " I have no* even copied it off, and feel too lazy at present to attempt the whole; but when I have, 1 will send it you, and you may either throw it into the fire or not.'' ■ Manfred. A . v. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 55 LETTER CCLXIL TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, February 25th, 1817. " I wrote to you the other day in answer to your letter; at present, I would trouble you with a commission, if you would be kind enough to undertake it. " You perhaps know Mr. Love, the jeweller, of Old Bond-street. — In 1813, Avhen in the intention of returning to Turkey, I purchased of him, and paid [argent comptant) about a dozen snuff-boxes, of more or less value, as presents for some of my Mussulman acquaintance. These I have now with me. The other day, having occasion to make an alteration in the lid of one (to place a portrait in it), it has turned out to be silver-gilt instead of gold, for which last it was sold and paid for. This was discovered by the workman in trying it, before taking off the hinges and working upon the lid. I have of course recalled and preserved the box in statu quo. What I wish you to do is, to see the said Mr. Love, and inform him of this circumstance, adding, from me, that I will take care he shall not have done this with impunity. " If there is no remedy in law, there is at least the equitable one of making known his guilt, — that is, his silver gilt, and be d — d to him. " I shall carefully preserve all the purchases I made of him on that occasion for my return, as the plague in Turkey is a barrier to travel- ling there at present, or rather the endless quarantine which would be the consequence before one could land in coming back. Pray state the matter to him with due ferocity. " I sent you the other day some extracts from a kind of Drama which I had begun in Switzerland and finished here ; you will tell me if they are received. They were only in a letter. 1 have not yet had energy to copy it out, or I would send you the whole in different covers. " The Carnival closed this day last week. " Mr. Hobhouse is still at Rome, I believe. I am at present a little unwell; — sitting up too late and some subsidiary dissipations have lowered my blood a good deal ; but I have at present the quiet and temperance of Lent before me. " Believe me, &c. " P.S. Remember me to Mr. Gifford. — I have not received your parcel or parcels. — Look into ' Moore's (Dr. Moore's) View of Italy' for me ; in one of the volumes you will find an account of the Doge Valiere (it ought to be Falieri) and his conspiracy, or the motives of it. Get it transcribed for me, and send it in a letter to me soon. I want it, and cannot find so good an account of that business here ; though the veiled patriot, and the place where he was crowned, and afterward decapitated, still exist and are shown. I have searched all their his- tories ; but the policy of the old aristocracy made their writers silent on his motives, which were a private grievance against one of the patricians. " I mean to write a tragedy on the subject, which appears to me very dramatic : an old man. jealous, and conspiring against the state. 36 M)TU E8 01 Till. [a. D. 1817. of which he was the actually reigning chief. The last circumstance makes it the most remarkable ;md only fact of the kind in all history of all nations," LETTER CCLXIII. TO MR. MOORE. " Venice, February 28th, Inl T. "You will, perhaps, complain as much of the frequency of my let- ters bow, as \ini were wont to do of their rarity. I think tins is the fourth within as manv moons. I fee] anxious to hear from you, even more than usual, because youT last indicated thai you were unwell, \t present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The Carnival — that is, the latter pari of it — and Bitting up late o' nights, had knocked me up a little. But it is over, — and it is now Lent, w nli all its abstinent e and sacred music. "The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went, as also. to most of the ridottos, &e. &c; and, though I did not dissipate orach upon the whole, yet I find ' the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine. " So we '11 go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. Though the night was made for loving. And the day returns too soon, Yet we '11 go no more a roving By the light of the moon. I have lately had some news of litterafoor, as 1 heard the editor of the Monthly pronounce it once upon a time. 1 heard that \Y. VV. has been publishing and responding to the attacks of (lie Quarterly, in the learned Perry's Chronicle. I read his poesies last autumn, and, among them, found an epitaph On his bull-dog, and another on my- self. But 1 beg Leave to assure him (like the astrologer Partridge) that J am not only alive now, but was alive also at the time he wrote it. ft « * * * * • • Hobhousc has (I hear, also) expectorated a letter againsl the Quar- terly, addressed to me. 1 feel awkwardly situated between him and Gilford, both being my friends. " And this is your month of going to press — by the body of Diana ! (a Venetian oath.) I feel as anxious — but not fearful for you — as if it were myself coming out in a work of humour, which would, you know, lie the antipodes of all my previous publications. 1 do n't think you have any thing to dread but your own reputation. Vou must keep up io that. As you never showed me a bne of your work, I do not even know your measure ; but you must send me a copy by Mur- ray forthwith, and then \ou shall hear what 1 think. I dare say you are in a pucker. Of all authors, you are the only really modest one I a. d. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 57 ever met with, — which would sound oddly enough to those who re- collect your morals when you were young — that is, when you were extremely young — I do n't mean to stigmatize you either with years or morality. " I believe I told you that the E. R. had attacked me, in an article on Coleridge (I have not seen it)—' Et tu, Jeffrey ?' — « there is nothing but roguery in villanous man.' — But I absolve him of all attacks, present and future ; for I think he had already pushed his clemency in my behoof to the utmost, and I shall always think well of him. I only wonder he did not begin before, as my domestic destruction was a fine opening for all the world, of which all, who could, did well to avail themselves. " If I live ten years longer, you will see, however, that it is not over with me — I do n't mean in literature, for that is nothing ; and it may seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But you will see that I shall do something or other — the times and fortune permit- ting — that 'like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.' But I doubt whether my constitution will hold out. I have, at intervals, exorcised it most devilishly. "1 have not yet fixed a time of return, but I think of the spring. I shall have been away a year in April next. You never mention Rogers, nor Hodgson,"your clerical neighbour, who has lately got a living near you. Has he also got a child yet ] — his desideratum when I saw him last. ***** " Pray let me hear from you, at your time and leisure, believing me ever and truly and affectionately, &c." LETTER CCLXIV. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, March 3d, 1817. " In acknowledging the arrival of the article from the ' Quarterly,'* which I received two days ago, I cannot express myself better than in the words of my sister Augusta, who (speaking of it) says, that it is written in a spirit ' of the most feeling and kind nature.' It is, how- ever, something more : it seems to me (as far as the subject of it may be permitted to judge) to be very-well written as a composition, and I think will do the journal no discredit, because even those who con- demn its partiality must praise its generosity. The temptations to take another and a less favourable view of the question have been so great and numerous, that, what with public opinion, politics, &c, he must be a gallant as well as a good man, who has ventured in that place, and at this time, to write such an article even anonymously. Such things are, however, their own reward, and I even flatter myself that the writer, whoever he may be (and I have no guess), will not regret that the perusal of this has given me as much gratification as any composition of that nature could give, and more than any other has given,— and I have had a good many in my time of one kind or * An article in number 31 of this Review, written as Lord Byron after- ward discovered, by Sir Walter Scott, and well meriting, by the kind and generous spirit that breathes through it, the warm and lasting gratitude it awakened in the noble Poet. NOTICES OF THE [a. u. 1817. the oihrr. Ii is not the mere praise, but there is a tad and a delicacy throughout, noi onlj with regard to me, but to others, which, as it had doI been observed elsewhere, l bad till now doubted whether it could be observed any where. " Perhaps some day or other yon will know or tell me the writer's name. Be assured, had the article been a harsh one, I should not have asked it. "1 have lately written to you frequently, with extracts, &<■■ which 1 hope j <>ii have n ceived, or w ill receive, w ith or befon tins letter. — Ever since tin conclusion of the Carnival I have been unwell (do not mention this, on any account, to Mr-. Leigh; for if 1 grow worse, she will know it too soon, and if I gel better, there is tccasion that she should know it at all), and have hardl\ Mured out of the house. How- ( ver, I do ii'i want a physician, ami if I did, verj luckily those of Italy are the worst in the world, so thai I should still have a chance. They have. I l.chc\c. one famous surgeon, Vacca, who lives at Pisa, who might be useful in case of dissection: — but he is some hundred miles ofr. M\ malady is a sort of low ish fever, originating from what my ' pastor and master,' Jackson, would call ' taking too much out of one's self.' However, 1 am better within this day or two. " I missed seeing the new Patriarch's procession to St. Mark's the other day (owing to my indisposition), with six hundred and fifty priests iii his rear — a 'goodly army.' The admirable government of Vienna, in ils edict from thence, authorizing his installation, prescribed, as part of the pageant, * a coach ami four horses.' To show how- very 'German to the matter' this was, you have only to suppose our parliameni commanding the \jchbishopof Canterbury to proceed fiom Hyde Park Corner to St. Paul's Cathedral in the Lord Mayor's barge, or the Margate hoy. There is but St. Mark's Place in all Venice broad enough for a carriage to move, and it is paved w ith large smooth flag stones, SO that the chariot and horses of Elijah himself would be puzzled to manoeuvre upon it. Those of Pharaoh might do better; for the canals, — and particularly the Grand Canal, an; sufficiently capacious and extensive for his whole host. Of course, no coach could be attempted ; but the Venetians, who are very naive as veil as arch, were much amused with the ordinance. "The Armenian Grammar is published; but my Armenian studies are suspended for the present till my head aches a little less. I sent you the other day, m two rovers, the first Act of 'Manfred,' a drama as mad as Nat. Lee's Bedlam tragedy, which was in 25 acts and some odd scenes : — mine is but in Three Acts. "I find I have begun this htter at the wrong end: never mind; I must end u. then, at thfrright. ■• yours ever very truly " and obligedly, &c." LETTER CCLX\ , TO MR. MURRAY. ■ \ enice, March 9th, 1817. •■ In r emit ting the Third Ad of the sort of dramatic poem of which you will by this time have received the first two (at least I hope so), which were sent within the last three weeks, I have little to observe, a. d. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 59 except that you must not publish it (if it ever is published) without giving- me previous notice. I have really and truly no notion whether it is good or bad ; and as this was not the case with the principal of my former publications, I am, therefore, inclined to rank it very huift*- bly. You wdl submit it to Mr. Gifford, and to whomsoever you please besides. With regard to the question of copyright (if it ever comes to publication), I do not know whether you would think three hundred guineas an over-estimate ; if you do, you may diminish it : I do not think it worth more ; so you may see I make some difference between it and the others. " I have received your two Reviews (but not the ' Tales of my Land- lord') ; the Quarterly I acknowledged particularly to you, on its arrival, ten days ago. What you tell me of Perry petrifies me ; it is a rank imposition. In or about- February or March, 1816, I was given to un- derstand that Mr. Croker was not only a coadjutor in the attacks of the Courier in 1814, but the author of some lines tolerably ferocious, then recently published in a morning paper. Upon this I wrote a reprisal. The whole of the lines I have forgotten, and even the pur- port of them I scarcely remember; for on your assuring me that he was not, &c. &c, I put them into the Tire before your face, and there never was but that one rough copy. Mr. Davies, the oidy person who ever heard them read, wanted a copy, which I refused. If, however, by some impossibility, which I cannot divine, the ghost of these rhymes should walk into the world, I never will deny what I have really written, but hold myself personally responsible for satisfaction, though I reserve to myself the right of disavowing all or any fabrica- tions. To the previous facts you are a witness, and best know how far my recapitulation is correct ; and I request that you will inform Mr. Perry from me, that I wonder he should permit such an abuse of my name in his paper ; I say an abuse, because my absence, at least, demands some respect, and my presence and positive sanction could alone justify him in such a proceeding, even were the lines mine ; and if false, there are no words for him. I repeat to you that the original was burnt before you on your assurance, and there never was a copy, nor even a verbal repetition, — very much to the discomfort of some zealous Whigs, who bored me for them (having heard it bruited by Mr. Davies that there were such matters) to no purpose ; for, having written them solely with the notion that Mr. Croker was the aggressor, and for my own and not party reprisals, I would not lend me to the zeal of any sect when I was made aware that he was not the writer of the offensive passages. You know, if there was such a thing, I would not deny it. I mentioned it openly at the time to you, and you will remember why and where I destroyed it ; and no power nor wheedling on earth should have made, or could make, me (if I recol- lected them) give a copy after that, unless I was well assured that Mr. Croker was really the author of that which you assured ine he was not. " I intend for England this spring, where I have some affairs to adjust ; but the post hurries me. For this month past I have been unwell, but am getting better, and thinking of moving homewards towards May, without going to Rome, as the unhealthy season comes on soon, and I can return when I have settled the business I go upon, which need not be long. * * * * I should have thought the Assyrian tale very succeedable. " I saw, in Mr. W. W.'s poetry, that he had written my epitaph ; I would rather have written his. NOTICES OF THE [a. d. i- " The thing I have sent you, you will see .it I glimpse, could never be attempted or thought offer the stage ; I much doubt it for publica- tion even. Jt is too much in my old style ; but I composed it actually with a horror of the stage, and with ;i view to render the thought of it impracticable, knowing the zeal of my friends that I should try that for which 1 have an invincible repugnance, viz. a representation. " I certainly am a devil of a mannerist, ami must leave offj but wlial could 1 do ! Without exertion Of some kind, I should have sunk. umler my imagination and reality. My best respects to Mr. Clifford, to Waller Scott, and to all friends. " Yours ever." LETTER CCLXVI. TO MR. MOORE. •• Venice, March 10, 1817. " I wrote again to you lately, but I hope you won't be sorry to have another epistle. I have been unwell this last month, with a kind of slow and low fever, which fixes upon me at niuht, and goes off in the morning ; but, however. I am now better. In spring it is probable we may meet; at least I intend for England, where I have business, and hope to meet you m your restored health and additional laurels. " Murray lias sent me the Quarterly and the Edinburgh. When I tell you that Walter Scott is the author of the article in the former, vou will agree With me that such an article is still more honourable to him than to myself. I am perfectly pleased with Jeffrey's also, which I wish you to tell him, with my remembrances — not thai 1 suppose it is of any consequence to him, or ever could have been, whether I am pleased or not, — but simply in my private relation to him, as his well-wisher, and it may be one day as his acquaintance. I wish you would also add, — what you know, — that I was not, and, indeed, am not even now, the misanthropical ami gloomy gentleman he lakes me for, but a facetious companion, well to do with those with whom 1 am intimate, and as loquacious and laughing as if 1 were a much cleverer fellow. " I suppose now 1 shall never be able to shake off my sables m public imagination, more particularly since my moral * * clove down my fame. However, nor that, nor more than that, has yet extinguished my spirit, which always rises with the rebound. •• \t Venice we are in Lent, and I nave not lately moved out of doors, — my feverishnets requiring quiet, and — bj waj of being rnpn quiet — here is the Signora Marianna just come in and sealed at my elbow. " Have- you seen * * *'s hook of poesy I and, if you have seen it, are you not delighted with it ? And have you — I really cannot go on. There is a pair of great black eyes looking over my shoulder, like the angel leaning over St. Matthew's, in the old frontispieces to the Evan- gelists, — so that I must turn and answer them instead" of you. "Ever, &c" a. d. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. til LETTER CCLXVIL TO MR. MOORE. "Venice, March 25th, 1817. " I have at last learned, in default of your own writing (or not writing — which should it be ? for I am not very clear as to the appli- cation of the word default), from Murray, two particulars of (are be- longing to) you ; one, that you are removing to Hornsey, which is, I presume, to be nearer London ; and the other, that your Poem is announced by the name of Lalla Rookh. I am glad of it, — first, that we are to have it at last, and next, I like a tough title myself— witness the Giaour and Childe Harold, which choked half the Blues at starting. Besides, it is the tail of Alcibiades's dog,— not that I suppose you want either dog or tail. Talking of tail, I wish you had not called it a ' Persian Tale.' 1 * Say a ' Poem' or ' Romance,' but not ' Tale.' I am very sorry that I called some of my own things ' Tales,' because 1 think that they are something better. Besides, we have had Arabian, and Hindoo, and Turkish, and Assyrian Tales. But after all, this is frivolous in me ; you won't, however, mind my nonsense. " Really and truly, I want you to make a great hit, if only out of self-love, because we happen to be old cronies ; and I have no doubt you will — I am sure you can. But you are, I '11 be sworn, in a devil of a pucker ; and J am not at your elbow, and Rogers is. I envy him ; which is not fair, because he does not envy any body. Mind you send to me— that is, make Murray send— the moment you are forth. " I have been very ill with a slow fever, which at last took to flying, and became as quick as need be.t But, at length, after a week of half-delirium, burning skin, thirst, hot headache, horrible pulsation, and no sleep, by the blessing of barley water, and refusing to see any physician, I recovered. It is an epidemic of the place, which is annual, and visits strangers. Here follow some versicles, which I made one sleepless night. "I read the ' Christabel;' Very well : I read the ' Missionary ;' Pretty — very : I tried at ' Uderim ;' Ahem ! * He had been misinformed on this point, — the work in question having been, from the first, entitled an " Oriental Romance." A much worse mis- take (because wilful, and with no very. charitable design) was that of certain persons, who would have it that the Poem was meant to be Epic ! — Even Mr. Disraeli has, for the sake of a theory, given in to this very gratuitous assumption : — " The Anacreontic poet," he says, '• remains only Anacreontic in his Epic." t In a note to Mr. Murray, subjoined to some corrections for Manfred, ho says, " Since I wrote to you last, the slow fever I wot of thought proper to mend its pace, and became similar to one which I caught some years ago in the marshes of Elis, in the Morea." B2 NOTICES OF THE La. d. 1817. 1 road a sheet of ' Marg'ret of Anjou Can you / I turn'd a page of ' * »'s \\ aterloo ;' Pooh ! pooh ! I looked at Wordsworth's milk-white 'Rylstonc Doe;' Hillo! 1 read ■ (.It nan on' too, by * * * *, God d— n !" ##•#*■ "I have not the least idea where I am going, nor what I am to do I wished to have gone to Home; but at presenl n is pestilent with English, — a panel of staring boobies, who go about gaping and wish* Lug to in at once cheap and magnificent. A man is a fool who travels now in Fiance or Italy, till this tribe of wretches is swept home again. In two or three years the first rush will be over, and the Continent will be roomy and agreeable. " I staid at Venice chiefly because it is not one of their ' dens of thieves;' and here they but pause and pass. In Switzerland it was really noxious. Luckily, I was early, and had gol the prettiest place on all the Lake before they were quickened into motion with the rest of reptiles. But they crossed me everywhere. I met a family of children and old women half way up the \\ engen Vlp (by the Jungfrau) upon mules, some of them too old and others too young to be the least aware of what they saw. "By*the-way, I think the Jungfrau, and all that region of Alps, which I traversed in September— going to the very top of the Wengen, which is not the highest (the Jungfrau itself is inaccessible) but the best point of view — much liner than Mont Blanc and < 'haiiionni, or the Simplon. I kept a journal of the whole for my sister Augusta, part of which she copied and let Murray see. "I wrote a sort of mad Drama, for the sake of introducing the Alpine scenery in description; and this I sent latch to Murray. Almost all the ilnnn.jjcrs. are spirits, ghosts, or magicians, and the scene is in the Alps and the other world ; so you may suppose what a bedlam tra- j it must he: make him show it you." I sent him all three acts piecemeal, by the post, and suppose they have arrived. " I have now written to you at least si\ letters, or lettered, and all I have received in return is a note about Hie length yon used to write from Bury-street to St. James's-street, when we u.^-<\ to dine with Rogers, and talk laxly, and go to parlies, anil hear poor Sheridan now and then. Do you remember one night he was so tipsy that I was forced to put his cocked hat on for him, — for he could not, — and I let him down at Brookes's, much as he must since have been let down into his grave. Heigh ho! I wish 1 was drunk — hut I have nothing but this d — d barley water before me. " I am still in love,— which is a dreadful drawback in quitting a place, and I can't siav at Venice much longer. What I shall do on this point I do n't know. The gir] mean- to go with me, but I do not like this for her own sake. I have had so many conflicts in mj own mind on this Bubject, that 1 am not at all sure they did not help me to the fever I mentioned above. I am certainly verv much attached to her, and I have c.iuse to he so, if you knew all. Hut she has a child; Mid though, like all the ' children of the sun.' she consults nothing bul a. D. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 63 passion, it is necessary I should think for both ; and it is only the vir- tuous, like * * * *, who can afford to give up husband and child, and live happy ever after. " The Italian ethics are the most singular ever met with. The per- version, not only of action, but of reasoning, is singular in the women. It is not that they do not consider the thing itself as wrong, and very wrong, but love (the sentiment of love) is not merely an excuse for it, but makes it an actual virtue, provided it is disinterested, and not a caprice, and is confined to one object. They have awful notions of constancy ; for I have seen some ancient figures of eighty pointed out as amorosi of forty, fifty, and sixty years' standing. I can't say I have ever seen a husband and wife so coupled. " Ever, &c." " P.S. Marianna, to whom I have just translated what 1 have written on our subject to you, says — ' If you loved me thoroughly, you would not make so many fine reflections, which are only goodforbirsi i scarpi," — that is, ' to clean shoes withal,' — a Venetian proverb of appreciation, which is applicable to reasoning of all kinds." LETTER CCLXVIII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, March 25th, 1817. " Your letter and enclosure are safe; but 'English gentlemen' are very rare — at least in Venice. I doubt whether there are at present any, save the consul and vice-consul, with neither of whom I have the slightest acquaintance. The moment I can pounce upon a witness, I will send the deed properly signed : but must he necessarily be gen- teel ? Venice is not a place where the English are gregarious ; their pigeon-houses are Florence, Naples, Rome, &c; and to tell you the truth, this was one reason why I staid here till the season of the pur- gation of Rome from these people, which is infected with them at this time, should arrive. Besides, 1 abhor the nation and the nation me ; it is impossible for me to describe my own sensation on that point, but it may suffice to say, that, if I met with any of the race in the beauti- ful parts of Switzerland, the most distant glimpse or aspect of them poisoned the whole scene, and I do not choose to have the Pantheon, and St. Peter's, and the Capitol, spoiled for me too. This feeling may be probably owing to recent events ; but it does not exist the less, and while it exists, I shall conceal it as little as any other. " I have been seriously ill with a fever, but it is gone. I believe or suppose it was the indigenous fever of the place, which comes every year at this time, and of which the physicians change the name annu- ally, to despatch the people sooner. It is a kind of typhus, and kills occasionally. It was pretty smart, but nothing particular, and has left me some debility and a great appetite. There are a good many ill at present, I suppose, of the same. " I feel sorry for Horner? if there was any thing in the world to make him like it ; and still more sorry for his friends, as there was much to make them regret him. I had not heard of his death till by your letter. " Some weeks ago I wrote to you my acknowledgments of Walter Scott's article. Now 1 know it to be his, it cannot add to my good opinion of him, but it adds to that of myself. lie, and Gifford, and 61 NOTICES QF THE [a, d. i«i7. Moore arc the only regulars I ever knew who had nothing of the gar- risen about their manner: no nonsense, nor affectations, look you! As for the rest whom I have known, there was always more or less of the author about then — the pen peeping from behind the ear, and the thumbs a little inky or so. '"I, alia kookir — you must recollect thai, in the way of title, the 'Giaour' has never been pronounced to 1 his day; and both it and Childe Harold sounded very facetious to the blue-bottles of wit and humour about town, till they were taught and startled into a proper deportment ; and therefore Lalla Rookh, winch is very orthodox and oriental, is as wood a title as need he, it not better. 1 eould wish rather that he bad not called it ' a I'rrsiaii Tali ;' firstly, because we have had Turkish Tales, and Hindoo Tales, and Assyrian Tales already; and tale is a word of which it repents me to have nicknamed poesy. ' Fa- ble' would be better; and, secondly, ' Persian Tale' reminds one of the lines of Pope on Ambrose Philips ; though no one can say, to be sure, that this tale has been ' turned for half-a-crown ;' still it is as well to avoid such elashings. ' Persian Story' — why not ?— or Romance ? I feel as anxious for Moore as 1 could do for myself, for the soul of me, and 1 would not have him succeed otherwise than splendidly, which I trust he will do. " With regard to the ' Witch Drama,' I sent all the three acts by post, week after week, within this last month. I repeat that 1 have not an idea if it is good or bad. If bad, it must, on no account, be risked in publication; if good, it is at your service. I value it at three hun- dred guineas, or less, if you like it. Perhaps, if published, the best way will be to add it to your winter volume, and not publish separately. The price will show you 1 do n't pique myself upon it; so speak out. Vou may put it in the fire, if you like, and Gilford do n't like. "The Armenian Grammar is published — that is, one ; the other is still in M.S. My illness has prevented me from moving this month past, and 1 have done nothing more with the Armenian. "Of Italian or rather Lombard manners, I could tell you little or nothing: I went two or three tunes to the governor's com eisazione and if yougO once, you are free to go always), at which, as 1 only saw very plain women, a formal circle, in short, a wont sort of rout, I did not go again. 1 went to Academic and to Madame Albrizzi's, where I -au pretty much the same thing, with the addition of some literati, who are the same hlue,* by , all the world over. I fell in love the first week with Madame * \ and 1 have continued so ever since. aiise she is very pretty and ph asniL r . and talks Venetian, which amuses me, and is naive. 1 have seen all their spectacles and sightE j but I do not know any thing very worth] of observation, except that the women kiss better than those of any other nation, which is noto- rious, and attributed to the worship of images, and the early habit of osculation induced thereby. " Very truly, &c. " P. S. Pray send the red tooth-powder by a safe hand, and speedih * • * * • ' • • | * Whenever a word or passage occurs (as in this instance) which Lord Byron would have pronounced emphatically in speaking, it appears, in hie handwriting, as if written with something of the same vehemence. t Here follow the same rhymes ( •• I read the ( hristabcl," ice.) which have idv been given in one of his letters to myself. a.d. 1S17.J LIFE OF LORD BVRO.V 65 " To hook the reader, you, John Murray, Have publish'd ' Anjou's Margaret,' Which won't be sold off in a hurry (At least, it has not been as yet); And then, still farther to bewilder 'em, Without remorse you set up ' Ilderim ;' So mind you do n't get into debt, Because as how, if you should fail, These books would be but baddish bail. " And mind you do not let escape These rhymes to Morning Post or Perry, Which would be very treacherous — very. And get me into such a scrape ! For, firstly, I should have to sally. All in my little boat, against a Galley;* And, should I chance to slay the Assyrian wight, Have next to combat with the female knight, And, prick'd to death, expire upon her needle — A sort of end which I should take indeed ill ! " You may show these matters to Moore and the select, but not to the profane ; and tell Moore, that I wonder he do n't write to one now and then." LETTER CCLXIX. TO MR. MOORE. "Venice, March 31st, 1817. " You will begin to think my epistolary offerings (to whatever altar you please to devote them) rather prodigal. But until you answer 1 shall not abate, because you deserve no better. I know you are well, because I hear of your voyaging to London and the environs, which 1 rejoice to learn, because your note alarmed me by the purgation and phlebotomy therein prognosticated. I also hear cf your being in the press ; all which, methinks, might have furnished you with subject matter for a middle-sized letter, considering that I am in foreign parts, and that the last month's advertisements and obituary would be absolute news to me from your Tramontane country. " 1 told you, in my last, I have had a smart fever. There is an epidemic in the place ; but I suspect, from the symptoms, that mine was a fever of my own, and had nothing in common with the low, vulgar typhus, which is at this moment decimating Venice, and which iias half-unpeopled Milan, if the accounts be true. This malady has sorely discomfited my serving men, who want sadly to be gone away, and get me to remove. But, besides my natural perversity, I was seasoned in Turkey, by the continual whispers of the plague, against apprehensions of contagion. Besides which, apprehension would not prevent it : and then I am still in love, and ' forty thousand' fevers should not make me stir before my minute, while under the influence * Mr. Galley Knight; the author of « Ilderim." Voi,. II.— E Go NUT1CE8 OF THE [a. b.1817. uf that paramount delirium. Seriously Bpeaking, there is a malady rife in the citj — a dangerous one, they say. However, mine did not appear so, though it was not pleasant. "Tins is passion-week — and twilight — and all the world are at reapers. They have an eternal churching, as in all ( !atholic countries, inn are not so bigoted as they Beemed to be in Spain. "1 don't know whether to be glad or sorry that you are leaving Mayfield. Had I ever been al Newstead during your stay then; except during the winter of 1813-1 J. when the roads were impracti- cable), we should bave been within had, and I should like to have made a giro of the Peak with you. 1 know that country well, having been all over it when a hoy. Was you ever in Dovedalel I can Lssure you there air things in Derbyshire as noble as (ireece or Switzerland. l$ut you had always a lingering after London, and 1 don't wonder at it. 1 liked it as well as an) body, myself, now and then. " Will you remember me to Rogers ? whom I presume to be flourish- ing, and whom 1 regard as our poetical papa. You are his lawful son, and I the illegitimate. Has he begun yet upon Sheridan ? If you see our republican friend, Leigh Hunt, pray present my remembrances. I saw about nine months ago that he was in a row (like my friend Hob- house) with the Quarterly Reviewers. For my part 1 never could understand these quarrels of authors with critics and with one another. •For God's sake, gentlemen, what do they meant' "What think you of your countryman, Maturin ? 1 take some credit to myself for having done my best to bring out Bertram; but I must say my colleagues were quite as ready and willing. W alter Scott, however, was the first who mentioned him, which he did tome, with great commendation, in 1815; and it is to this casualty, and two or three other accidents, that this very clever fellow owed his first and well-merited public success. What a chance is fame! "Did [tell you that 1 have translated two Epistles 1 — a correspond- ence between St. Paul and the Corinthians, not to be found in our i ersion, but the Armenian — bul winch seems to me \ cry orthodox, and 1 have done it into scriptural prose English.* • " Ever, &c." ' The only plan aim of these Epistles to authenticity arises from the circumstance of St Paul having (according to the opinion of Mosheim anil others ) written an Epistle to the < ■ >rml hi ;uis, before that w Inch we DOW all bil Pint. They arc, however, universally given up as spurious. Though frequently referred to as existing in the Armenian, by Primate Usher, Johan. Gregorias, and other learned men, they were, for the first tunc, I believe, translated from that language by the two Whiatons who subjoined the cor- ondence, with a Greek and Latin version, to their edition of the Armenian History of Moms of Chorene, published in 1736. The translation bj Lord Byron is, as far as 1 can learn, the first that has ever been attempted in English ; and as, proceeding from hit pen, it must of course, additional interest, the reader will not be displeased to find it in the Appendix. Annexed to the copy in my possession ,-ne the fol- lowing words, in Ins own handwriting: — " Done into English by me, January February, ItilT, at the Convent of San Lazaro, with the aid and exposition the Armenian text by the Father I'asrhal Aucher, Armenian friar. - BraoH. J had also," he adds, »« the Latin text, but it is- in many places orr" a. n. 1»17.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 67 LETTER CCLXX. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, Apni 2d, 1817. " I sent you the whole of the Drama at three several times, act by act, in separate covers. I hope that you have, or will receive, some or the whole of it. " So Love has a conscience. By Diana ! I shall make him take back the box, though it were Pandora's. The discovery of its intrinsic silver occurred on sending it to have the lid adapted to admit Marianna's portrait. Of course I had the box remitted in statu quo, and had the picture set in another, which suits it (the picture) very well. The defaulting- box is not touched, hardly, and was not in the man's hands above an hour. " I am aware of what you say of Otway ; and am a very great admirer of his, — all except of that maudlin b — h of chaste lewdness and blubbering curiosity, Belvidera, whom I utterly despise, abhor, and detest. But the story of Marino Faliero is different, and, I think, so much finer, that I wish Otway had taken it instead : the head conspiring against the body for refusal of redress fox a real inj ury, — jealousy, — trea- son, — with the more fixed and inveterate passions (mixed with policy) of an old or elderly man — the Devil himself could not have a finer sub- ject, and he is your only tragic dramatist. * * "There is still, in the Doge's palace, the black veil painted over Faliero's picture, and the staircase whereon he was first crowned Doge, and subsequently decapitated. This was the thing that most struck my imagination in Venice — more than the Rialto, which I visited for the sake of Shylock ; and more, too, than Schiller's ' Armenian,'' a novel which took a great hold of me when a boy. It is also called the • Ghost Seer,' and I never walked down St. Mark's by moonlight without thinking of it, and 'at nine o'clock he died!' — But I hate things all fiction ; and therefore the Merchant and Othello have no great associations to me : but Pierre has. There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a liar. " Maturin's tragedy. — By your account of him last year to me, he seemed a bit of a coxcomb, personally. Poor fellow ! to be sure, he had had a long seasoning of adversity, which is not so hard to bear as t' other thing. I hope that this won't throw him back into the ' slough of Despond.' " You talk of ' marriage ;' — ever since my own funeral, the word makes me giddy, and throws me into a cold sweat. Pray, do n't repeat it. " You should close with Madame de Stad. This will be her best work, and permanently historical ; it is on her father, the Revolution, and Buonaparte, &c. Bonstetten told me in Switzerland it was very great. I have not seen it myself, but the author often. She was very kind to me at Copet. * * * * " There have been two articles in the Venice papers, one a Review of Glenarvon * * * *, and the other a Review of Childe Harold, in which it proclaims me the most rebellipus and contumacious admirer E2 bb NOTICES 01 THE [a. a 1817. of Buonaparte now surviving in Europe. Both tlicsc articles an translations from the Literary Gazette 01 German Jena. * # * •■ Tell me thai w alter Seott is better. I would not have him ill for the world. L suppose it was by sympathy that 1 had my fever at the same time. "1 joy in the success of your Quarterly, but 1 must still stick, by the Edinburgh; Jeffrey lias done so by me, I must say, through every thing, and tins is more than I deserved from him. — I have more than once acknowledged to yon by Letter the ' Article' (and articles); say that you have received the said Letters, as I do not otherwise know what letters arrive.— Both Reviews came, but nothing more. M.'s play and the extract not yet come. • « # » # * M Write to say whether my Magician has arrived, with all his Bcenes, spells, &c. " Yours ever, &c " It is useless to send to the Foreign-({ffice : nothing arrives to me by that conveyance. I suppose some zealous clerk thinks it a tory duty to prevent it." LETTER CCLXXI. TO MR. B0OERS. "Venice, April 4in. imt. ••It is a < onsiderable nine since 1 wrote to you last, and I hardly Know why I should trouble you now, except that 1 think you will not In sorry to hear from me now and then. You and I were never corres- pondents, but always something better, which is, very good friends '• 1 saw your friend Sharp in Switzerland, or rather in the Germai territory (which is and is not Switzerland), and he gave Hobhouse and me a very good route for the Bernese Alps; however, we took another from a German, and went by Clarens.the Dentde Jaman toMontbovon, and through Simmenthal toThoun,and so on to Lauterbrounn ; except that from thence to the (ii mdelwald, instead of round ahout, we went right over the Wengen Ups* very summit, and being close under tin Jungfrau, -aw it, its glaciers, and heard the avalanches in all their glory, having famous weather there/or. We of course went from the Grindelwald over the Sheidech to Brientz and its lake ; past the Reich- enbaeh and all that mountain road, which reminded me of Albania, and ilia, ami Greece, except that the people here were more civilized and rascally. 1 did not think so very much of Chainouni (except the BOUrce of the Arveroii, to which we went up to the teeth of the ice, Bl as to look into and touch the cavity, against the warning of the guides, only one of whom would . i- assured thai 1 a ould live for two reasons, or more; — iherc arc one or two people whom ! have to put out of the world, and as many into it, before I can 'depart m peace; 1 if I do so before, I have not fulfilled my mission. Besides, when I turn thirty, I will turn devout ; [feel a great vocation that way in Catholic churches, and when I hear the organ. ".So* * is writing again ! Is there no bedlam in Scotland? nor thumb-screw 1 nor gagl nor handcuff! I went upon my knees to him almost Borne years ago, to prevent him from publishing a political pamphlet, which would have given him a livelier idea of 'Habeas Corpus' than the world will derive from his present production upon that suspended subject, which will doubtless be followed by the sus- pension of other of Ins majesty's subjects. " I condole with Drury-lane and rejoice with * *, — that is, in a mo- dest way, — on the tragical end of the new tragedy. "You and Leigh Hunt have quarrelled then, it seems? * * « • I introduce him and his poem to you, in the hope that (malgre politics) the union would be beneficial to both, and the end is eternal enmity ; and yet I did this with the best intentions: I introduce * * *, and * * * runs away with your money: my friend Hobhouse quarrels, too, with the Quarterly: and (except the last)' 1 am the innocent Istmhus (damn the word! 1 can't spell it, though I have crossed that of Corinth a dozen times) of these enmities. " I will tell you something about Chillon. — A Mr. De Luc, ninety years old, a Swiss, had it read to him, and is pleased with it, — so my sister writes. He said that he was ~^ith Runsse.au at Chillon, and that the description is perfectly correct. Unt this is not all: I recollected something of the name and rind the following passage in ' The Con- fessions,' vol. 3, page -JIT, liv. 8. " ' De tons ces amusemens celui qui me pint davantage fut line promenade autourdu Lac, que je lis en bateau avec l)< Luc pere,sa bra, ses detajilt, ei ma Ther6se. Nous mtmes sept jours a cette tournee par le plus beau temps du monde. Pen gardai le vif souvenir des sites qui m'avoient frappe* a ['autre extremity du Lac, el dOht je fis la description, quelques amiecs apn's, dans la Nouvelle Heloise." This nonagenarian, De Luc, musl be one of the 'deux fils.' lie is in England — infirm, but still in faculty. It is odd that he should have lived so long, and not wanting in oddness, that he should have made tins voyage with .ban Jacques, and afterward, at such an inter- val, read a poem by an Knglislnnan (who bad made precisely the same circumnavigation) upon the same scenery. "As for ' Manfred,' it is of no use sending proofs: nothing of thai kind comes. I sent the whole at different times. The two first Ad- arc the best; the third 60 so; but I was blown with the first and second heats. Von must call it a ' Poem,' for it is no Drama, and I do not choose to have it called by so * * a name — a ' Poem in Dialogue,' Or Pantomime, if you will; anything but a green- room synonyme; and this is your motto — 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' " Yours ever. &<\ • Mv love and thanks to Mr. Gifford." a. d. 1817.} LIFE OF LORD BYRON. LETTER CCLXXIII. TO MR. MOORE. M Venice, April 11, 1817. " I shall continue to write to you while the fit is on me, by way of penance upon you for your former complaints of long silence. I dare say you would blush, if you could, for not answering. Next week I set out for Rome. Having seen Constantinople, I should like to look at t' other fellow. Besides I want to see the Pope, and shall take care to tell him that I vote for the Catholics and no Veto. I sha' n't go to Naples. It is but the second best sea-view, and I have seen the first and third, viz. — Constantinople and Lisbon (by-the- way, the last is but a river-view ; however, they reckon it after Stam- boul and Naples, and before Genoa), and Vesuvius is silent, and I have passed by Etna. So I shall e'en return to Venice in July ; and if you write, I pray you address to Venice, which is my head, or rather my /icari-quarters. " My late physician, Dr. Polidori, is here, on his way to England, with the present Lord G * * and the widow of the late earl. Doctor Polidori has, just now, no more patients, because his patients are no more. He had lately three, who are now all dead — one embalmed. Horner and a child of Thomas Hope's are interred at Pisa and Rome. Lord G * * died of an inflammation of the bowels ; so they took them out, and sent them (on account of their discrepancies), separately from the carcass, to England. Conceive a man going one way, and his intestines another, and his immortal soul a third ! — was there ever such a distribution? One certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine. I only know if once mine gets out, I '11 have a bit of a tustle before I let it get in again to that or any other. " And so poor dear Mr. Maturin's second tragedy has been neglected by the discerning public. * * will be d — d glad of his, and d — d without being glad, if ever his own plays come upon ' any stage.' " I wrote to Rogers the other day, with a message for you. I hope that he flourishes. He is the Tithonus of poetry — immortal already. You and I must wait for it. " I hear nothing — know nothing. You may easily suppose that the English do n't seek me, and I avoid them. To be sure, there are but a few or none here, save passengers. Florence and Naples are their Margate and Ramsgate, and much the same sort of company too, by all accounts, which hurts us among the Italians. " I want to hear of Lalla Rookh — are you out 1 Death and fiends ! why do n't you tell me where you are, what you are, and how you are ? I shall go to Bologna by Ferrara, instead of Mantua ; because I would rather see the cell where they caged Tasso, and where he became mad and * *, than his own MSS. at Modena, or the Mantuan birthplace of that harmonious plagiary and miserable flatterer, whose cursed hexameters were drilled into me at Harrow. I saw Verona and Vicenza on my way here — Padua too. I go alone — but alone, because I mean to return here. I only want to see Rome. I have not the least curiosity about Florence, though I must see it for the sake of the Venus. &e. Szc. ; and I wish also to see 72 SO'J H E8 OF I III. [a.d. L817. the Fall oi T< rn . I think to return to \ enice by Ravenna and Rimin of both of which I mean to take notes for Leigh Hunt, who will in glad to hear oi the scenery of hie Poem. There was a devil of a review of him in the Quarterly, a year ago, which he answered. All answers are imprudent; but, to be sure, poetical flesh and blood must have the last word — that \s certain. I thought, and think, very highly of his Poem; but I warned him of the row his favourite antique phraseology would bring him into. " You have taken a house at Hornsey ; I had much rather you had taken one in the Apennines. If you think of coming out for a sum- mer, or so, tell me, that 1 may be upon the hover for vou. "" Ever, &c." LETTER CCLXX1V. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, April 14th, 1817. "By the favour of Dr. Polidori, who is here on his way to England, with the present Lord G * * (the late earl having gone to England by another road, accompanied by his bowels in a separate coffer), I remit to you, to deliver to .Mrs. Leigh, two miniatures ; but previously you will have the goodness to desire Mr. Love (as a peace-offering between him and me) to set them in plain gold, with my arms complete, and 1 Painted by Prepiuni. — Venice, lft 17,' on the back. 1 wish also that you would desire Holmes to make a copy of eack — that is, both — for myself, and that you will retain the said copies till my return. One was done while I was very unwell ; the other in my health, which may account for their dissimilitude. I trust that they will reach their destination in safety. a I recommend the doctor to your good offices with your govern- ment friends; and if you can be of any use to him in a literary point of view, pray be so. "To-day, or rather yesterday, for it is past midnight, I have been up to the battlements of the highest tower in Venice, and seen it and its view, in all the glory of a clear Italian sky. I also went over the Manfriiu Palace, famous for its pictures. Among them, there is a portrait of Ariosto, by Titian, surpassing all my anticipation of the power of painting or human expression :.it is the poetry of portrait, and the portrait Of poetry. There was also one of some learned lady, centuries old, whose name I forget, but whose features must always be remembered. I never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom : — it is the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of its frame. There is also a famous dead Christ and live Apostles, for which Buonaparte offered in vain five thousand Louis; and of which, though it is a capo d'opera of Titian, as I am no connoisseur, I sav little, and thoughi l< as, except of one figure in it. There are ten thousand others, and some very fine Giorgiones among them, &c. nraiis like a young one, or a pretty one. What struck me most in the general collection was the extreme resemblance ol the .style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so many cen- turies or generations old, to those you see and meet every day among *. d. 1817-3 LIFE OF LORD BYROiV 7a the existing Italians. The queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife, particularly the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday ; the same eyes and expression, and, to my mind, there is none finer. " You must recollect, however, that I know nothing of painting ; and that I detest it, unless it reminds me of something I have seen, or think it possible to see, for which reason I spit upon and abhor all the saints and subjects of one half the impostures I see in the churches and palaces ; and when in Flanders, I never was so disgusted in my life, as with Rubens and his eternal wives and infernal glare of colours, as they appeared to me ; and in Spain I did not think much of Murilo and Velasquez. Depend upon it, of all the arts, it is the most arti- ficial and unnatural, and that by which the nonsense of mankind is most imposed upon. I never yet saw the picture or the statue which came a league within my conception or expectation ; but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond it, — besides some horses ; and a lion (at Veli Pacha's) in the Morea ; and a tiger at supper in Exeter 'Change. " When you write, continue to address to me at Venice. Where do you suppose the books you sent to me are ? At Turin ! This comes of ' the Foreign Office? which is foreign enough, God knows, for any good it can be of to me, or any one else, and be d d to it, to its last clerk and first charlatan, Castlereagh. " This makes mv hundredth letter at least. " Yours, &c." LETTER CCLXXV. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, April 14, 1817. "The present proofs (of the whole) begins only at the 17th page; but as I had corrected and sent back the First Act, if does not signify. " The Third Act is certainly d d bad, and, like the Archbishop of Grenada's homily (which savoured of the palsy), has the dregs of my fever, during which it was written. It must on no account be pub- lished in its present state. I will try and reform it, or re-write it altogether ; but the impulse is gone, and I have no chance of making any thing out of it. I would not have it published as it is on any ac- count. The speech of Manfred to the Sun is the only part of this act I thought good myself ; the rest is certainly as bad as bad can be, and I wonder what the devil possessed me. " I am very glad indeed that you sent me Mr. Gifford's opinion without deduction. Do you suppose me such a booby as not to be very much obliged to him ? or that in fact I was not, and am not, convinced and convicted in my conscience of this same overt act of nonsense ? " I shall try at it again : in the mean time lay it upon the shelf (the whole Drama, I mean) ; but pray correct your copies of the First and Second Act from the original MS. " I am not coming to England ; but going to Rome in a few days. I return to Venice in Ju?w ; so, pray, address all letters, &c. to me here, as usual, that is, to Venice. Dr. Polidori this rlav left this city 74 NOTICES OF Till: [a. d. im: with Lord (. • " for England. He is charged with some books to your care (from me), and two miniatures also to the same address, both for my sister. ^ Recollect not to publish, upon pain of I know not what, until I have tried again at the Third \. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYROA. ;.. and worse than the long wigs of English numskulls upon Roman bodies in the statuary of the reigns of Charles II., William, and Anne. " When you write, write to Venice, as usual ; I mean to return there in a fortnight. I shall not be in England for a long time. This after- noon I met Lord and Lady Jersey, and saw them for some time : all well ; children grown and healthy ; she very pretty, but sunburnt ; he very sick of travelling ; bound for Paris. There are not many Eng- lish on the move, and those who are, mostly homewards. I shall not return till business makes me, being much better where I am in health. &c. &c. For the sake of my personal comfort, I pray you send me immedi- ately to Venice — mind, Venice — viz. Waiter's tooth-powder, red, a quan- tity ; calcined magnesia, of the best quality, a quantity ; and all this by safe, sure, and speedy means ; and, by the Lord ! do it. "I have done nothing at Manfred's Third Act. You must wait; I '11 have at it in a week or two, or so. " Yours ever. &e."' LETTER CCLXXVII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Rome, May 5th, 1817. " By this post (or next at farthest) I send you in two other covers, the new Third Act of ' Manfred.' I have re-written the greater part, and returned what is not altered in the proof you sent me. The Abbot is become a good man, and the Spirits are brought in at the death. You will find, I think, some good poetry in this new act, here and there ; and if so, print it, without sending me farther proofs, under Mr. Giffbrdh correction, if he will have the goodness to overlook it. Ad- dress all answers to Venice, as usual; I mean to return there in ten days. " ' The Lament of Tasso,' which I sent from Florence, has, I trust, arrived : I look upon it as a ' these be good rhymes,' as Pope's papa said to him when he was a boy. For the two — it and the Drama — you will disburse to me {via Kinnaird) six hundred guineas. You will perhaps be surprised that I set the same price upon this as upon the Drama ; but, besides that I look upon it as good, I won't take less than three hundred guineas for any thing. The two together will make you a larger publication than the ' Siege' and 'Parisina;' so you may think yourself let off very easy : that is to say, if these poems are good for any thing, which I hope and believe. "I have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. I am seeing sights, and have done nothing else, except the new Third Act for you. I have this morning seen a live pope and a dead cardinal : Pius VII. has been burying Cardinal Bracchi, whose body I saw in state at the Chiesa Nuova. Rome has delighted me beyond every thing, since Athens and Constantinople. But I shall not remain long this visit. Address to Venice. " Ever, &c. " P.S. I have got my saddle horses here, and have ridden, and am riding, all about the country." From the foregoing letters to Mr. Murrav, we mav roller* some To NOTICES 01 THE [a.d. lai, curious particulars respecting cue of the most original and Bubiime Of the noble poet's productions, the Drama of .Manfred. His failure (and to an extent of which the reader shall he enabled presently to judge) in the completion of a design which he had, through two Acts, so magnificently carried on, — the impatience with which, though con- scious of this failure, he as usual hurried to the press, without deign- ing to woo, or wait fori a happh r moment of inspiration, — his frank docility in, at once, surrendering op bis Third Act to reprobation, without urging one parental word in its behalf, though, at the same time, evidently doubting whether, from Ins habil of striking off these crea- tions at a heat, be should be able to n kindle bis imagination on trie subject, and then, lastly, the complete success with winch, when his mind did make the spring, he at once cleared the whole space by which he before fel] short of perfection, — all these circumstances, connected with the production of this grand Poem, lay open to us features, both of his disposition and genius, in the highest degree inte- resting, and such as there is a pleasure, second only to that of perusing the Poem itself, in contemplating. As a literary curiosity, and, still more, as a lesson to genius, never to rest satisfied with imperfection or mediocrity, but to labour on till even failures are converted into triumphs, 1 shall here transcribe the Third Act, in its original shape, as first sent to the publisher. ACT III.— SCENE I. .] Hall in the Castle of .Manfred. Manfred and Herman. .Mini. What is the hour? Her. It wants but one till sunset. Vnd promises a lovely twilight. Man. Say, Are all things so disposed of in the tower As I directed ? Her. All, my lord, arc ready : Here is the key and casket. Man. It is well: Thou maysl retire. [Exit Hermvn Man. (alone.) There is a calm upon me — Iim xplicable Btillness! winch till now Did not belong to what I knew of life. If that I did not know philosophy To he of all our vanities the motliest, The merest word that ever fool'd the car Prom out the schoolman's jargon, I should deem The golden secret, the sought "Karon," found, Vnd seated in in\ soul. It will not last, Bui it is well to have known it, though but once: It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense. \nd I within my tablets would note down That there is such a .feeling. Who is there? Re-enter Herman. Her. My lord, the Abbot of St. Maurice crn\ I'n "hi i \ our presence. a.d. 1817. j LIFE OF LORD BYRON. Enter the Abbot of St. Maurice. Abbot. Peace be with Count Manfred ! Man. Thanks, holy father ! welcome to these wails ; Thy presence honours them, and blesses those Who dwell within them. Abbot. Would it were so, Count ! But I would fain confer with thee alone. Man. Herman retire. What woidd my reverend guest 1 [Exit Herman. Abbot. Thus, without prelude ;— Age and zeal, my office. And good intent, must plead my privilege ; Our near, though not acquainted, neighbourhood May also be my herald. Rumours strange, And of unholy nature, are abroad, And busy with thy name — a noble name For centuries ; may he who bears it now Transmit it unimpaired ! Man. Proceed, — I listen. Abbot. 'T is said thou holdest converse with the things Which are forbidden to the search of man ; That with the dwellers of the dark abodes, The many evil and unheavenly spirits Which walk the valley of the shade of death, Thou communest. I know that with mankind, Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude Is as an anchorite's, were it but holy. Man. And what are they who do avouch these things ! Abbot. My pious brethren— the scared peasantry- Even thy own vassals — who do look on thee With most unquiet eyes. Thy life 's in peril. Man. Take it. Abbot. I come to save, and not destroy— I would not pry into thy secret soul ; But if these things be sooth, there still is time For penitence and pity : reconcde thee With the true church, and through the church to heaven. Man. I hear thee. This is my reply ; whate'er I may have been, or am, doth rest between Heaven and myself.— I shall not choose a mortal To be my mediator. Have 1 sinn'd Against your ordinances 1 prove and punish '.* Abbot. Then, hear and tremble ! For the headstrong wretch Who in the mail of innate hardihood Would shield himself, and battle for his sins, There is the stake on earth, and beyond earth eternal Man. Charity, most reverend father, Becomes thy lips so much more than this menace, That I would call thee back to it ; but say, What wouldst thou with me ? * It will be perceived that, as far as this, the original matter of the Third Act has been retained. :» NOTICES OF THE |a.d. 181? Abbot. It may be there are Things thai would shake thee— bnl I keep them back. \ih1 jive thee till to-morrow to repent Then if thou dost not all devote thyself To penance, and with gift of all thy lands To the monastery Mm. I understand thee, — well! Abbot. Expect no mere} ; I have warned thee. Man. [opening tin- casket) stop — There is a gift for thee within this casket. [Mankhkh opens the casket, strikes a light, and bums sotne incense. Ho! Ashtaroth! TJie Demon AjSHTAKOTB appears, singing as follows : The raven sits On the raven-stone, \nd his black wing flit> O'er the milk-white bone ; To and fro, as the night winds blow, The carcass of the assassin swings; \nd there alone on the raven-stone, - The raven flaps his dusky wings. The fetters creak — and his ebon beak Croaks to the close of the hollow sound ; \nd this is the tune by the light of the moon To which the witches dance their round, Merrily, merrily, cheerily, cheerily, Merrily, merrily, speeds the ball : The dead in their shrouds, and the demons in clouds. Flock to the witches' carnival. Abbot. I fear thee not — hence — hence — \vaunt thee, evil one ! — help, ho ! without there ! Man. Convey this man to the Shreckhorn — to its peak — To its extremes! peak — watch with him there Prom now till sunrise; let him gaze, and know He ne'er again will be so near to heaven. Hut harm him not ; and, when the morrow breaks. Set him down sale m his cell — away with him ! Ash, Had I not better bring his brethren too, Convenl and all, to bear him company 1 .Ud//. No, this will serve for the present. Take hull Up. Ash. Come, friar! now an exorcism or two. \nd we shall fly the lighter. \.8HTABOTB disappears voiih the Abbot, singing as follow*: \ prodigal son and a maid melon ■ \nd a widow re-wedded within the year: \nd a worldly monk and a pregnant nun. \re things which every day appear. •• Kiivrii-stunn (Rabenatein), a translation of the German word for tne giu ' which in Germany and .Switzerland is permanent, and made of stone '' a. D. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 79 Manfred alone. Man. Why would this fool break in on me, and force My art to pranks fantastical ? — no matter, It was not of my seeking. My heart sickens And weighs a fix'd foreboding on my soul ; But it is calm — calm as a sullen sea After the hurricane ; the winds are still, But the cold waves swell high and heavily, And there is danger in them. Such a rest Is no repose. My life hath been a combat, And every thought a wound, till I am scarr'd In the immortal part of me. — What now ? Re-enter Herman. Her. My lord, you bade me wait on you at sunset : He sinks behind the mountain. Man. Doth he so ? I will look on him. [Manfred advances to the window of the halt- Glorious orb !* the idol Of early nature, and the vigorous race Of undiseased mankind, the giant sons Of the embrace of angels, with a sex More beautiful than they, which did draw down The erring spirits who can ne'er return. — Most glorious orb ! that wert a worship, ere The mystery of thy making was reveal'd ! Thou earliest minister of the Almighty, Which gladden'd, on their mountain tops, the hearts Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour'd Themselves hi orisons ! Thou material God ! And representative of the Unknown — Who chose thee for his shadow ! Thou chief star ! Centre of many stars ! which mak'st our earth Endurable, and temperest the hues And hearts of all who walk within thy rays ! Sire of the seasons ! Monarch of the climes, And those who dwell in them ! for, near or far, Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee, Even as our outward aspects ; — thou dost rise, And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee well ! I ne'er shall see the more. As my first glance Of love and wonder was for thee, then take My latest look : thou wilt not beam on one To whom the gifts of life and warmth have been Of a more fatal nature. He is gone : I follow. [Exit Manfred. * This fine soliloquy, and a great part of the subsequent scene, have, it is hardly necessary to remark, been retained in the present form of the Drama. so NOTICES OF TilK [a.d.181'.. SCENE il- The Mountains— Vie Castle of Manfred at :«>me distance— A Terrace before a Toner— Time, Twilight. Herman, Manuel, and other Dependants of Manfred. Her. T is strange enough ; night after night, for years. He hath pursued Long vigils in this tower, Without a witness. 1 have been within it,— So have we all been oft-times ; hut from it. Or its contents, it were impossible 'I'd craw conclusions absolute of aughl His studies tend to. To he sure, there i> One chamber where none enter; 1 would give The fee of what I have to come these three years, To pore upon its mysteries. Manuel. 'T were dangerous ; Content thyself with what thou know'st already. Her. Ah ! Manuel ! thou art elderly and wise, \nd couldst say much ; thou hast dwelt within the eastle — How many years is 't ? Manuel. ' Ere Count Manfred's birth. I served Ins father, whom he naught resembles. Her. There be more sons in like predicament. But wherein do they differ? Manuel. I speak not I M features or of form, but mind and habits : Count Sigismund was proud,— but gay and free,— A warrior and a reveller; he dwelt not With books and solitude, nor made the nighl A gloomy vigil, but a festal time, Merrier than day; he did not walk the rock- Ami forests like a wolf, nor turn aside From men and their delights. Her. Reshrew the hour, Bui those were jocund times! I would that such WOuld visa the old walls again ; they look As if they had forgotten them. Manuel. These walls Must change then- chieftain first. <>h ! I have seen ^onie Btrange things in these few years.* Il rr , Come, be friendly : Relate me some, to while away our watch : I \e heard thee darkly speak of an event \\ Inch happen'd hereabouts, by this same tower. Manuel Thai was a nighl indeed! I do remembi i T was twilight, as it may be now, and such \nother evening ;— yon red cloud, which rest- On Eigher's pinnacle, so rested then, — so Like thai it mighl be the same; the wind Was faint and gusty, and the mountain Bnows Mtered.inthe prcsenl form, to " Some strange things in tbem, Herman. a. D. 1817,] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 81 Began to glitter with the climbing moon ; Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower,- How occupied, we knew not, but with him The sole companion of his wanderings And watchings — her, whom of all earthly things That lived, the only thing he seem'd to love, As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do. The lady Astarte, his Her. Look — look — the tower- The tower 's on fire. Oh, heavens and earth ! what sound, What dreadful sound is that 1 [A crash like tliunder. Manuel. Help, help, there !— to the rescue of the Count, — The Count 's in danger, — what ho ! there ! approach ! [The Servants, Vassals, and Peasantry approach, stupified with terror. If there be any of you who have heart And love of human kind, and will to aid Those in distress — pause not — but follow me — The portal 's open, follow. [Manuel goes in. Her. Come — who follows ? What, none of ye ? — ye recreants ! shiver then Without. I will not see old Manuel risk His few remaining years unaided. [Herman goes in. Vassal. Hark ! — No — all is silent — not a breath — the flame Which shot forth such a blaze is also gone ; W T hat may this mean ? let 's enter ! Peasant. Faith, not I, — Not that, if one, or two, or more, will join, I then will stay behind ; but, for my part, I do not see precisely to what end. Vassal. Cease your vain prating — come. Manuel, (speaking within.) 'T is all in vain — He's dead. Her. (withi7i.) Not so — even now methought he moved ; But it is dark — so bear him gently out — Softly — how cold he is ! take care of his temples fn winding down the staircase. Re-enter Manuel and Herman, hearing Manfred in their arms. Manuel. Hie to the castle, some of ye, and bring What aid you can. Saddle the barb, and speed For the leech to the city — quick ! some water there ! Her. His cheek is black — but there is a faint beat Still lingering about the heart. Some water. [They sprinkle Manfred with water; after a 2>ausc, he gives sume signs of life. Manuel. He seems to strive to speak — come — cheerly, Count ! He moves his lips — canst hear him ? I am old, Vnd cannot catch faint sounds. [Herman inclining his head and listening. Her. I hear a word Or two — but indistinctly — what is next ? What 's to be done ? let 's bear him to the castle. Vol. II.— F NUT1CKS i)V THE [a. u. lei;. | Mahfbsd nmiions with hit hand not to remove him Manuel. He disapproves— and 't were of no avail — He changes rapidly. Her. 'Twill soon be over. Munuel. Oh! what a death is tins! that 1 should live To shake my i^ray hairs over the last chief Of the house of Sigismund. — And such a death! Alone — we know nut how— niislirived — untended — With strange accompaniments and fearful signs — I shudder at the Bight — but must not leave hnn. .Manfred, {speaking Jointly and tlowly.) Old man! 'tisnotBO difficult to die. | Manfred, having said this, expire*. Her. His eyes are fix'd and lifeless. — He is gone. Manuel. Close them. — My old hand quivers. — He departs — Whither? I dread to think — but he is none! I, UTTER CCLXXVIII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Rome, May 9th, 1617. • Address ail answers to Venice ; for there 1 shall return in fifteen days, God willing. " 1 sent you from Florence ' The Lament of Tasso,' and from Rome the Third Act of Manfred, both of which, 1 trust, will duly arrive. The terms of these two I mentioned in my last, and will repeat in this : it is three hundred for eaeh, or six hundred guineas for the two — that is, if you like, and they are good for any thing. "At last one of the parcels is arrived. In the notes to Childe Harold there is a blunder of yours or mine: you talk of arrival at Si. (lingo, and, immediately after, add — 'on the height is the Chateau of i'larens.' This is sad work: Clarens is on the other side of the Laki and it is quite impossible that I should have so bungled. Look at tin MS. ; and, at any rate, rectify it. "The 'Tales of my Landlord' I have read with great pleasure, and perfectly understand now why my sister and aunt are so very posit m :u the very erroneous persuasion that they must have been written l>\ mo. If you knew me as well as they do, you would have fallen, per- haps, into the same mistake. Some day or other, I will explain to you why — when I have time ; at present it does not much matter; but you must have thought this blunder of theirs very odd, and so did I, till I had nad the book. — Croker's letter to you is a very great com- pliment ; 1 shall return it to you in my next. " 1 perceive you are publishing a life of liaffael d'Urbino : it may perhaps interest you to hear that a set of German artists here allow their hair to grow, and trim it into his fashion, thereby drinking tin cummin of the disciples of the old philosopher; if they would cut their hair, convert it into brushes, and paint like him, it would be more ' German to the matter.'' " I '11 tell you a story: the other day, a man here — an English— mistaking toe statues of Charlemagne and Constantine, which are equestrian, for those of Peter and Paul, asked another which was Paul of these same horsemen] — to which the reply was — ' I thought, sir. that St. Paul had Dever got on horseback since his accident?" A. d. 1617.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. S3 " I '11 tell you another : Henry Fox, writing to some one from Naples the other day, after an illness, adds — ' and I am so changed that my oldest creditors would hardly know me.' " I am delighted with Rome — as 1 would be with a bandbox, that is, it is a fine thing to see, finer than Greece ; but I have not been here long enough to affect it as a residence, and I must go back to Lom- bardy, because I am wretched at being away from Marianna. I have been riding my saddle-horses every day, and been to Albano, its Lakes, and to the top of the Alban Mount, and to Frescati, Aricia, &c. &c. with an &c. &c. &c. about the city, and in the city : for all which — vide Guidebook. As a whole, ancient and modern, it beats Greece, Constantinople, every thing — at least that I have ever seen. But I can't describe, because my first impressions are always strong and confused, and my memory selects and reduces them to order, like dis- tance in the landscape, and blends them better, although they may be less distinct. There must be a sense or two more than we have, us mortals ; for * * * * * where there is much to be grasped we are always at a loss, and yet feel that we ought to have a higher and more extended comprehension. " I have had a letter from Moore, who is in some alarm about his Poem. I do n't see why. " I have had another from my poor dear Augusta, who fs in a sad fuss about my late illness ; do, pray, tell her (the truth) that I am better than ever, and in importunate health, growing (if not grown) large and ruddy, and congratulated by impertinent persons on my robustious appearance, when I ought to be pale and interesting. " You tell me that George Byron has got a son, and Augusta says. a daughter ; which is it 1 — it is no great matter : the father is a good man, an excellent officer, and has married a very nice little woman, Avho will bring him more babes than income: howbeit she had a handsome dowry, and is a very charming girl; — but he may as well get a ship. " I have no thoughts of coming among you yet awhile, so that 1 can fight off business. If I could but make a tolerable sale of New- stead, there would be no occasion for my return ; and I can assure you very sincerely, that I am much happier (or, at least, have been so) out of your island than in it. " Yours ever. " P.S. There are few English here, but several of my acquaintance ; among others, the Marquis of Lansdowne, with whom I dine to- morrow. I met the Jerseys on the road at Foligno — all well. " Oh — I forgot — the Italians have printed Chillon, &c. a piracy, — a pretty little edition, prettier than yours — and published, as I found to my great astonishment on arriving here ; and what is odd, is, that the English is quite correctly printed. Why they did it, or who did it, 1 know not ; but so it is ; — I suppose, for the English people. I will send you- a copy." F2 NOTICES OF Tin I a i). i- 1 LKTTER CCLXXIX i ■ > Mlt. HOOBE. •• Rome, May 12th, 1817. "I have received your Letter here, where 1 have taken a cruise lately; but I shall return back td Venice in a few days, so that if you write again, address there, as usual. I am not for returning to Eng- land so soon as you imagine ; and by QO means at all as a residence. If you cross the Alps in your projected expedition, you will find mo somewhere in Lombardy, and very glad to see you. Only give me a word or two beforehand, for I would really diverge some leagues to meet you. "Of Rome I say nothing; it is quite indescribable, and the Guidi book is as good as any other. 1 dined yesterday with Lord Lans- downe, who is on his return. But there are few English here at pre- sent : the winter is their time. 1 have been on horseback most of the day, all days since my arrival, and have taken it as I did Constanti- nople. Hut Rome is the elder sister, and the finer. I went some days ago to the top of the \lban Mount, which is superb. As for the Coli- b< ■urn, Pantheon, St. Peter's, the Vatican, Palatine, &c. &c. — as I said, vide Guidebook. They are quite inconceivable, and must be seen. The Apollo Belvidere is the image of Lady Adelaide Forbes — 1 think 1 never saw such a likeness. " 1 have seen the Pope alive, and a cardinal dead, — both of whom looked very well indeed. The latter was in state in the Cliiesa \uova, previous to his interment. " Your poetical alarms are groundless ; go on and prosper. Il< is Hobhouse just come in, and my horses at the door, so that I must mount and take the field in the Campus Martins, which, by-the-way, is all built over by modern Rome. " Yours very and ever, &c. "P.S. Hobhouse presents his remembrances, and is eacrer. witli all the world, for your new 1'oem." LETTER CCLXX.V l.i UB. Ml HH.W . •• \ enice, May SOth, 1817. •• 1 returned from Rome two days ago, and have received your ■r; but no sign nor tidings of the parcel sent through Sir C. Stuart, which you mention. After an interval of months, a packet of 'Tales,' &c. found me at Koine; but this is all, and may be all thai ever will find me. The post seems to be the only sure conveyance, and ilmi only for ifit> r». From Florence 1 sent you a poem pn Tasso, and from Rome the new Third Act of • Manfred, 1 and by Dr. Polidori two portraits for my sister. I Left Rome and made a rapid journej home. Vou will continue to direct here as usual. Mr. Hobhouse te ■ to Naples: I should have rundown (here too for a week, but for the < E lishwhora I heard of there. I prefer hating x. d. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 85 them at a distance ; unless an earthquake, or a good real eruption of Vesuvius, were ensured to reconcile me to their vicinity. ***** " The day before I left Rome I saw three robbers guillotined. The ceremony — including the masqued priests ; the half-naked execu- tioners ; the bandaged criminals ; the black Christ and his banner, the scaffold ; the soldiery ; the slow procession, and the quick rattle and heavy fall of the axe ; the splash of the blood, and the ghaslliness of the exposed heads — is altogether more impressive than the vulgar and ungentlemanly dirty ' new drop,' and dog-like agony of infliction upon the sufferers of the English sentence. Two of these men behaved calmly enough, but the first of the three died with great terror and reluctance. What was very horrible, he would not lie down ; then his neck was too large for the aperture, and the priest was obliged to drown his exclamations by still louder exhortations. The head was off before the eye could trace the blow ; but from an attempt to draw back the head, notwithstanding it was held forward by the hair, the first head was cut off close to the ears : the other two were taken off more cleanly. It is better than the oriental way, and (I should think) than the axe of our ancestors. The pain seems little, and yet the effect to the spectator, and the preparation to the criminal, is very striking and chilling. The first turned me quite hot and thirsty, and made me shake so that I could hardly hold the opera glass (I was close, but was determined to see, as one should see every thing, once, with attention) ; the second and third (which shows how dreadfully soon things grow indifferent), I am ashamed to say, had no effect on me as a horror, though I would have saved them if I could. • ; Yours. &c LETTER CCLXXXI. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, June 4th, 1817. " I have received the proofs of the ' Lament of Tasso,' which makes me hope that you have also received the reformed Third Act of Manfred, from Rome, which I sent soon after my arrival there. My date will apprize you of my return home within these few days. For me, I have received none of your packets, except, after long delay, the ' Tales of my Landlord,' which I before acknowledged. I do not at all understand the -why nots, but so it is ;— no Manuel, no letters, no tooth-powder, no extract from Moore's Italy concerning Marino Faliero, no nothing — as a man hallooed out at one of Bur- nett's elections, after a long ululatus of ' No Bastille ! No govemor- ities ! No—' God knows who or what ; — but his ne plus ultra was ' No nothing !' — and my receipts of your packages amount to about his meaning. I want the extract from Moore's Italy very much, and the tooth-powder, and the magnesia ; I do n't care so much about the poetry, or the letters, or Mr. Maturin's by-Jasus tragedy. Most of the things sent by the post have come — I mean proofs and letters ; therefore, send me Marino Faliero by the post, in a letter. " I was delighted with Rome, and was on horseback all round it many hours daily, besides in it the rest of my time, bothering over its marvels. I excursed and skirred the country round to Alba, Tivoli, Freseari, Licenza, &e. &c. ; besides I visited tAvice the Fall of Terni, >u S'O I 'l< ES OF THE [a.b. 18] which beats ever) thing. On my way back, rlose to the temple bj ts I'. ink-. I got some famous (rout out of the river Clitumnus — th. • prettiest little stream in all poesy, near the first post from Foligno and Spoletto. — 1 did not stay at Florence, being anxious to get home tO Venice, and having already seen the galleries and other sights. 1 left my eommendatory letters the evening' before I went; BO I saw nobody. "To-day, Pindemonte, the celebrated port of Verona, railed on me; he is a little, thin man, with acute and pleasing features ; his address good and gentle ; his appearance altogether very philosophical ; his age about sixty, or more. He is one of their best going. 1 gave him Forsyth, ax he speaks, or reads rather, a Utile English, and will find there a favourable account of himself. 1 He inquired alter his old Cruscan friends, Parsons, Greathead, Mrs. Piozzi, and Merry, all of whom he had known in his youth. 1 gave turn as bad an account of them as I could, answering, as the false ' Solomon Lob' does to ' Tot- terton' in the farce, 'all gone dead,' and damned by a satire more than twenty years ago; that the name of their extinguisher was (JirTord; that they were but a sad set of scribes after all, and no great things in any other way. He seemed, as was natural, very much pleased with this account of his old acquaintances, and went away greatly gratified with that and Mr. Forsyth's sententious paragraph of applause in his own (Pindemonte's) favour. After having been a little liber- tine in his youth, he is grown devout, and takes prayers, and talks to himself, to keep off the Devil ; but for all that, he is a very nice little old gentleman. " I forgot to tell you that at Bologna (which is celebrated for pro- ducing popes, painters, and sausages) I saw an anatomical gallery, where there is a deal of waxwork, in which * * * * * * all made and moulded by a female professor, whose picture and merits are erved and detailed to you. 1 thought her performance not very favourable to her imagination ******. " 1 am sorry to hear of your row with Hunt ; but suppose him to be exasperated by the Quarterly and your refusal to deal} and when one is angry and edits a paper, I should think the temptation too strong for literary nature, which is not always human. 1 can't conceive in what, and for w hat, he abuses you : what have you done 1 you are not an author, nor a politician, nor a public character; I know no scrape; you have tumbled into. 1 am the more sorry for this because 1 intro- duced you to Hunt, and because I believe him to be a good man; but till I know the particulars, I can give no opinion. •• Let me know about Lalla Rookh, which must be out by this time. " I restore the proofs, but the punctuation should be corrected. 1 feel too lazy to have at it myself; so ben and pray Mr. Gifford forme. — Address to Venice. In a few days 1 go to my villeggiatura, in a mo near the Brenta, a few miles only on the mainland. I have determined on another year, and many years of residence, if I can compass them. Mananna is with me, hardly recovered of the fever, which has been attacking all Italy last \\ inter. I am afraid she is a little hectic ; but I hope the best. " Ever, &e. " I\S. Towaltzen has done a bust of me at Rome for Mr. Hob- house, winch is reckoned very good. He is their best after Canova, and b\ some preferred to him. " I have had a letter from Mr. Hodgson. He is very happy, has A. d. 1617.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 81 got a living, but not a child : if lie had stuck to a curacy, babes would have come of course, because he could not have maintained them. " Remember me to all friends, &c. &c. " An Austrian officer, the other day, being in love with a Venetian, was ordered, with his regiment, into Hungary. Distracted between love and duty, he purchased a deadly drug, which, dividing with his mistress, both swallowed. The ensuing pains were terrific, but the pills were purgative, and not poisonous, by the contrivance of the unsentimental apothecary ; so that so much suicide was all thrown away. You may conceive the previous confusion and the final laugh- ter ; but the intention was good on all sides." LETTER CCLXXXII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, June 8th, 1817. - The present letter will be delivered to you by two Armenian friars, on their way, by England, to Madras. They will also convey some copies of the Grammar, which 1 think you agreed to take. If you can be of any use to them, either among your naval or East Indian acquaint- ances, I hope you will so far oblige me, as they and their order have been remarkably attentive and friendly towards me since my arrival at Venice. Their names are Father Sukias Somalian and Father Sarkis Theodorosian. They speak Italian, and probably French, or a little English. Repeating earnestly my recommendatory request, believe me very truly yours, " Byron. " Perhaps you can help them to their passage, or give or get them letters for India." LETTER CCLXXXIII. TO MR. MURRAY. "La Mira, near Venice, June 14th, 1817. " I write to you from the banks of the Brenta, a few miles from Venice, where I have colonized for six months to come. Address, as usual, to Venice. " Three months after date (17th March), — like the unnegotiable bill despondingly received by the reluctant tailor, — your despatch has arrived, containing the extract from Moore's Italy and Mr. Maturin's bankrupt tragedy. It is the absurd work of a clever man. I think it might have done upon the stage if he had made Manuel (by some trickery, in a mask or visor) fight his own battle instead of employing Molineux as his champion; and, after the defeat of Torrismond, have made him spare the son of his enemy, by some revulsion of feeling, not incompatible with a character of extravagant and distempered emotions. But as it is, what with the Justiza, and the ridiculous con- duct of the whole dram. pers. (for they are all as mad as Manuel, who surely must have had more interest with a corrupt bench than a dis- tant relation and heir presumptive, somewhat suspect of homicide^. NOTICES OF THE [a. k. ioi: l do nut wondei al its failure. As a play, it is impracticable; as .1 poem, do great things. Who was the 'Greek that grappled withglorj naked'" the Olympic wrestlers 1 or Alexander the <;reat, when he ran stark round the tomb of t' Other fellOW 1 or the Spartan who was fined i>\ the Bphori tor fighting without his armour? or who ! And as to ' Saying oil lilt- like a garment, 1 belas! that's in Tom Thumb — see king Arthur's soliloquy : ' Life 's a mere rag, not worth a prinee's wearing; I '11 cast it off.' And the stage-directions — ' Staggers among the bodies ;' — the slain are too numerous, as well as the blackamoor knights-penitent being one too many : and De Zelos is such a shabby Monmouth-street villain. without any redeeming quality — Stap my vitals ! Maturin seems to be declining into Nat. Lee. But let him try again ; he has talent, but not much taste. 1 'gin to fear, or to hope, that Sotheby after all is to be the yEschylusof the age, unless Mr. Shicl be really worthy his success. The more I see of the stage, the less I would wish to have any thing to do with it; as a proof of which, I hope you have received the Third Act of Manfred, which will at least prove that I wish to steer very clear of the possibility of being put into scenery. 1 sent it from Home. "1 returned the proof of Tasso. By-thc-way, have you never received a translation of St. Paul, which 1 sent you, not for publica- tion, before I went to Rome ? " I am at present on the Brenta. Opposite is a Spanish marquis, ninety years old; next his casino is a Frenchman's, — besides the natives ; so that, as somebody said the other day, we are exactly one of Goldoni's comedies (La Vedova Scaltra), where a Spaniard, Eng- lish, and Frenchman are introduced : but we are'all very good neigh- bours, Venetians, &c. &c. &c. " 1 am just getting on horseback for my evening ride, and a visit ti> a physician, who has an agreeable family, of a wife and four unmar- ried daughters, all under eighteen, who are friends of Signora S ■ ', and enemies to nobody. There are, and are to be, besides, conversa- ziones and 1 know not what, at a Countess Labbia's and 1 know not whom. The weather is mild; the thermometer 110 in the sun this . and 80 odd hi the shade. '• Yours, &C. • V" LETTER (VLXXXIY. TO MR. MURRAY. • La Mira, near Venice, .lime 17th, 1817. •• It gives me great pleasure to hear of Moore's success, and the more so that I never doubted that it would be complete. Whatever trood yon can tell me of him and iiis poem will be most acceptable: I Peel very anxious indeed to receive it. 1 hope that he is as happy in his fame and reward as I wish him to be; for I know no one who deserves both more — if any so much. M Now to business ; ****** T sav unto vou, verily, it is not . o. lsi/.J LIFE OF LURD BY&ON. Si» so ; or, as the foreigner said to the waiter, after asking him to bring a glass of water, to which the man answered, ' I will, sir,' — ' You will '. — G — d d — n, — I say, you mush /' And I will submit this to the deci- sion of any person or persons to be appointed by both, on a fair examination of the circumstances of this as compared with the pre- ceding publications. So, there 's for you. There is always some row or other previously to all our publications : it should seem that, on approximating, we can never quite get over the natural antipathy of author and bookseller, and that more particularly the ferine nature of the latter must break forth. " You are out about the Third Canto : I have not done, nor de- signed, a line of continuation to that poem. I was too short a time at Rome for it, and have no thought of recommencing. * * * " I cannot well explain to you by letter what I conceive to be the origin of Mrs. Leigh's notion about ' Tales of My Landlord ;' but it is some points of the characters of Sir E. Manley and Burley, as well as one or two of the jocular portions, on which it is founded, probably. " If you have received Dr. Polidori, as well as a parcel of books, and you can be of use to him, be so. I never was much more dis- gusted with any human production than with the eternal nonsense, and tracasseries, and emptiness, and ill-humour, and vanity of that young person ; but he has some talent, and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of amendment, in which he has been aided by a little subsequent experience, and may turn out well. Therefore, use youv government interest for him, for he is improved and improvable. "Yours, &c" LETTER CCLXXXV. TO MR. MURRAY. " La Mira, near Venice, June 18th, 1817. ' ; Enclosed is a letter to Dr. Holland from Pindemonte. Not know- ing the doctor's address, I am desired to inquire, and perhaps, being a literary man, you will know or discover his haunt near some popu- lous churchyard. I have written to you a scolding letter — I believe, upon a misapprehended passage in your letter — but never mind : it will do for next time, and you will surely deserve it. Talking of doctors reminds me once more to recommend to you one who will not recommend himself, — the Doctor Polidori. If you can help him to a publisher, do; or, if you have any sick relation, I would advise his advice : all the patients he had in Italy are dead — Mr. * *'s son. Mr. Horner, and Lord G * *, whom he embowelled with great suc- cess at Pisa. * * * * " Remember me to Moore, whom I congratulate. How is Rogers ? and what is become of Campbell and all t' other fellows of the Druid order? I got Maturin's Bedlam at last, but no other parcel ; I am in fits for the tooth-powder, and the magnesia. I want some of Burkitt's Soda powders. Will you tell Mr. Kinnaird that I have written him two letters on pressing business (about Newstead, &c), to which I humbly solicit his attendance. I am just returned from a gallop along the banks of the Brenta — time, sunset. " Yours, "TV 90 NOTICES OF THE «.d. 1817. LETTER CCLWWI. TO MR. MURRAY. " La Mira, near Venice, July 1st, 1817. • Smre my former letlcr, 1 have been working up my impressions into ;i Fourth Canto uf Childe Harold, of which I have roughened ofl' about rattier better than tlurU stanzas, and mean to goon ; and probably to make this ' Fytte' the concluding one of the poem, so that you may propose against the autumn to draw out the conscription for 1818. You must provide moneys, as this new resumption bodes you certain disbursements. Somewhere about the end of September or October, I propose to be under way (i. e. in the press) ; but 1 have no idea yet of the probable length or calibre of the I 'auto, or what it will be good for ; but 1 mean to be as mercenary as possible, an example (I do nut mean of any individual in particular, and least of all any person or persons of our mutual acquaintance) which I should have followed in my youth, and 1 might still have been a prosperous gentleman. "No tooth-powder, no letters, no recent tidings of you. "Mr. Lewis is at Venice, and 1 am going up to stay a week with him there — as it is one of his enthusiasms also to like the city. " I stood in Venice on the ' Bridge of Sighs,' &c. &c. - The ' Bridge of Sighs' (i. e. Ponte de'i Sospiri) is that which divides, or rather joins, the palace of the Doge to the prison of the state. It has two passages : the criminal went by the one to judg- ment, and returned by the other to death, being strangled in a chamber adjoining, where there was a mechanical process for the purpose. " This is the first stanza of our new Canto ; and now for a line of ihe second : " In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier, Her palaces, &c. &c. •• Ybn know that formerly the gondoliers sung always, and Tasso's Qierusalemme was their ballad. Venice is built on seventy-two - Lunls. "There! there \s a brick of your new Babel ! and now, sirrah ! what lay you to the sample ! •• Yours. &e. •• P.S. T shall write again by-and-hy.'* LETTER CCLXXXVII. TO MR. MURRAY. " La Mira, near Venice, July 8th, 1817. •• If you can convey the enclosed letter to its address, or discover the nn to whom it is directed, you will confer a favour upon the Vein tian creditor of a deceased Englishman. This epistle is a dun to his PXecutor, for house-rent. The name of the insolvent defunct is. ov a. d. 1617. j LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 91 was, Porter Falter, according- to the account of the plaintiff", which 1 rather suspect ought to be Walter Porter, according- to our mode of collocation. If you are acquainted with any dead man of the like name a good deal in debt, pray dig him up, and tell him that ' a pound of his fair flesh' or the ducats are required, and that ' if you deny them, fie upon your law !' " I hear nothing more from you about Moore's poem, Rogers, or other literary phenomena ; but to-morrow, being post-day, will bring perhaps some tidings. I write to you with people talking Venetian all about, so that you must not expect this letter to be all English. "The other day, I had a squabble on the highway as follows : I was riding pretty quickly from Dolo home about eight in the evening, when 1 passed a party of" people in a hired carriage, one of whom, poking his head out of the window, began bawling to me in an inarticulate but insolent manner. I wheeled my horse round, and overtaking, stopped the coach, and said, ' Signor, have you any commands for meV He replied, impudently as to manner, ' No.' I then asked him what he meant by that unseemly noise, to the discomfiture of the passers- by. He replied by some piece of impertinence, to which I answered by giving him a violent slap in the face. I then dismounted (for this passed at the window, I being on horseback still), and opening the door, desired him to walk out, or I would give him another. But the first had settled him except as to words, of which he poured forth a profusion in blasphemies, swearing that he would go to the police and avouch a battery sans provocation. I said he lied, and was a * *, and, if he did not hold his tongue, should be dragged out and beaten anew. He then held his tongue. I of course told him my name and resi- dence, and defied him to the death, if he were a gentleman, or not a gentleman, and had the inclination to be genteel in the way of combat. He went to the police, but there having been bystanders in the road, — particularly a soldier, who had seen the business, — as well as my ser- vant, notwithstanding the oaths of the coachman and five insides besides the plaintiff, and a good deal of paying on all sides, his com- plaint was dismissed, he having been the aggressor; — and I was sub- sequently informed that, had I not given him a blow, he might have been had into durance. "So set down this, — 'that in Aleppo once' I 'beat a Venetian ;' but I assure you that he deserved it, for I am a quiet man, like Candide, though with somewhat of his fortune in being forced to forego my natural meekness every now and then. " Yours, &c. "B." LETTER CCLXXXVIII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, July 9th, 1617. " 1 have got the sketcli and extracts from Lalla Rookh — which 1 humbly suspect will knock up * *, and show young gentlemen that something more than having been across a camel's hump is necessary to write a good oriental tale. The plan, as well as the extracts I have seen, please me very much indeed, and 1 feel impatient for the whole. •' With regard to the critique on ' Manfred.' you have been in such a 93 NOTICES OF Till. [ A . u. 1817. devil ol" a hurry that you have only sent me the half: it breaks off at page 'Jill. Send me the rest; and also page x>7(>, where there is 'an account of the supposed origin of this dreadful story,' — in which, by- the-way, whatever it may he, the conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of the matter. 1 had a better origin than he can devise or divine, for the soul of him. '• You say nothing of Manfred's link in the world; and 1 care not. He is one nf the best of my misbegotten, say what they will. " 1 got at last an extract, but no parcels. They will come, I suppose, some time or other. I am come up to Venice for a day or two to bathe, and am just going to take a swim in the Adriatic ; so, good evening — the post waits. " Yours, &c. "B. •• P.S. Pray, was Manfred's speech to the Sun still retained in Act Third? 1 hope so: it was one of the best in the thing, ami lit iter than the Colosseum. 1 have done Jifty-six of Canto Fourth, Childe Harold ; so down with your ducats." LETTER CCLXXXIV TO MR. MOORE. " La Mira, Venice, July 10th, 1817. " Murray, the Mokanna of booksellers, has contrived to send me .\tracts from Lalla Rookh by the post. They are taken from some magazine, and contain a short outline and quotations from the first two Poems. I am very mueh delighted with what is before me, and very thirsty for the rest. You have caught the colours as if you had been in the rainbow, and the tone of the East is perfectly preserved ; so that * * * and its author must be somewhat in the back-ground, and learn that it requires something more than to have been upon the haunch of a dromedary to compose a good oriental story. I am glad you have changed the title from ' Persian Tale.' * * * "I suspeel you have written a devilish fine composition, and I rejoice in it from my heart ; because 'the Douglas and the Percy both together are confident against a world in arms.' I hope you won't be affronted at my Looking on us as ' birds of a feather;' though on whatever sub- ject you bad written, I should have been very happy in your success. "There is a simile of an orange tree's ' flowers and fruits,' which I should have liked better, if I did not believe it to be a reflection on ****** " Do you remember Thurlow's poem to Sam — ' When Rogers;' and that il — (I BUpperof Rancliffe's thai OUght to have been a dinner? 'All. Master Shallow, we have heard the chimes at midnight.' — Rut •■ M\ boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea; Rut. before I go t Tom Moore, ! [ere 's a double health to thee ! •• 1 lere 's a sigh to those who love m< . \nd a -nulr to those who hate : a.u. 1817.J LIFE OF LORD BYftOiV. 93 And, whatever sky 's above mc, Here 's a heart for every fate. " Though the ocean roar around me, Yet it still shall bear me on ; Though a desert shall surround me, It hath springs that may be won. i; Were 't the last drop in the well, As I gasp'd upon the brink, Ere my fainting spirit fell, 'T is to thee that I would drink. • ; With that water, as this wine, The libation I would pour Should be — peace with thine and mine, And a health to thee, Tom Moore. " This should have been written fifteen moons ago — the first stanza was. lam just come out from an hour's swim in the Adriatic ; and I write to you with a black-eyed Venetian girl before me, reading Boccacio. * * * " Last week I had a row on the road (I came up to Venice from my casino, a few miles on the Paduan road, this blessed day, to bathe) with a fellow in a carriage, who was impudent to my horse. I gave him a swinging box on the ear, which sent him to the police, who dis- missed his complaint, and said, that if I had not thumped him, they would have trounced him for being impertinent. Witnesses had seen the transaction. He first shouted, in an unseemly way, to frighten my palfrey. I wheeled round, rode up to the window, and asked him what he meant. He grinned, and said some foolery, which produced him an immediate slap in the face, to his utter discomfiture. Much blasphemy ensued, and some menace, which I stopped by dismounting and opening the carriage door, and intimating an intention of mending the road with his immediate remains, if he did not hold his tongue. He held it. " The fellow went sneakingly to the police ; but a soldier, who had seen the matter, and thought me right, went and counter-oathed him ; so that he had to retire — and cheap too : — I wish I had hit him harder. " Monk Lewis is here — ' how pleasant !'* He is a very good fellow, and very much yours. So is Sam— so is every body — and, among the number, " Yours ever, "B. "P.S. What think you of Manfred? * * * * " If ever you see * * *, ask him what he means by telling me, ' Oh, my friend, inveni portum V — What ' portum V Port wine, I sup- pose — the only port he ever sought or found, since I knew him." * An allusion (such as often occurs in these letters) to an anecdote with which he had been amused. ft NOTICES OP THE [a.d. 161*. LETTER CCXC. TO MR. MURRAY. " La Mira, near Venice, July 15th, 1817. "1 have finished (that, is written — the file comes afterward) ninety and eight stanzas of the Fourth Canto, which I mean to he the con- cluding one. It will probably be about the same length as the Third, being already of the dimensions of the first or second Cantos. I look upon parts of it as very good, that is, if the three former are good, but this we shall sec; and at any rate, good or not, it is rather a different style from the last — less metaphysical — winch, at any rate, will he a variety. 1 sent you the shaft of the column as a specimen the other day, i. e. the first stanza. So you may be thinking of its arrival towards autumn, whose winds will not be the only ones to be raised, if so be as huxv that it is ready by that time. " I lent Lewis, who is at Venice (in or on the Canalaccio, the Grand Canal), your extracts from Lalla Rookh and Manuel,* and, out of con- tradiction, it may be, he likes the last, and is not much taken with the first, of these performances. Of Manuel I think, with the excep- tion of a few capers, it is as heavy a nightmare as was ever bestrode by indigestion. " Of the extracts I can but judge as extracts, and 1 prefer the ' Peri' to the ' Silver Veil.' He seems not so much at home in his versifica- tion of the ' Silver Veil/ am! a little t mbarrassed with his horrors ; but the conception of the character of the impostor is fine, and the plan of great scope for his genius, — and I doubt not that, as a whole, it will be very Arabesque and beautiful. "Your late epistle is not the most abundant in information, and has not yet been succeeded by any other; so that 1 know nothing of your own concerns, or of any concerns, and as I never hear from any body but yourself who does not tell me something as disagreeable as possible, I should not be sorry to hear from you : and as it is not very probable, — if I can, by any device or possible arrangement with regard to my personal affairs, so arrange it, — that I shall return soon, or reside ever in England, all thai you t>'U me will be all I shall know or inquire after, as to our beloved realm of Grab-Street, and the black brethren and blue sisterhood of that extensive suburb of Babylon. Have yon bad no new babe of literal me sprung up to replace the dead, the distant, the tired, and the retired? no prose, no verse, no nothing?" LETTER CCXCI. TO MR. HURRAY. M Venice, July 20th, 1817. **] write to give you notice that I have completed the fourth and ultimate Canto of Childe Harold. It consists of 126 stanzas, and is consequently the longest of the four. It is yet to be copied and • \ tragedy, by the Hcv. Mr. Maturin a. i). 1617.J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. yj polished ; and the notes are to come, of which it will require more than the third Canto, as it necessarily treats more of works of art than of nature. It shall be sent towards autumn; — and now for our barter. What do you bid? eh? you shall have samples, an' it so please you : but I wish to know what 1 am to expect (as the saying is) in these hard times, when poetry does not let for half its value. If you are disposed to do what Mrs. Winifred Jenkins calls ' the handsome thing,' I may perhaps throw you some odd matters to the lot, — translations, or slight originals ; there is no saying what may be on the anvil between this and the booking season. Recollect that it is the last Canto, and completes the work ; whether as good as the others, I cannot judge, in course — least of all as yet, but it shall be as little worse as I can help. I may, perhaps, give some little gossip in the notes as to the present state of Italian literati and literature, being acquainted with some of their capi — men as well as books ; — but this depends upon my humour at the time. So, now, pronounce : I say nothing. " When you have got the whole four Cantos, I think you might venture on an edition of the whole poem in quarto, with spare copTes of the last two for the purchasers of the old edition of the first two. There is a hint for you, worthy of the Row ; and now, perpend— pronounce. " I have not received a word from you of the fate of ' Manfred' or ' Tasso,' which seems to me odd, whether they have failed or succeeded. " As this is a scrawl of business, and I have lately written at length and often on other subjects, I will only add that I am, &c." LETTER CCXCII. TO MR. MURRAY. "La Mira, near Venice, August 7th, 1817. " Your letter of the 18th, and, what will please you, as it did me. the parcel sent by the good-natured aid and abetment of Mr. Croker, are arrived. — Messrs. Lewis and Hobhouse are here : the former in the same house, the latter a few hundred yards distant. "You say nothing of Manfred, from which its failure may bo inferred ; but I think it odd you should not say so at once. I know- nothing, and hear absolutely nothing, of any body or any thing in England ; and there are no English papers, so that all you say will be news — of any person, or thing, or things. I am at present very anx- ious about Newstead, and sorry that Kinnaird is leaving England at this minute, though I do not tell him so, and would rather he should have his pleasure, although it may not in this instance tend to my profit. " If I understand rightly, you have paid into Morland's 1500 pounds : as the agreement in the paper is two thousand guineas, there will remain therefore six hundred pounds, and not five hundred, the odd hundred being the extra to make up the specie. Six hundred and thirty pounds will bring it to the like for Manfred and Tasso, making a total of twelve hundred and thirty, 1 believe, for I am not a good calculator. I do not wish to press you, but I tell you fairly that it ■will be a convenience to me to have it paid as soon as it can be made convenient to yourself. % NOTICES OF THE [\. v. ltn;. "The Dew and lasl Canto is ISO atanzas in length ; and maybe made more <>r less. I have fixed no price, even in idea, and have no notion of what it may he g 1 for. There are no metaphysies in it; at least, I think not. Mr. Hobhouse has promised me a eopy of Tasso's Will, for notes; and I have some curious things to say about. fYrrara. and l'arisina's story, and perhaps a farthing candle's worth of light upon the present stale of Italian literature. I shall hardly be nady hy October; but thai do n't matter. I have all to copy and correct, and die notes to write. "I do not know whether Scott will like it ; but I have called him the i Ariosto of the North' in my text. If he should not, say so in tunr. " Lewis, Hobhouse, and I went the other day to the circumcision of a sucking Shy lock. I have seen three men's heads and a child's foreskin cut off in Italy. The ceremonies are very moving, but too long for detail in this weather. " An Italian translation of ' Glenarvon' came lately to be printed at Venice. The censor (8 r . Petrotini) refused to sanction the publication till he had seen me on the subject. I told him that I did not recognise the slightest relation between that book and myself; but that, what- ever opinions might be upon that subject, / would never prevent or oppose the publication of any book, in any language, on my own pri- vate account; and desired him (against liis inclination) to permit the poor translator to publish his labours. It is going forward in conse- quence. You may say this, with my compliments, to the author. •« Yours." LETTER CCXCIII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, August 18, 1617. ■• 1 have been very sorry to hear of the death of Madame de Stael, not only because she had been very kind to me at Copet, but because. now I can never requite her. In a general point of view, she Will leave a great gap in society and literature. " With regard to death, I doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own Bakes. "The copies of Manfred and TassO are arrived, thanks to Mr. Cro- .i r's cover. You have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the poem by omitting the last line of Manfred's speaking; and why this was done. I know not. \\ by you persist in saying nothing of the thing itself, I am equally at a loss to conjecture. If it is for fear of telling me something disagreeable, you are wrong; because sooner or jater I must know it, and I am not so new, nor BO raw, nor so inexpe- rienced, as not to be able to bear, not the mere paltry, petty disap- pointments of authorship, but things more serious, — at least, I hope so, and that what you may think irrii ability is merely mechanical, and only acts like galvanism on a dead body, or the muscular motion which survives sensation. " If it is thai you are out of humour, because 1 wrote to you a sharp etter, recoiled that it was partly from a misconception of your letter, and partly because you did a thing you had no right to do without 'onsulting me. •• f hai e. how ever, heard good of Manfred from two other quarters. a. p. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON., 97 and from men who would not be scrupulous in saying what they thought, or what was said ; and so ' good-morrow to you, good Master Lieutenant.' " I wrote to you twice about the 4th Canto, which you will answer at your pleasure. Mr. Hobhouse and 1 have come up for a day to the city ; Mr. Lewis is gone to England ; and I am "Yours" LETTER CCXCIV. TO MR. MURRAY. " La Mira, near Venice, August 21, 1817. " I take you at your word about Mr. Hanson, and will feel obliged if you will go to him, and request Mr. Davies also to visit him by my desire, and repeat that I trust that neither Mr. Kinnaird's absence nor mine will prevent his taking all proper steps to accelerate and promote the. sale of Newstead and Rochdale, upon which the whole of my future personal comfort depends. It is impossible for me to express how much any delays upon these points would inconvenience me ; and I do not know a greater obligation that can be conferred upon me than the pressing these things upon Hanson, and making him act according to my wishes. I wish you would speak out, at least to me, and tell me what you allude to by your cold way of mentioning him. All mysteries at such a distance are not merely tormenting but mis- chievous, and may be prejudicial to my interests ; so pray expound, that I may consult with Mr. Kinnaird when he arrives ; and remember that I prefer the most disagreeable certainties to hints and inuendoes, The devil take every body ; I never can get any person to be explicit about any thing or any body, and my whole life is passed in conjec- tures of what people mean : you all talk in the style of C * * L * *'s novels. " It is not Mr. St. John, but Mr. St. Aubyn, son of Sir John St. Aubyn. Polidori knows him, and introduced him to me. He is of Oxford and has got my parcel. The doctor will ferret him out, or ought. The parcel contains many letters, some of Madame de Stael's, and other people's, besides MSS., &c. By , if I find the gentle- man, and he do n't find the parcel, I will say something he won't like to hear. " You want a ' civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedv 1 Take it— " Dear Doctor, I have read your play, Which is a good one in its way ; Purges the eyes and moves the bowels, And drenches handkerchiefs like towels With tears, that, in a flux of grief, Afford hysterical relief To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses, Which your catastrophe convulses. " I like your moral and machinery ; Your plot, too, has such scope for scenery ! Your dialogue is apt and smart ; The plav's concoction full of art : Vol. II.— G i- SOTH ES 01 THE [a. d. 18i: \ our hi ro raves, your heroine cries. Ml slab, and every body dies, in short, your tragedy would be The vny thing to hear and see : \ud for a piece of publication, If 1 lifeline on this occasion, li is not thai I am not sensible To merits m themselves ostensible . Kill — and I grieve to speak il — plays Are drugs — mere drugs, sir — aow-a-days. I had a in avj Loss bj ' Manui I,' — TOO Lucky if it prove net annual, — \ml S ' \ w itli Ins ' < Irestes,' (Which, by-the-by, the author's best is,) lias lain so very "long on band That I despair of all demand. I 've advertised, bul see my book.-. Or only watch my shopman's looks; — Still Ivan, [na, and such lumber, My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber. " There *s Byron, too, who once did belter, Has sent me, raided iu a letter. \ sort of— il 's no more a drama Than Darnley, [van, or Kehama . So alter'd Bince last year Ins pen is, I think be 's Lost ins wits at Venice. #•••-■ In short, sir, what with one and t' other, I dare not venture on another. I write m haste ; excuse each blunder; The coaches through the street so thunder! My room 's so full — we've Gi fiord here Reading MS., with Hookham Frere Pronouncing on the nouns ami particles Of some of our forthcoming Articles. " The Quarterly — Mi, sir, if you Had but the genius to review ! — \ smart critique upon St. Helena, Or if you only would bill tell in a .Short compass what but, to resunn \s I was Baying, sir, the room — The room 's so lull of wits and bards, Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards, \nd Others, neither bards nor w its ; — My humble tenement admits \ll persons in the dri ss of gent., Prom Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent. ■• \ party dines with me to-day, \11 clever men, who make their way; The\ 're at this moment in discussion On poor De Stael's late dissolution. Her hook, tin \ Bay, was in advance — 1'iav Heaven, >he tell tin- truth of France*! A. D. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYROiV 99 " Thus run our time and tongues away.— But, to return, sir, to your play : Sorry, sir, but I cannot deal, Unless 't were acted by O'Neill. My hands so full, my head so busy, I 'm almost dead, and always dizzy ; And so, with endless truth and hurry, Dear Doctor, I am yours, "John Murray. " P.S. I 've done the fourth and last Canto, which amounts to 133 stanzas. I desire you to name a price ; if you do n't, / will ; so I advise you in time. " Yours, &c. " There will be a good many notes." Among those minor misrepresentations of which it was Lord Byron's fate to be the victim, advantage was, at this time, taken of his professed distaste to the English, to accuse him of acts of inhospitality, and even rudeness, towards some of his fellow-countrymen. How far different was his treatment of all who ever visited him, many grateful testimonies might be collected to prove ; but I shall here content my- self with selecting a few extracts from an account given me by Mr. Henry Joy of a visit which, in company with another English gentle- man, he paid to the noble poet this summer, at his villa on the banks of the Brenta. After mentioning the various civilities they had expe- rienced from Lord Byron, and, among others, his having requested them to name their own day for dining with him, — " We availed our- selves," says Mr. Joy, " of this considerate courtesy by naming the day fixed for our return to Padua, when our route would lead us to his door; and we were welcomed with all the cordiality which was to be expected from so friendly a bidding. Such traits of kindness in such a man deserve to be recorded on account of the numerous slanders thrown upon him by some of the tribes of tourists, who resented as a personal affront his resolution to avoid their impertinent inroads upon his retirement. So far from any appearance of indiscriminate aver- sion to his countrymen, his inquiries about his friends in England {quorum pars magna fuisti) were most anxious and particular. ****** "He expressed some opinions," continues my informant, " on mat- ters of taste, which cannot fail to interest his biographer. He con- tended that Sculpture, as an art, was vastly superior to Painting; — a preference which is strikingly illustrated by the fact that, in the fourth Canto of Childe Harold, he gives the most elaborate and splendid account of several statues, and none of any pictures; although Italy is, emphatically, the land of Painting, and her best statues are derived from Greece. By-the-way, he told us that there were more objects of interest in Rome alone than in all Greece from one extremity to the other. * * * * After regaling us with an excellent dinner (in which, by-the-by, a very English joint of roast beef showed that he did not extend his antipathies to all John-Bullisms), he took me in his carriage some miles of our route towards Padua, after apologizing to my fellow-traveller for the separation, on the score of his anxiety to hear all he could of his friends in England ; and I quitted him with a con- firmed impression of the strong ardour and sincerity of his attachment to those bv whom he did not fancy himself slighted or ill-treated." G a 100 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1817. LETTER CCXCV. TO MR. MIRHW. " Sept. 4th, 1817. •• Your Letter of the i">th has conveyed with its contents the impres- sion of ;i seal, to which the 'Saracen's Head' is a seraph, and the 1 Bull and Mouth' a delicate device. I knew that calumny had suffi- ciently blackened me of Later da] s, but nol thai it had given the features as well as complexion <>f a negro. Poor Augusta is not Leas, hut rather more, Bhocked than myself, and Bays, ' people seem to have lost their moiled ion strangely 1 when they engraved such a 'blackamoor.' Pray don'l seal (at least in me) with such a caricature of the human numskull altogether; ami if you don't break the seal-cutter's head, at least crack his libel (or likeness, if it should be a Liken< ss) of mme. "Mr. Kinnaird is not yet arrived, but expected, lie has lost by tin. way all the tooth-powder, as a letter from Spa informs me. " By Mr. Rose I received safely, though tardily, magnesia and tooth- powder, and * '. Why do you send me such trash — worse than trash, the Sublime of Mediocrity'? Thanks for Lalla, however, which is good ; and thanks for the Edinburgh and Quarterly, both vei '- nmusmg and well-written. Paris in 1815, fee. — good. Modern Greece — good for nothing; written bj BOme one who has never been there, and not being aide to manage the Spender stanza, has invented a thing of its own, consisting of two elegiac stanzas, a heroic Line, and an Uexandrine, twisted on a Btring. Besides, why '■modem.'" You may say modern Greek*, bul BUrely Greece itself is rather more ancient than ever it was. — Now for business. •■ You ..tier L600 guineas for the new Canto : I won't take it. I ask two thousand five bundred guineas for it, which you will either give or not, ;i> you think proper. It concludes the poem, and consists ol i it stanzas. The notes are numerous, and chiefly written b) Mr. Hob- bouse, whose researches have been indefatigable, and who, I will ven- ture to say, has more real knowledge Of Koine and its env irons than any Englishman who has been there since Gibbon By-the-way, to prevent anj mistakes, I think it necessary to state the Fact that fee, Mr. Eiobhouse, has no interest whatever in the price or profit to be derived from the eopyri" lit of either poem or not es direct |y or uidirecllv : so that you are not to suppose that il is by, for, or through him, thai I require more for this Canto than the preceding. — No: hut if \] Eustace was to have had two thousand for a poem on Education; il Mr. Moore is to have three thousand for Lalla, &c. ; if Mr. ('ami is to have three thousand for his prose on poetry — 1 don't mean to dis- parage these gentlemen in then- Labours — but I ask the aforesaid price for mine. You will tell me that their productions are considerably ! 'ingrr : very true, and when they shorten them, I will Lengthen mine, and ask less. You shall sulnuit the MS. to Mr. ( o fiord, and any other two gentlemen to be named by you (Mr. I'rere, or Mr. t'roker, or whomever you please, except BUcti fellows as your * *s and **s), 'ind 1 1 they pronounce this Canto to be inferior as a whole to the pre- ceding, I will not appeal from their award, but burn the manuscript, and leave things as they are. • Yours very truly. a. d. 1617.] LIFE OF LORD B^RON. 101 " P.S. In answer to a former letter, I sent you a short statement of what I thought the state of our present copyright account, viz. six hundred pounds still (or lately) due on Childe Harold, and six hundred guineas, Manfred and Tasso, making a total of twelve hundred and thirty pounds. If we agree about the new poem, I shall take the liberty to reserve the choice of the manner in which it should be pub- lished, viz. a quarto, certes." * * • * LETTER CCXCV1. TO MR. HOPPNER. "La Mira, Sept. 12th, 1817. "I set out yesterday morning with the intention of paying my respects, and availing myself of your permission to walk over the premises.* On arriving at Padua, I found that the march of the Austrian troops had engrossed so many horses,! that those I could procure were hardly able to crawl ; and their weakness, together with the prospect of finding none at all at the post-house of Monselice, and consequently either not arriving that day at Este, or so late as to be unable to return home the same evening, induced me to turn aside in a second visit to Arqua, instead of proceeding onwards ; and even thus I hardly got back in time. " Next week I shall be obliged to be in Venice to meet Lord Kin- naird and his brother, who are expected in a few days. And this interruption, together with that occasioned by the continued march of the Austrians for the next few days, will not allow me to fix any pre- cise period for availing myself of your kindness, though I should wish to take the earliest opportunity. Perhaps, if absent, you will have the goodness to permit one of your servants to show me the grounds and house, or as much of either as may be convenient ; at any rate, I shall take the first occasion possible to go over, and regret very much that I was yesterday prevented. " I have the honour to be your obliged, &c." * A country-house on the Euganean hills, near Este, which Mr. Hoppner, who was then the English consul-general at Venice, had for some time occupied, and which Lord Byron afterward rented of him, but never resided in it. t So great was the demand for horses, on the line of march of the Aus- trians, that all those belonging to private individuals were put in requisition for their use, and Lord Byron himself received an order to send his for the same purpose. This, however, he positively refused to do, adding, that if an attempt were made to take them by force, he would shoot them through the head in the middle of the road, rather than submit to such an act of tyranny upon a foreigner who was merely a temporary resident in the country. Whether his answer was ever reported to the higher authorities I know not ; but his horses were suffered to remain unmolested in his stables. 100 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. L811 LETTER rex evil. TO MR. MURRAY. "September 15th, 1817. "I enclose a sheet for correction, if ever you gel to another edition. N. (in w ill obsi rve that the blunder in printing makt b il appear as if the Chateau was over St. Gingo, instead of being on the opposite shore of the Lake, over Clarens. So, separate the paragraphs, otherwise my topograph) \\ ill seem as inaccurate as your typography on thisoccasion. -The other day I wrote t(» convey m\ proposition with regard to the fourth and concluding Canto. I have gone over and extended it to one hundred and fifty stanzas, which is almost as Long as the first two were originally, and longer by itself than any of the smaller poeme except the ' Corsair.' Mr. Hobhouse has made some very valuable and accurate notes of considerable length, and you may be sure i hat I will do for the text all that I can to finish with decency. 1 look upon Childe Harold as my best; and as I begun, 1 think of concluding with it. But I make no resolutions on that head, as 1 broke my former intention witli regard to the * Corsair.' However, I fear thai I shall never do better; and yet, not being thirty years of age, for some moons to come, one ought to be progressive as far as intellect goes for many a good year. But I have had a devilish deal of tear and near of mind and body in my lime, besides having published too often and much already. God granl me some judgment to do what may be most fitting in that and every thing else, for 1 doubt my own exceedingly. "Ihave read ' Lalla Kookh,' but not with sufficient attention yet, for I ride about, ami lounge, and ponder, and— two or three other things; BO that my reading is very desultory, and not so attentive as it used to be. I am verj glad to hear of its popularity, for Moore is a very noble fellow in all respects, and will enjoy it without any of the bad feelings which Buccess— good or evil— sometimes engenders in the men of rhyme. Of the Poem itself, I will tell you my opinion when I have mastered it: I say of the Poem, for I don*t like the proseal all, at all: and in the meantime, the • Fire-worshippers' is the best, and the • \ eiled Prophet' the worst, of the volume. "With regard to poetry in general,* I am convinced, the more I Hunk of it. that he and allot us— Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Moore. < 'ainpbell, I,— are all in the wrong, One as much as another ; that we are upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, or systems, not worth a damn m itself, and from which none but Rogers and Crabbe are free; and that the present and next generations will finally be of this Opinion. I am the more continued in this by havinu lately gone over -nine of Our classics, particularly Pope, whom I tried in this way : — I took Moore'8 poems and my own and some others, ami went over them side b\ side with Pope's, and I was n ally astonished (I ought not to have been so) and mortified at the ineffable distance in point of sense, learning, effect, and even imagination, passion, and invention, + On this paragraph, in the MS. copy of the above letter, I find the fol- lowing note, in the handwriting <>f Mr. Gifford: "There is more good en e, and feeling, and judgment in tins passage, than in any other, I over read, or Lord Byron wrot a. D. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 103 between the little Queen Anne's man, and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now, among us ; and if I had to begin again, 1 would mould myself accordingly. Crabbe 's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracticable subject, and * * * is retired upon half-pay, and has done enough, unless he were to do as he did formerly." LETTER CCXCVIII. TO MR. MURRAY. " September 17th, 1817. " Mr. Hobhouse purposes being in England in November ; he will bring the Fourth Canto with him, notes and all : the text contains one hundred and fifty stanzas, which is long for that measure. "With regard to the 'Ariosto of the North,' surely their themes, chivalry, war, and love were as like as can be ; and as to the compli- ment, if you knew what the Italians think of Ariosto, you would not hesitate about that. But as to their ' measures,' you forget that Ariosto's is an octave stanza, and Scott's any thing but a stanza. If you think Scott will dislike it, say so, and I will expunge. I do not call him the 'Scotch Ariosto,' which would be sad provincial eidogy, but the ' Ariosto of the North? meaning of all countries that are not the South. ******** " As I have recently troubled you rather frequently, I will conclude repeating that I am " Yours ever, &c." LETTER CCXCIX. TO MR. MURRAY. " October 12th, 1817. " Mr. Kinnaird and his brother, Lord Kinnaird, have been here, and are now gone again. All your missives came, except the tooth-powder, of which I request, farther supplies, at all convenient opportunities ; as also of magnesia and soda-powders, both great luxuries here, and neither to be had good, or indeed hardly at all, of the natives. "In * *'s Life, I perceive an attack upon the then Committee of D. L. Theatre for acting Bertram, and an attack upon Maturin's Ber- tram for being acted. Considering all things, this is not very grateful nor graceful on the part of the worthy autobiographer ; and I would answer, if I had not obliged him. Putting my own pains to forward the views of * * out of the question, I know that there was every disposition, on the part of the Sub-Committee, to bring forward any production of his, were it feasible. The play he offered, though poeti- cal, did not appear at all practicable, and Bertram did ; — and hence this long tirade, which is the last chapter of his vagabond life. "As for Bertram. Maturin may defend his own begotten, if he likes 104 NOTICES OP THE [a. d. im it well enough; [leave the Irish clergyman and the new orator Henley to battle it oul between them, satisfied to have done the best I could for both, I mav s::v tins In i/mi, who know it. ••Mr. * * may console himself with the fervour,— the almost reli- gions fervour of Ins and \\ * *'s disciples, as he calls it. If he means that as an] proof of their merits, I will find him as much ' fervour' in behalf of Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcote as ever gathered over his pages or round, his fireside. ' * * * "My answer to your proposition about the fourth Canto you will have received, and i await \ ours ; — perhaps we may not agree. I have Bince u ritten a Poem (of B I octave stanzas), humorous, in or after the excellent manner of Mr. \\ histlecrafl (whom l take to be Frere), on a Venetian am cdote winch amused me 5— bul till 1 have your answer, I can say nothing more ahout it. "Mr. Hobhouse does not return to England in November, as he intended, hut will winter here; and as he is to convey the poem, or poems, — for there may perhaps be more than the two mentioned (which, by-the-way, I shall not perhaps include in the same publica- tion or agreement) — I shall not he able to publish so soon as expected ; but I suppose there is no harm in the delay. "I 'nave signed and sent your former copyrights by Mr. Kinnaird. but not the receipt, because the money is not yel paid. Mr. Kinnaird has a power of attorney to sign for me, and will, when necessary. "Many thanks for the Edinburgh Review, which is very kind about. Manfred, and defends its originality, which I did not know that any body had attacked. I never read, and do not know that I ever saw the ' F&UStUS of Marlow,' and had, and have, no dramatic works by me in English, except the recent things you sent me; hut I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of Goethe's Faust (which were, some good and some bad) last summer — which is all I know of the history of thai magical personage; and as to the germs of Manfred, they ma) be found in the Journal which I sent to Mrs. Leigh (part of which you saw) when 1 unit over first the Dent de Jainan, and then the Wengen or Wengeberg Alp and Sheideck, and made the giro of tic Jungfrau, Shreckhorn, &c. &c. shortly before 1 left Switzerland. I have tin whole scene of Manfred before me as if it was but yesterday, and could point it oul, spot by spot, torrent and all. " Of the Prometheus Of Kschylus I was passionately fond as a 1 (it was one of the (Jrei k plays we read tinier a year at Harrow); indeed thai and the ' Medea' were the only ones, except the * seven before Thebes,' winch ever much pleased me. \s to the ' Faustus of Marlow/ I never read, never saw, nor heard of it— at Least, thought oi it, except that I think Mr. Gilford mentioned, in a note of his which you sent me, BOmething ahout the catastrophe; hut not as having anv thing to do with nunc, which may or may not resemble it, for any thing I know. "The Prometheus, If OOl exactly in my plan, has always been SO much in my head, thai I can easily conceive its influence over all or an\ thing that I have written ; — but I deny Marlow and his progeny, and beg thai you will do the same. " if you can send me the paper m question,* which the Edinburgh • A paper in the Edinburgh Magazine, in which it was suggested that the generul conception of Manfred, and much of what io excellent in the manner a. d. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 105 Review mentions, do. The review in the magazine you say was written by Wilson ? it had all the air of being a poet's, and was a very good one. The Edinburgh Review I take to be Jeffrey's own by its friendliness. I wonder they thought it worth while to do so, so soon after the former ; but it was evidently with a good motive. " I saw Hoppner the other day, whose country -house at Este I have taken for two years. If you come out next summer, let me know in time. Love to Gifford. " Yours ever truly. " Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey, Are all partakers of my pantry. These two lines are omitted in your letter to the doctor, after — " All clever men who make their way." LETTER CCC. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, October 23, 1817. " Your two letters are before me, and our bargain is so far con- cluded. How sorry I am to hear that Gifford is unwell ! Pray tell me he is better ; I hope it is nothing but cold. As you say his illness originates in cold, 1 trust it will get no farther. " Mr. Whistlecraft has no greater admirer than myself : I have written a storv in 89 stanzas, in imitation of him, called Beppo (the short name for Giuseppe, that is, the Joe of the Italian Joseph), which I shall throw you into the balance of the Fourth Canto, to help you round to your money ; but you perhaps had better publish it anony- mously : but this we will see to by-and-by. " In the Notes to Canto Fourth, Mr. Hobhouse has pointed out several errors of Gibbon. You may depend upon H.'s research and accuracy. You may print it in what shape you please. "With regard to "a future large Edition, you may print all, or any thing, except ' English Bards,' to the republication of which at no time will I consent. I would not reprint them on any consideration. I do n't think them good for much, even in point of poetry ; and as to other things, you are to recollect that I gave up the publication on account of the Hollands, and I do not think that any time or circum- stances can neutralize the suppression. Add to which, that, after being on terms with almost all the bards and critics of the day, it would be savage at any time, but worst of all now, to revive this fool- ish Lampoon. " The review of Manfred came very safely, and I am much pleased with it. It is odd that they should say (that is, somebody in a maga- zine whom the Edinburgh controverts) that it was taken from Mar- low's Faust, which I never read nor saw. An American, who came of its execution, had been borrowed from " The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus." of Marlow. 106 NOTH BS OF THE [a.d. 1817. the other daj from Germany, told Mr. Hobhouse that Manfred w,> taken from Goi the'8 Faust. The devil may lake both the I'austuses, German and English— 1 have taken neither. "Will you send to Hanson, and Bay that he has not written since Oth September? — at hast I have had no letter since, to my great surpri "Will you desin ' ■;. \1 or I and to send out whatever additional sums have or may be paid m credit immediately, and always, to their Venice correspondents ? It is two months ago thai they sent me out an additional credil Tor one thousand pounds. I was very glad of it, l)iil 1 do n't know how the devil n came ; for 1 can only make out 500 of Hanson's payment, and 1 had thought the other 500 came from you ; but it did not, it Bei ms. ;is, by yours of the 7th instant, you have only just paid the £l2'M) balance. •■ Sir. Kinnaird is on Ins way home with the assignments. 1 can fix no time for the arrival of Canto Fourth, which depends on the journey of Mr. Hobhouse home; and I do not think that this will bo immediate. " Yours, in great haste and very truly. "B. " P.S. Morlands have not yet written to my bankers apprizing the payment of your balances : pray desire them to do so. " Ask them about the previous thousand — of which I know 500 came from Hanson's — and make out the other 500 — that i<. whence it came." LETTER CCCI. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, November 15, 1817. •• Mr. Kinnaird has probably returned to England by this tun.', and will have conveyed to you any tidings you may wish to have of us and ours. I have come back to Venice for tin winter. Mr. Ilobuouse will probably set off in December, out what day or week, I know not. He is nn opposite neighbour at present. •• I wrote yesterday in some perplexity, and no very good humour, ■ > Mr. Kinnaird, to inform me about v • 'inland the Hansons, of Which and whom I hear nothing siuee his departure from this place, cepl in a lew unintelligible words from an unintelligible woman. " I am .is sorry to hear of Dr. Polidori's accident as one can be for i person for whom one has a dislike, and something of contempt. When he gets well, tell me, and how he LTets on in the sick line. Poor fi How! how came he to fix there ! •• I fear the doctor's skill at Norwich Will hardly salt the doctor's porridge. iVfethoughl he was going to the lirazils, to give the Portuguese physic winch they are fond to desperation), with the Danish consul. • • ***** "Your new Canto has expanded to one hundred and sixty-seven stanzas. It will be Long, von Bee; and as for the notes by Hobhouse. A. d. 1817.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 107 I suspect they will be of the heroic size. You must keep Mr. * * in good humour, for he is devilish touchy yet about your Review and all which it inherits, including the editor, the Admiralty, and its book- seller. I used to think that / was a good deal of an author in amour propre and noli me tangere ; but these prose fellows are worst, after all, about their little comforts. "Do you remember my mentioning, some months ago, the Marquis Moncada— a Spaniard of distinction and fourscore years, my summer neighbour at La Mira? Well, about six weeks ago, he fell in love with a Venetian girl of family, and no fortune or character ; took her into his mansion; quarrelled with all his former friends for giving him advice (except me who gave him none), and installed her present con- cubine and future wife and mistress of himself and furniture. At the end of a month, in which she demeaned herself as ill as possible, he found out a correspondence between her and some former keeper, and after nearly strangling, turned her out of the house, to the great scan- dal of the keeping part of the town, and with a prodigious eclat, which has occupied all the canals and coffee-houses in Venice. He said she wanted to poison him ; and she says — God knows what ; but between them they have made a great deal of noise. I know a little of both the parties : Moncada seemed a very sensible old man, a character which he has not quite k^pt up on this occasion ; and the woman is rather showy than pretty. For the honour of religion, she was bred in a convent, and for the credit of Great Britain, taught by an Eng- lishwoman. " Yours, &c." LETTER CCCII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, December 3, 1817. " A Venetian lady, learned and somewhat stricken in years, having, in her intervals of love and devotion, taken upon her to translate the Letters and write the Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, — to which undertaking there are two obstacles, firstly, ignorance of Eng- lish, and, secondly, a total dearth of information on the subject of her projected biography, — has applied to me for facts or falsities upon this promising project. Lady Montague lived the last twenty or more years of her life in or near Venice, I believe ; but here they know nothing, and remember nothing, for the stoiy of to-day is succeeded by the scandal of to-morrow ; and the wit, and beauty, and gallantry, which might render your countrywoman notorious in her own coun- try, must have been here no great distinction — because the first is in no request, and the two latter are common to all women, or at least the last of them. If you can therefore tell me any thing, or get any- thing told, of Lady Wortley Montague, I shall take it as a favour, and will transfer and translate it to the ' Dama' in question. And I pray you besides to send me, by some quick and safe voyager, the edition of her Letters, and the stupid Life, by Dr. Dallau-ay, published by her proud and foolish family. " The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here, and must have been an earthquake at home. The Courier's list of some three hundred heirs to the crown (including the house of Wir- LOfi NOTICES OF THE £a. d. I8i:. umiiIh rg, wiih that ' ■ *, P , of disreputable memory, whom I remember Beeing at various balls during the risil of the Muscovites, fee in 1H1-1) must be \ur history. I f< el sorry m every respect — for the loss of a female reign, and a wonian hitherto harmless ; and all the lost rejoicingB, and addresses, and drunkenness, and disburse- ments of John Bull on the occasion. * "The Prince will marry again, after divorcing his wife, and Mr. Southey will write an elegy now, and an ode then ; the Quarterly will have an article against the press, and the Edinburgh an article, half and half, about reform and right of divorce; * * * * the British will fjive you Dr. Chalmers's funeral sermon much commended, with u place in the stars for deceased royalty; and the Morning Post will have already yelled forth its ' syllables of dolour.' " Wo, wo, Nealliny '.—the young Nealliny !' " It is some time since I have heard from you : are you in bad Humour? I suppose so. I have been so myself, and it is your turn now, and bv-and-by mine will come round again. •• Yours truly, "B. •' P.S. Countess Albrizzi, come back from Pans, has brought me a medal of himself, a present from Denon to me, and a likeness of Mr. Hogers (belonging to her), by Denon also." LETTER CCCIII. TO Mil. HOI'PNER. •• Venice, December L5th, 1817. •• I should have thanked you before, for ><»ur favour a few days ago. had I not been in the intention of paying mj respects, personally, tins evening, from which I am deterred by the recollection that you will probably be at the Count Goesa's this evening, which has made me postpone my intrusion, " 1 think your Elegy a remarkably good one, not only as a compo- sition, inn both the politics and poetry contain a far greater portion of truth and generosity than belongs to the times, or to the professors of these opposite pursuits, which usually Bgree only in one point, as extremes meet. I do not know whether you wished me to retain the c.pv. hut 1 shall retain it till you tell me otherwise; and am very much obliged by the perusal. •■ Myo timents on Venice, fee. such as fhey arc I had already a. d. 1818.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. lO'J thrown into verse last summer, in the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, now in preparation for the press ; and I think much more highly of them for being in coincidence with yours. " Believe me yours, &c." LETTER CCCIV. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, January 8th, 1818. " My dear Mr. Murray, You 're in a damn'd hurry To set up this ultimate Canto ; But (if they do n't rob us) You '11 see Mr. Hobhouse Will bring it safe in his portmanteau. 2. " For the Journal you hint of, As ready to print off, No doubt you do right to commend it ; But as yet I have writ off The devil a bit of Our ' Beppo ;' — when copied, I '11 send it. * # # # # 4. " Then you 've * * *'s Tour, — No great things, to be sure, — You could hardly begin with a less work ; For the pompous rascallion, Who do n't speak Italian Nor French, must have scribbled by guess-work. # # # # # 7. " You can make any loss up With ' Spence' and his gossip, A work which must surely succeed ; Then Queen Mary's Epistle-craft, With the new ' Fytte' of ' Whistlecraft,' Must make people purchase and read. 8. " Then you 've General Gordon, Who girded his sword on, To serve with a Muscovite master. And help him to polish A nation so owlish, They thought shaving their beards a disaster. 9. "For the man, 'poor and shrewd,''* With whom you 'd conclude A compact without more delay, * « Vide your letter." no NOTICES OF THE [a.d. 1818. i'( ni;i|>s some Buch pen is Still ( Maul in \ eni( ' | lint please, sir, to mention yourpcu/." # • # « LETTER CCCT . TO MR. MTTRRA1 . •• \ enice, January 19th, 1818. " I Bend you the Story* in three other separate covers. It won't do for your Journal, being full of political allusions. Print alone, without name; alter nothing; gel a scholar to Bee thai the Italian phrases are correctly published (your printing, by-the-way, always makes me ill with its eternal blunders, which are incessanl ). and God speed you. Ilohliouse loft Venice a fortnight ago, saving two days. 1 have heard nothing of or from him. " Yours, A; i . " He lias the whole of the MSS. ; so put up prayers in your back shop, or in the printer's * Chapel.' " LETTER CCCYI. TO MR. MURRAY. •• \ enice, January 27th, 1818. "My father — that is, my Armenian father, Padre Pasquali — in the name of all the other lathers of our Convent, sends you the enclosed. greeting. "Inasmuch as it has pleased the translators Of the long-losl and lately-found portions of the text of Eusebius t<> put forth the enclosed prospectus, of which I send six copies, you are hereby implored to obtain subscribers in the two I Universities, and among the learned, and the unlearned who would unlearn their ignorance. — This they (the Convent) request, / request, and do you request. " 1 sent you Beppo Borne weeks agone. You must publish it alone ; i his politics and ferocity, and won't do for your isthmus of a Journal. "Mr. Hoohouse, it tiie Alps have not broken his neck, is, or ought to be, Bwimming with raj commentaries and Ins ov n coal of mail in his teeth and righl hand, in a cork jacket, between Calais and Dover. •• It is the height of the Carnival, and I am in the extreme and ago- of a new intrigue with I don't exactly know whom or what, ex- cepl that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has lujie hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that I met he) I Masque, and that when her mask is off, I am as wise as ever. I shall make what I can of the remainder of my youth."' ' < l{('|)|K. a.v. 1818J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. Ill LETTER CCCVII. TO MR. MOORE. " Venice, February 2d, 1818. " Your letter of Dec. 8th arrived but this day, by some delay, com- mon but inexplicable. Your domestic calamity is very grievous, and I feel with you as much as I dare feel at all. Throughout life, your loss must be my loss, and your gain my gain ; and, though my heart may ebb, there will always be a drop for you among the dregs. " I know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the substratum of our damnable clay) I am quite wrapt up in my own children. Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an illegitimate since (to say nothing of one before),* and I look forward to one of these as tne pillar of my old age, supposing thit I ever reach — which I hope I never shall — that desolating period. I have a great love for my Uttle Ada, though perhaps she may torture me, like * * ********* " Your offered address will be as acceptable as you can wish. I do n't much care what the wretches of the world think of me — all that 's past. But I care a good deal what you think of me, and so, say what you like. You know that I am not sullen ; and, as to being savage, such things depend on circumstances. However, as to being in good humour in your society, there is no great merit in that, be^ cause it would be an effort, or an insanity, to be otherwise. " I do n't know what Murray may have been saying or quoting.! I called Crabbe and Sam the fathers of present Poesy ; and said, that I thought — except them — all of ' us youth" 1 were on a wrong tack. But I never said that we did not sail well. Our fame will be hurt by admi- ration and imitation. When I say our, I mean all (Lakers included), except the postscript of the Augustans. The next generation (from the quantity and facility of imitation) will tumble and break their necks off our Pegasus, who runs away with us ; but we keep the saddle, because we broke the rascal and can ride. But though easy to mount, he is the devil to guide ; and the next fellows must go back to the riding-school and the manege, and learn to ride the ' great horse.' " Talking of horses, by-the-way, I have transported my own, four in number, to the Lido (beach, in English), a strip of some ten miles along the Adriatic, a mile or two from the city ; so that I not only get * This possibly may have been the subject of the Poem given in page 88 of the first volume. t Having seen by accident the passage in one of his letters to Mr. Murrav. in which he denounces, as false and worthless, the poetical system on whicu the greater number of his contemporaries, as well as himself, founded iheir reputation, I took an opportunity, in the next letter I wrote to him, of jest- ing a little on this opinion and his motives for it. It was, no doubt (I ven- tured to say), excellent policy in him, who had made sure of his own im- mortality in this style of nriting, thus to throw overboard all us, poor devils, who were embarked with him. He was, in fact, I added, behaving towards us much in the manner of the Methodist preacher who said to his congrega- tion, " You may think at the Last Day, to get to heaven by laying hold on iiiy skirts; but T '11 -heat you all, for 1 11 wear a spencer, I'll wear a "pencr !"" thi NOTICES OP THE # [4.9.1816. a row in my gondola, but a spanking gallop of some miles daily along a firm and BoLtan beach, from the fortress to Malamocco, the which contributes considerably to my health and Bpirits. •■ i have hardly had a wink of sleep tins week past. We are in thi agonies of the ( Carnival's last a fortification, which, with the Castle of St. Andrea on an island on the opposite side, defends the Dearest entrance to the city front thi' sea. In times of peace thi- fortification is almost dismantled, and Lord Byron had hired hereof tlie commandant, an unoccupied Btable, where he kept his horses. The distance from the citj was not very considerable ; it was much less than to the Terra I'nina. and, as far as it went, the spot was not meli- jdiie for riding. u Every day that the weather would permit, Lord Byron called for DM in In- gondola, ami we found the horses waiting for us outside of the fori. We rode as far a- ue could along the seashore, and then on a kind of dyke, or embankment, whicfa has been raised where tie island was very naiTOW, as far as another small fort about half \\a> between the principal one which I have already mentioned, and tin town or village of Malamocco, which is near the other extremity ol island, — the distance between the two forts being about tnrei milt s. On the land side of the embankment, not far from the smaller fort. a boundary stone which probably marked some division of pro- i rty, — all the side of the island nearest the Lagune being divided into -aniens for the cultivation of vegetables for the Venetian markets. \< the foot of this stone Lord Byron repeatedly told me that I should LUSe bun to be interred, if he should die in Venice, or its neighbour- hood, during m\ residence there; and he appeared to think, as he was not a Catholic, that, on the part of the government, there could be no icle to his interment in an unhallowed spot of ground by the s< a. n. 1818.] LIFE OF LORD BVKON. il.. side. At all events I was to overcome whatever difficulties might be raised on this account. I was, by no means, he repeatedly told me. to allow his body to be removed to England, nor permit any of his family to interfere with his funeral. " Nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the Lido were to me. We were from half to three-quarters of an hour crossing the water, during which his conversation was always most amusing and interesting. Sometimes he would bring with him any new book he had received, and read to me the passages which most struck him. Often he woidd repeat to me whole stanzas of the Poems he was engaged in writing, as he had composed them on the preceding eve- ning; and this was the more interesting to me, because I could fre- quently trace in them some idea which he had started in our conver- sation of the preceding day, or some remark, the effect of which he had been evidently trying upon me. Occasionally, too, he spoke of his own affairs, making me repeat all I had heard with regard to him, and desiring that I would not spare him, but let him know the worst that was said." LETTER CCCVIII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, Feb. 20th, 1818. •' I have to thank Mr. Croker for the arrival, and you for the con- tents, of the parcel which came last week, much quicker than any before, owing to Mr. Croker's kind attention and the official exterior of the bags ; and all safe except much friction among the magnesia, of which only two bottles came entire ; but it is all very well, and I am exceedingly obliged to you. " The books I have read, or rather am reading. Pray, who may be the Sexagenarian, whose gossip is very amusing? Many of his sketches I recognise, particularly Gifford, Mackintosh, Drummond. Dutens, H. Walpole, Mrs. Inchbald, Opie, &c. with the Scotts, Lough- borough, and most of the divines and lawyers, besides a few shorter hints of authors, and a few lines about a certain 'noble author,'' cha- racterized as malignant and skeptical, according to the good old story, * as it was in the beginning, is now, but not always shall be :' do you know such a person, Master Murray? eh? — And pray, of the book- sellers, which be you? the dry, the dirty, the honest, the opulent, the finical, the splendid, or the coxcomb bookseller ? Stap my vitals, but. the author grows scurrilous in his grand climacteric. " I remember to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, and in private parties, but not frequently ; and I never can recollect him except as drunk/ or brutal, and generally both: I mean in an evening, for in the hall, he dined at the Dean's table, and I at the Vicemaster's, so that I was not near him ; and he then and there appeared sober in his demeanour, nor did I ever hear of excess or outrage on his part in public, — commons, college, or chapel ; but I have seen him in a private party of under-graduates, many of them freshmen and strangers, take up a poker to one of them, and heard iiim use language as blackguard as his action. 1 have seen Sheridan drunk, too, with all the world ; but his intoxication was that of Bac- Hius, and Porson's that of Silenus. Of all the disgusting brutes. Yoi.. IL— If ill NOTICES uF THE l*. o. lole- sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most bestial, as far as the few times that 1 saw linn went, which were only at William Bankes's (the Nubian discoverer's) moms. I saw him once go away in a rage, because nobody knew the name of the ' Cobbler of Messina," insulting tluir Ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. He w as tolerated m this state among the \ ounjr nie n ("or his talents, as the Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or rather vomit pages of all Languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; and certainly Sparta oever shocked her children with a grosser exhibition than tins man's intoxication. " I perceive, in the book you sent me, a Long account of him, which is very savage. I cannot judge, as 1 never saw him sober, except in hall or combination-room ; and then I was never near enough to hear, and hardly to see him. Of Ins drunken deportment, I can be sure, because I saw it. "With the Reviews, I have been much entertained. It requires to be as far from England as I am to relish a periodical paper properly: it is like soda-water in an Italian summer. Bui what cruel work you make with Lady * * * * ! You should recollect that she is a woman ; though to be sure, they are now and then very provoking; still, as authoresses they can do no great harm ; and I think it a pity so much good invective should have been laid out upon her, when there is such a fine field of us. Jacobin gentlemen, for you to work upon. It is. perhaps, as bitter a critique as ever was written, ami enough to make sad work for Dr. * * * «, both as husband and apothecary; — unless she should say, as Pope did of some attack upon him, ' That it is as good for her as a dose of hartshorn.'' "I heard from Moore lately, and was sorry to be made aware of his domestic loss. Thus it is — 'medio de fonte leporum' — in the acme of his fame and his happiness comes a drawback as usual. "Mr. Hoppner whom I saw this morning, has been made the father of a very fine boy.* — Mother and child doing very well indeed. By this time Hobhouse should lie with you, and also certain packets, letters, &e. of mine, sent since his departure. I am not at all well in health within this hist eighl days. My remembrances to Gifford and dl friends. "Yours, &c. "B. ■ On iiic birth of this child, who was christened John William Rizzo, Lord IJyroii wrote the four following lines, which are in no other respect remark- able than that they were thought worthy of being metrically translated into no less than ten different languages ; namely, Greek, Latin, Italian (also in the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, lllyrian, Hebrew, Armenian and Samaritan : — " His father's sense, his mother's grace la him, I hope, will always fit bo ; With (still to keep him in good case) The health and appetite of Rizzo.'' rhe original lines, with the different versions just mentioned, were pnn i small neat volume (which now lies before me), in the Seminary Pad a. D. 1816.] LIFE UF LOiiD BYRON. ilj " P.S. In the course of a month or two, Hanson wUl have probably to send off a clerk with conveyances to sign (Newstead being sold in November last for ninety-four thousand five hundred pounds), in which case I supplicate supplies of articles as usual, for which, desire Mr. Kinnaird to settle from funds in their bank, and deduct from my account with him. "P.S. To-morrow night I am going to see 'Otello,' an opera from our ' Othello,' and one of Rossini's best, it is said. It will be curious to see in Venice the Venetian story itself represented, besides to discover what they will make of Shakspeare in music." LETTER CCCIX. TO BIB. HOPPNER. " Venice, February 28, 1816. •' MY DEAR SIR, " Our friend, il Conte M., threw me into a cold sweat last night, by lling me of a menaced version of Manfred (in Venetian, I hope, to complete the thing) by some Italian, who had sent it to you for cor- rection, which is the reason why I take the liberty of troubling you on the subject. If you have any means of communication with the man, would you permit me to convey to him the offer of any price he may obtain, or think to obtain, for his project, provided he will throw his translation into the fire,* and promise not to undertake any other of that or any other of my things : 1 will send him his money immedi- ately on this condition. "As I did not write to the Italians, nor for the Italians, nor of the Italians (except in a poem not yet published, where I have said all the good I know or do not know of them, and none of the harm), I confess I wish that they would let me alone, and not drag me into their arena as one of the gladiators, in a silly contest which I neither understand nor have ever interfered with, having kept clear of all their literary parties, both here and at Milan, and elsewhere. — I came into Italy to feel the climate and be quiet, if possible. Mossi's translation I would have prevented if I had known it, or could have done so ; and I trust that I shall yet be in time to stop this new gentleman, of whom I heard yesterday for the first time. He will only hurt himself, and do no good to his party, (or in party the whole thing originates. Our modes of thinking and writing are so unutterably different, that I can conceive * Having ascertained that the utmost this translator could expect to make by his manuscript was 200 francs, Lord Byron offered him that sum, if he would desist from publishing. The Italian, however, held out for more ; nor could he be brought to terms, till it was intimated to him pretty plainly from Lord Byron that, should the publication be persisted in, he would horsewhip him the very first time they met. Being but little inclined to suiter martyr- dom in the cause, the translator accepted the 200 francs and delivered up his manuscript, entering at the same time into a written engagement never to translate any other of the noble poet's works. Of the qualifications of this person as a translator of English poetry, some idea may be formed from the difficulty he found himself under respecting the meaning of a line in the Incantation in Manfred, — " And the wisp on the morass," — which he requested of Mr. Hoppner to expound to him, not having been able to find in the dictionaries to which lie had access an}' other signifi- cation of the word " wisp" than " a bundle of straw,"' H 2 116 n«> I ICES OF THE | l. i. i- no greater absurdity than attempting to make an) approach between the English and Italian poetrj of the present day. 1 like the people v try much, and their literature very much, but 1 am not the least am- bitious of being the suhjert uf their discussions literary and persona] (winch appear t<> be pretty much the same thing, as is tin ease in must countries) ; and il you can aid me in impeding tins publication, you will add to much kindness already received from you by yours, •• Ever and truly , " JJykon. . •■ P.S. How is the BOn, and mamma ? Well, I dare say." LETTER CCCX. TO MR. RUGLRS. •• \ enici , March 3d, 1818« •' I have not, as you say, ' taken to wife the Adriatic.' I heard of Moore's loss from himself in a letter which was delayed upon the road three months. I was sincerely sorry for it, but in such cases what are words ? "The villa you speak of is one at Este, which Mr. Koppner (Con- sul-general here) has transferred tome. 1 have taken it for two years as a place of ViUeggiatura. The situation is very beam ifitl indeed, among the Euganean hills, and the house very fair. The vines.are luxuriant to a great degree, and all the fruits of the earth abundant, It is close to the old castle of the Estes, or Guelphs, and within a Aw miles of Arqua, which 1 have visited twice, and hope to visit often. " Last summer (except an excursion to Rome) 1 passed upon tin Brenta. In Venice I winter, transporting my horses to the Lido, bor- dering the Adriatic (where the foil is;, so that I get a gallop of sora< miles daily along the strip of beach winch reaches to Malamocco, when in health ; but within these few ueeks I have been unwell. At pre sent I am getting better. The Carnival was short, but a good a 1 do n't go out mu< b. excepl during ;!:'■ time of masks ; nut then- are one or two conversazioni, where 1 go regularly, just to keep up thi system; as I had letters to their givers ; and they are particular on such points; and now and then, though very rarely, to the Governor's. "It is a very good place for women. I like the dialect and their manner very much. There i< a naivete about them which is very winning, and the romance of the place is a mighty adjunct; the bel sangue is not, however, now among the dame or higher orders*; but all under ijazzioli, or kerchiefs (a white kind of veil winch the lowei orders wear upon then heads); — the vesta zendnle, or old national female costume is no more. The citj . however, is decaj ing daily, aim dot - not gain in population. However, 1 prefer it to any other in Italy; and here have 1 pin lied my stall, and here do 1 purpose to reside for the remainder of my life, unless events, connected with business not to be transacted out of England, compel me to return for that purpose : otherwise I have few regrets, and no desires to visit it again for its own -ake. | shall probably be obliged to do so, to sign papers for mj Bain and a proxy for the Whigs, and to see Mr. Waite, for I can'' find a good dentist here, and every two or three years one ought ti -n!' one. v>um seeing my cbildien I must take my chance. k. d. 1818.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 117 I shall have sent here ; and I shall be very happy to see the legitimate one when God pleases, which he perhaps will some day or other. As for my mathematical * * *, I am as well without her. " Your account of your visit to Fonthill is very striking : could you beg of Mm for me a copy in MS. of the remaining Tales?* I think I deserve them, as a strenuous and public admirer of the first one. I will return it when read, and make no ill use of the copy, if granted. Murray would send me out any thing safely. If ever I return to England, I should like very much to see the author, with his permission. In the mean time, you could not oblige me more than by obtaining me the perusal I request, in French or English,— all 's one for that, though I prefer Italian to either. I have a French copy of Vathek, which I bought at Lausanne. I can read French with great pleasure and facdity, though I neither speak nor write it. Now Italian I can speak with some fluency, and write sufficiently for my purposes, but I do n't like their modern prose at all ; it is very heavy, and so different from Maehiaveili. " They say Francis is Junius ; — I think it looks like it. I remember meeting him at Earl Grey's at dinner. Has not he lately married a 3^oung woman ; and was not he Madame Talleyrand's cavaliere servente in India years ago? " I read my death in the papers, which was not true. I see they are marrying the remaining singleness of the royal family. They have brought out Fazio with great and deserved success at Covent-garden ; that 's a good sign. I tried, during the directory, to have it done at Drury-lane, but was overruled. If you think of coming into this country, you will let me know perhaps beforehand. I suppose Moore won't move. Rose is here. I saw him the other night at Madame Albrizzi's ; he talks of returning in May. My love to the Hollands. " Ever &c. " P.S. They have been crucifying Othello into an opera (Otello, by Rossini) ; the music good, but lugubrious ; but as for the words, all the real scenes with Iago cut out, and the greatest nonsense instead ; the handkerchief turned into a billet-doux, and the first singer woidd not black his face, for some exquisite reasons assigned in the preface. Singing, dresses, and music very good." LETTER CCCXI. TO MR. MOORE. "Venice, March 16th, 1818. " MY DEAR TOM, " Since my last, which I hope that you have received, I have had a letter from our friend Samuel. He talks of Italy this summer — won't you come with him ? I do n't know whether you would like our Italian way of life or not ******** * # # # * * # * # * A continuation of Vathek, by the author of that very striking and pow- erful production. The " Tales" of which this unpublished sequel consists are, 1 understand, those supposed to have been related by the Princess in the Hall of Eblis. 118 SQTH ES OF THE [a. d. 1818 " Tlioy arc an odd people. The other day 1 was telling a girl, ' you must not conic to-morrow, because Marguerita is coming at such a time, 1 — (they arc both about five feet ten inches high, with gnat black eyes and fine lingers — (it to breed gladiators from — and I had some difficulty to prevent a battle upon a rencontre once before), — ' unless you promise" to be friends, and' — the answer was an interruption, by a declaration of war against the Other, which she said would be a 'Guerra di Candia.' Is it not odd, that the lower order of Venetians should still allude proverbially to that famous contest, so glorious ami so fatal to the Republic 1 "They have singular expressions, like all the Italians. For exam- ple, 'Viseere' — as we would say, 'mj love,' or 4 my heart,' as an expression of tenderness. Also, ' 1 would go for you in the midst of a hundred knives.'' — ' Mazza ben, excessive attachment, — literally. 4 1 wish you well even to killing.' Then they Bay (instead of our way 'do you think I would do you so much harm ?') 'do you think I would assassiiiate you in such a manner V — ' Tempo perfi.de? bad wea- ther; ' Strade perfide? bad roads— with a thousand other allusions and metaphors, taken from the state of society and habits in the middle ages. " I am not so sure about mazza, whether it do n't mean ?nassa, i. e. a great deal, a mass, instead of the interpretation I have given it. But of the other phrases I am sure. " Three o' th" clock — I must ' to bed, to bed, to bed,' as mother S * ' (that tragical friend of the mathematical * * *) says, * * " Have you ever seen — I forget what or whom — no matter. They tell me Lady Melbourne is very unwell. I shall be so sorry. She was my greatestyWenc?, of the feminine gender: — when I say ' friend." I mean not mistress, for that 's the antipodes. Tell me all about you and every body — how Sam is — how you like your neighbours, the Marquis and Marchesa, &c. &c. "Ever, &c." LETTER CCCXII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, March 25, 1818- " I have your letter, with the account of ' Beppo,' for which I sent you four new stanzas a fortnight ago, in case you print, or reprint. * » » # • * • " Ooker's is a good guess ; but the style is not English, it is Italian ; — Herni is the original of all. Whistlecraft was my immediate model; Rose's ' Animair I never saw till a few days ago, — they are excellent. Hut fas I said above) BemJ is the father of that kind of writing, which I think suits our language, too, very well; — we shall see by the experiment. If it does, I shall send you a volume in a year or two, for I know the Italian way of life well, and in time may know it yet better; and as for the verse and the passions, I have them still in tolerable vigour. " If you think that it will do you and the work, or works, any good, yon may put my name to it; ha [first consult the knowing ones. It will. a.d. 1818. J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 119 at any rate, show them that I can write cheerfully, and repel the charsje of monotony and mannerism. "Yours, &c." LETTER CCCXI1I. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, April 11th, 1818. " Will you send me by letter, packet, or parcel, half a dozen of the coloured prints from Holmes's miniature (the latter done shortly before I left your country, and the prints about a year ago) ; I shall be obliged to you, as some people here have asked me for the like. It is a picture of my upright self done for Scrppe B. Davies, esq.* " Why have you not sent me an answer, and lists of subscribers to the translation of the Armenian Eusebius ? of which I sent you printed copies of the prospectus (in French) two moons ago. Have you had the letter? — I shall send you another: — you must not neglect my Armenians. Tooth-powder, magnesia, tincture of myrrh, tooth- brushes, diachylon plaster, Peruvian bark, are my personal demands. " Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times, Patron and publisher of rhymes, For thee the bard up Pindus climbs, My Murray. " To thee, with hope and terror dumb, The unfledged MS. authors come ; Thou printest all — and sellest some — My Murray. " Upon thy table's baize so green The last new Quarterly is seen. But where is thy new Magazine, " My Murray ? •' Along thy sprucest book-shelves shine The works thou deemest most divine — The ' Art of Cookery,' and mine, My Murray. " Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist, And Sermons to thy mill bring grist ; And then thou hast the ' Navy List,' My Murray. * There follows, in this place, among other matter, a long string of verses, in various metres, to the amount of about sixty lines, so full of light gayety and humour, that it is with some reluctance I suppress them. They might, however, have the effect of giving pain in quarters where even the author himself would not have deliberately inflicted it ; — from a pen like his, touches are often wounds, without being- actually intended as such. 120 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. lai« ••And Heaven forbid I should conclude \\ ithout the ' Board of Longitude,' Uthoilgfa this narrow paper would. My Murray !" LETTER CCCXIV. TO MR. MURHAV. "Venice, April 12, 1818. 1 "This letter will be delivered by Signer tiioe. Mala. Missiaglia, proprietor of the Apollo library, and the principal publisher and book- seller now in Venice. He sets out for London with a view to business mid correspondence with the English booksellers: and it is in the hope that it may be for your mutual advantage that 1 furnish lain with this letter of introduction to you. If you can be of use to him, either by recommendation to others, or by any personal attention on your own part, you will oblige him, and gratify me. You may also perhaps both be able to derive advantage, or establish some mode of literary communication, pleasing to the public, and beneficial to one another. -. " At any rate, be civil to him for my sake, as well as for the honour and glory of publishers and authors now and to come for evermore. "With him 1 also consign a great number of MS. letters written in English, French, and Italian, by various English established in Italy during the last century : — the names of the writers, Lord Hervey, Lady M. W. Montague (hers are but few — some billets-doux in French to Algarotti, and one letter in English, Italian, and all sorts of jargon, to the same), Gray, the poet (one letter), Mason (two or three), tJarrick, Lord Chatham, David Hume, and many of less note, — all addressed to Count Algarotti. Out of these, 1 think, with discretion, an amusing miscellaneous volume of letters might be extracted, pro- \ ided some good editor were disposed to undertake the selection, and preface, and a few notes, K.c. " The proprietor of these is a friend of mine, Dr. Aglietti, — a great nam*' in Italy, — and if you are disposed to publish, it will be for his hinrjii, and it is to and for him that you will name a price, if you take upon you the work. I would edit it myself, but am too far off, and too lazy to undertake it; but 1 wish that it could be done. The letters of Lord Hervey, in Mr. Rose's* opinion and mine, are good: ' Among Lord Byron's papers, I find some verses addressed to him about tins time, by Mr. W. Rose, with the following note annexed to them : — •' These verses r were sent to me by W. S. Rose, from Abaro, in the spring of lt',18. They are good and true ; and Rose is a fino fellow, and one of the few English who understand Italy, without which Italian is nothing." The verses begin thus : " Byron.t while you make gay what circle fits ye, Bandy Venetian slang with the Benzon, < >r play at company with the Albri/.zi, The self-pleased pedant, and patrician crone, f " I have hunted out a precedent for tins unceremonious address." k. u. 1818,] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 12] and tlie short French love-letters certainly are Lady M. W. Mon- tague's — the French not good, but the sentiments beautiful. Gray's letter good ; and Mason's tolerable. The whole correspondence must be well weeded; but this being done, a small and pretty popular volume might be made of it. — There are many ministers' letters — Gray, the ambassador at Naples, Horace Mann, and others of the same kind of animal. " I thought of a preface, defending Lord Hervey against Pope's attack, but Pope — quoad Pope, the poet — against all the world, in the unjustifiable attempts begun byWarton, and carried on at this day by the new school of critics and scribblers, who think themselves poets because they do not write like Pope. I have no patience with such cursed humbug and bad taste ; your whole generation are not worth a Canto of the Rape of the Lock, or the Essay on Man, or the Dunciad, or * any thing that is his.' — But it is three in the matin, and I must go to bed. " Yours alwav, &c." LETTER CCCXV. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, April 17th, 1818. " A few days ago, I wrote to you a letter, requesting you to desire Hanson to desire his messenger to come on from Geneva to Venice, because I won't go from Venice to Geneva ; and if this is not done, the messenger may be damned, with him who mis-sent him. Pray reiterate my request. " With the proofs returned, I sent two additional stanzas for Canto Fourth : did they arrive ? " Your monthly reviewer has made a mistake : Cavaliere, alone is well enough; ' Cavalier'' servente'' has always the c mute in conversa- tion, and omitted in writing ; so that it is not for the sake of metre ; and pray let Griffiths know this, with my compliments. I humbly conjecture that I know as much of Italian society and language as any of his people ; but to make assurance doubly sure, I asked, at the Countess Benzona's last night, the question of more than one person in the office, and of these ' cavalien serventi' (in the plural recollect) I found that they all accorded in pronouncing for ' cavalier' servente' in the singular number. I wish Mr. * * * * (or whoever Griffiths's scribbler may be) would not talk of what he do n't understand. Such fellows are not fit to be intrusted with Italian, even in a quotation. " Did you receive two additional stanzas, to be inserted towards the close of Canto Fourth ] Respond, that (if not) they may be sent. " Tell Mr. * * and Mr. Hanson that they may as well expect Geneva to come to me, as that I should go to Geneva. The mes- senger may go or return, as he pleases ; I won't stir : and I look upon it as a piece of singular absurdity in those who know me imagining Grimanis, Mocenigos, Balbis, Rizzi, Compassionate our cruel case, — alone, Our pleasure an academy of frogs, Who nightly serenade us from the bogs," &c. &c. 182 NOTICES OF THE [a.d.1818 that I should — not to say malice, in attempting unnecessary torture If, on the occasion, my interests should suffer, it is (Aetrneglect that is to blame; and they may all be d d together. * # * * ■ it is ten o'clock, and tune to dress. " Yours. &c." LETTER (VCXVI. TO MR. MURRAY. •• April 23d, 1818. *' The tunc is past in which 1 could feel for the dead,— or 1 should feel for the death of Lad5 Melbourne, the best, and kindest, and ablest female I ever knew, old or young. But 'I have supped full of horrors,' and events of this kind have only a kind of numbness worse than pain,— like a violent blow on the elbow or the head. There is one link less between England and myself. " Now to business. I presented you with Beppo, as part of the contract for Canto Fourth, — considering the price you are to pay for the same, and intending to eke yon out in case of public caprice or my own poetical failure. If you choose to suppress it entirely, at Air. • < ' *'s suggestion, you may do as you please. But recollect it is not to lie published in a. garbled or mutilated state. I reserve to my friends and myself the right of correcting the press;— if the publica- tion continue, it is to continue in its present form. ***** " As Mr. • * says that he did not write this letter, kc, I am ready to believe him ; but for the firmness of my former persuasion. I refer to Air. * * * *, who can inform you how sincerely I erred on this point. He has also the note— or, at least, had it, for I gave it to him with my verba] comments thereupon. As to k Beppo,' I will not alter or suppress a syllable for any man's pleasure but my own. "You may tell them this; and add, thai nothing but force or neces- sity shall stir me one step towards the places to which they would wring me. * * * * "If > our literary matters prosper, let me know. If ' Beppo' pleases, you shall have more m a \ ear or two in the same mood. And so. 'Good morrow to vou, good Master Lieutenant.' "Yours &c." LETTER CCCXVII. TO MR. MOORE. "Palazzo Mocenigo, Canal Grande, u Venice, June 1st, 1818. Your letter is almost the only news, as yet, of Canto 4th, and it by no m.ans settled its fate,— at least, does not tell me how the •Poeshie' has been received by the public. But I suspect, no great things,— firstly, from Murray's* horrid stillness;' secondly, from what a. d. 1818.] LIFE OP LORD BYRON. 123 you say about the stanzas running into each other,* which I take not to be yours, but a notion you have been dinned with among the Blues. The fact is, that the terza rima of the Italians, which always runs on and in, may have led me into experiments, and carelessness into con- ceit — or conceit into carelessness — in either of which events failure will be probable, and my fair woman, ' superne,' end in a fish ; so that Childe Harold will be like the mermaid, my family crest, with the Fourth Canto for a tail thereunto. I won't quarrel with the public, however, for the ' Bulgars' are generally right ; and if I miss now, I may hit another time : — and so ' the gods give us joy.' " You like Beppo; that's right. * * * * I have not had the Fudges yet, but live in hopes. I need not say that your successes are mine. By-the-way, Lydia White is here, and has just borrowed my copy of ' Lalla Rookh.' " Hunt's letter is probably the exact piece of vulgar coxcombry you might expect from his situation. He is a good man, with some poetical elements in his chaos; but spoiled by the Christ-Church Hospital and a Sunday newspaper, — to say nothing of the Surry Jail, which conceited him into a martyr. But he is a good man. When I saw ' Rimini' in MSS., I told him that I deemed it good poetry at bottom, disfigured only by a strange style. His answer was, that his style was a system, or upon system, or some such cant ; and, when a man talks of system, his case is hopeless : so I said no more to him, and very little to any one else. " He believes his trash of vulgar phrases tortured into compound barbarisms to be old English ; and we may say of it as Aimwell says of Captain Gibbet's regiment, when the Captain calls it an 'old corps,' — ' the oldest in Europe, if I may judge by your uniform.' He sent out liis ' Foliage' by Percy Shelley * * *, and, of all the ineffable Centaurs that were ever begotten by Self-love upon a Nightmare, I think this monstrous Sagittaiy the most prodigious. He (Leigh H.) is an honest Charlatan, who has persuaded himself into a belief of his own impos- tures, and talks Punch in pure simplicity of heart, taking himself (as poor Fitzgerald said of himself in the Morning Post) for Fates in both senses, or nonsenses, of the word. Did you look at the translations of his own which he prefers to Pope and Cowper, and says so 1 — Did you read his skimble-skamble about * * being at the head of his own profession, in the eyes of those who followed it ? 1 thought that poetry was an art, or an attribute, and not a profession ; — but be it one, is that * * at the head of your profession in your eyes 1 I '11 be cursed if he is of mine, or ever shall be. He is the only one of us (but of us he is not) whose coronation I would oppose. Let them take Scott, Campbell, Crabbe, or you or me, or any of the living, and throne him ; — but not this new Jacob Behmen, this * * * * whose pride might have kept him true, even had his principles turned as perverted as his soi- disant poetry. "But Leigh Hunt is a good man, and a good father — see his Odes to all the Masters Hunt ; — a good husband — see his Sonnet to Mrs. Hunt ; — a good friend — see his Epistles to different people ; — and a * I had said, I think, in my letter to him*", that this practice of carrying one stanza into another was " something like taking on horses another stagre without halting." 134 NOTICES OF THE [a.b.1818. ijreat coxcomb, and a very vulgar person in every thing about him. But that's not his fault, but of circumstances.* • » * * * • "1 do no: know any good model for a life of Sheridan but that of Savage. Recollect, however, that the life of saeh a man may he made far more amusing than if be had been a Wilberforce ; — and tins without offending the living, or insulting the dead. The Whigs abuse him ; however, he never left them, and such blunderers deserve neither credit nor compassion. As for his creditors,— -remember, Sheridan neoefhad a shilling, and was thrown, with greal powers and passions, into th< thick of the world, and placed upon the pinnacle of SUCCI 88, Willi no other external means to support him in his elevation. Did Fox ' * " pay his debts ! — or did Sheridan take a subscription ? Was the Duke of .Norfolk's drunkenness more excusable than his I Were his intrigues more notorious than those of all his contemporaril B ! and is his memory to be blasted, and theirs respected ? Do n't let yourself be led away by clamour, but compare him with the coalitioner Fox, and the pensioner Burke, as a man of principle, and with ten hundred thousand in personal views, and with none in talent, for he beat them all out and out. Without means, without connexion, without character (which might be false at tirst, and made him mad afterward from des- peration), he beat them all, in all he ever attempted. But alas, poor human nature! Good night— or, rather, morning. It is four, and the dawn gleams over the Grand ("anal, and unshadowe the Rialto. I must to bed; up all night — but, as George Philpot says, 'it's life, though, damme, it's life!' " Ever yours, M B. " Excuse errors — no time for revision. The post goes out at noon, and I sha' n't be up then. I will write again soon about your plan for a publication." During the greater part of the period which this last series of letters comprises, he had continued to occupy the same lodgings m an ex- ireuieh narrow street called the Spezieria, at the house of the linen* draper, to whose lady he devoted so much of bis thoughts. 'That he was, for the time, attached to this person, — as far as a passion transient can deserve the name of attachment, — is evidt nt from his whole conduct. Tin language of Ins letters snows sufficiently how much the novelty of this foreign He had caught Ins fancy, and to the Venetians. anions whom such arrangements ire mere matters of course, the assiduity with which he attended his Signora to the theatre and the Ridottos, v\as a subject of much amusement. It was with diffi- culty, indeed, that he could be prevailed upon to absent himself from her so long as to admit of that hasty visit to tiie Immortal City, out of which one of Ins own noblest titles to immortality sprung; and having, in the space of a ft w weeks, drunk in more inspiration from * I had, in first transcribing the above letter for the press, omitted the whole of this caustic and. perhaps, over-severe character of Mr. Hunt; but the tone of that genUexnan'f book having, u far as himself is concerned, released me from all those scruples which prompted the suppression I have; ionsidered myself at liberty to restore the passage a. u. 181b.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 125 all he saw, than, in a less excited state, possibly, he might have im- bibed in years, he again hurried back, without extending his journey to Naples, — having written to the fair Marianna to meet him at some distance from Venice. Besides some seasonable acts of liberality to the husband, who had, it seems, failed in trade, he also presented to the lady herself a hand- some set of diamonds ; and there is an anecdote related, in reference to this gift, which shows the exceeding easiness and forbearance of his disposition towards those who had acquired any hold on his heart. A casket, which was for sale, being one day offered to him, he was not a little surprised on discovering them to be the same jewels which he had, not long before, presented to his fair favourite, and which had, by some unromantic means, found their way back into the market. "Without inquiring, however, any farther into the circumstances, he generously repurchased the casket and presented it to the lady once more, good-humouredly taxing her with the little estimation in which, as it appeared, she held his presents. To whatever extent this unsentimental incident may have had a share in dispelling the romance of his passion, it is certain that, before the expiration of the first twelvemonth, he began to find his lodgings in the Spezieria inconvenient, and accordingly entered into treaty with Count Gritti for his palace on the Grand Canal, — engaging to give for it, what is considered, I believe, a large rent in Venice, 200 louis a year. On rinding, however, that, in the counterpart of the lease brought for his signature, a new clause had been introduced, prohibiting him not only from underletting the house, in case he should leave Venice, but from even allowing any of his own friends to occupy it during his occasional absence, lie declined closing on such terms ; and resenting so material a departure from the original engagement, declared in society, that he would have no objection to give the same rent, though acknowledged to be exorbitant, for any other palace in Venice, however inferior, in all respects, to this. After such an announcement, he was not likely to remain long unhoused; and the Countess Mocenigo having offered him one of her three palazzi, on the Grand Canal, he removed to this house in the summer of the present year, and continued to occupy it during the remainder of his stay in Venice. Highly censurable, in point of morality and decorum, as was his course of life while under the roof of Madame * *, it was (with pain I am forced to confess) venial in comparison with the strange, bead- long career of license to which, when weaned from that connexion, he so unrestrainedly and, it may be added, defyingly abandoned him- self. Of the state of his mind on leaving England I have already- endeavoured to convey some idea, and, among the feelings that went to make up that self-centred spirit of resistance which he then opposed to his fate, was an indignant scorn of his own countrymen for the wrongs he thought they had done him. For a time, the kindly senti- ments which he still harboured towards Lady Byron, and a sort of vague hope, perhaps, that all would yet come right again, kept his mind in a mood somewhat more softened and docile, as weli as suffi- ciently under the influence still of English opinion to prevent his breaking out into open rebellion against it, as he unluckily did afterward. By the failure of the attempted mediation with Lady Byron, his last link with home was severed ; while, notwithstanding the quiet and 126 \<)l'ICh\S Ol Till. [a. D. i-i- Unobtrusive life W bich he had led at Ceneva, there was as yet, lie found. do cessation whatever of the slanderous warfare against liis character ; the same busy ami misrepresenting spiril which had tracked his ever) step at home having, with unless malicious watchfulness, dogged him into exile. T" tins persuasionj fur which he had but too much grounds, was added all that an imagination like Ins could lend to truth, — all that he w as left to interpret, in his own wa\\ ol' the absent and the silent, — till, at length, arming himself against fancied enemies and wrongs, \\n>\, with the condition (as it seemed to him) of an outlaw, assuming also the desperation, he resolved, as his countrymen would not do justice to the better parts ot" his nature, to have, at least, the perverse satisfaction of braving and shocking them with the worst. It is to this feeling, I am convinced, far more than to any depraved taste for such a course of life, that the extravagances to which he now, for a short time, gave loose, are to be attributed. The exciting effect, indeed, of this mode of existence, while it lasted, both upon Ins spirits and his genius, — so like what, as he himself tells us, was alw a\ s pro- duced in him by a state of contest and defiance, — showed how much of tins latter feeling must have been mixed with his excesses. The altered character, too, of his letters in this respect cannot fail, 1 think, to be remarked by the reader, — there being, with an evident increasi of intellectual vigour, a tone of violence and bravado breaking out in them continually, winch marks the high pitch of reaction to which he had wound up bis temper. In fact, so far from the powers of his intellect being at all weakened "i- dissipated by these irregularities, he was, perhaps, at no time of Ins lite, so actively in the full possession of all its energies; and his friend sin Hey, who went to Venice, at this period, to see him,* used to say. that all he observed of the workings of Byron's mind, during his visit, gave him a far higher idea of its powers than he had ever before enter- tained. It was. indeed, then that Shelley sketched out, and chielh wrote, Ins poem of •• Julian and Maddalo," in the latter of which per- sonages he has so picturesquely shadowed firth his noble friend ;f and * The following are extracts from a letter of Shelley's to a friend at this lime. •• Venice, August, lolC. "We came from Padua hither in a gondola ; and the gondolier, among other things, without any hint on our part, began talking of Lord Byron. Be aaid he wa a 'Giovanotto Inglese,' with a ' nome Btravagante,' who live . very luxuriously, and spent great Minis of money. * * * '• At three o'cloi k I called on Lord Ityron. He was delighted to Bee and our first conversation of course consisted in the object of our visit. * * * He took me in his gondola, across Laguna, to a long, strandy sand, which defends Venice from the Adriatic. When we disembarked, we found his horses waiting fur us, and we rude along the sands, talking. Our conversation consisted in histories of his own wounded feelings, and quel tions as to my affairs, with jjreat professions of friendship and regard for me. lb- said that it' he had been in England, at tin time of the Chancery affair, he would have moved heaven and earth to have prevented such a decision. He talked of literary matters, — his Fourth Canto, which he says is very good, and indeed rcpt ated BOme stanzas, of great energy, to me. When we returin .. lie. palace, which is one of the most magnificent in Venice, &c. &c." t In the preface also to this poem, under the fictitious name of Count MaU- i be following jusl and sinking portrait of Lord Byron is drawn : — ■ ■ !' n ofthe i isummate genius, and capable, ifhe would a. d. 1818.J LIFE OF LOUD BYRON. 127 the allusions to " the Swan of Albion," in his " Lines written among the Euganean Hills," were also, 1 understand, the result of the same access of admiration and enthusiasm. In speaking of the Venetian women, in one of the preceding letters, Lord Byron, it will be recollected, remarks, that the beauty for which they were once so celebrated is no longer now to be found among the " dame," or higher orders, but all under the " fazzioli," or kerchiefs, of the lower. It was, unluckily, among these latter specimens of the " bel sangue" of Venice that he now, by a suddenness of descent in the scale of refinement, for which nothing but the present wayward state of his mind can account, chose to select the companions of his disen- gaged hours ; — and an additional proof that, in this short, daring career of libertinism, he was but desperately seeking relief for' a wronged and mortified spirit, and " What to us seem'd guilt might be but wo," — is that, more than once, of an evening, when his house has been in the possession of such visitants, he has been known to hurry away in his gondola, and pass the greater part of the night upon the water, as if hating to return to his home. It is, indeed, certain, that to this least defensible portion of his whole life he always looked back, during the short remainder of it, with painful self-reproach ; and among the causes of the detestation which he afterward felt for Venice, this recollection of the excesses to which he had there abandoned himself was not the least prominent. The most distinguished and, at last, the reigning favourite of all this unworthy Haram was a woman named Margarita Cogni, who has been already mentioned in one of these letters, and who, from the trade of her husband, was known by the title of the Fornarina. A portrait of this handsome virago, drawn by Harlow e when at Venice, having fallen into the hands of one of Lord Byron's friends after the death of that artist, the noble poet, on being applied to for some particulars of his heroine, wrote a long letter on the subject, from which the following- are extracts : — " Since you desire the story of Margarita Cogni, you shall be told it. though it may be lengthy. " Her face is the fine Venetian cast of the old time ; her figure, though perhaps too tall, is not less fine— and taken altogether in the national dress. direct his energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. But it is his weakness to be proud : he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life. His passions and his powers are incomparably greater than those of other men, and instead of the latter having been employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent each other strength. His ambition preys upon itself for want of objects which it can consider worthy of exertion. I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other word to express the concentred and impatient feelings which consume him ; but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he seems to trample, for in social life no human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank, and witty. His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication. He has travelled much ; and there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different coimtrie<:,'' U© NOTICES OP THE [\.v. 1818. "In the summer of 1817, •••• and myself were sauntering on horseback, along the Brenta one evening, when, among a group of pea- sants, we remarked two girls as the prettiest we had seen for some time. About this period there had been great distress in the country, and I had a little relieved some of the people. Generosity makes a great figure at very little cost in Venetian livres, and mine had pro- bably been exaggerated as an Englishman's. Whether they remarked us looking at them or no, I know not ; but one of them called out to me in Venetian, 1 Why do not you, who relieve others, think of us also?' I turned round ami answered her — 'Cara, tu sei troppo bella e gio- vane per aver' bisogna del' soccorso inio.' She answered, « If you saw my hut and my food, you would not say so.' All this passed half jest- ingly, and I saw no more of her for some days. " A few evenings after, we met with these two girls again, and the\ addressed us more seriously, assuring us of the truth of their state- ment. They were cousins; Mai garita married, the other single. As 1 doubted still of the circumstances, I took the business in a different light, and made an appointment with them for the next evening. * In short, in a few evenings we arranged our affairs, and for a long space of time she was the only one who preserved over me an ascendancy which was often disputed, and never impaired. "The reasons for this were, firstly, her person; — very dark, tall, the Venetian face, very line black eyes. She was two-and-twentv years old, **••**•• She was besides a thorough Venetian in her dialect, in her thoughts, in her countenance, in every thing, with all their naivete and panta- loon humour. Uesides, she could neither read nor write, and could not plague me with letters, — except twice that she paid sixpence to a public- scribe, under the piazza, to make a letter for her, upon some occasion when 1 was ill and could not see her. In other respects, she was somewhat fierce and ' prepotente,' thai is, overbearing, and used to walk in whenever it suited her, with no very j^reat regard to time, place, nor persons; and if she found any women in her way she knocked them down. " When I first knew her, I was in ' relazione' (liaison) with la si^nora * *, who was siliv enough one evening at Dolo, a< i ompanied some of her female friends, to threaten her; for the gossips of the Villeggiatura had already found out, by the neighing of my horse on< evening, thai I used to 'ride late in the night' to meet the Fornarina. Margarita threw back her veil (fazziolo), and replied in very explicit Venetian: ' 1 bu are not his wife: I am not hia wife: you are ins Donna, and/ am his Donna: your husband is a becco, and mine is another. For the rest, what right have you to reproai h me I If he prefers me to you, is it ray fault 1 If you wish to secure him, tie him to your petticoat-string, hut do not think to speak to me without a reply, because you happen to be richer than I am.' Having delivered this pretty piece of eloquence [which I translate as it was related to me by a bystander), Bhewenl on her way, leaving a numerous audience, with Madame * , to ponder at her leisure on the dialogue between them. "When I came to Venire for the winter she followed; and as she found herself out to be a favourite, she came to me pretty often. Bui ihe had inordinate self-love, and was not tolerant of other women. M the ■ Cavalchina,' the masked ball on the last night of the Carni- re all the world goes, she snatched off the mask of Madame a. d. 1818.] LIFE OF LORD BYRO.V 129 Contarini, a lady noble by birth, and decent in conduct, for no other reason but because she happened to be leaning on my arm. You may suppose what a cursed noise this made ; but this is only one of her pranks. " At last she quarrelled with her husband, and one evening ran away to my house. I told her this would not do : she said she would lie in the street, but not go back to him ; that he beat her, (the gentle tigress!) spent her money, and scandalously neglected her. As it was mid- night, I let her stay, and next day there was no moving her at all. Her husband came, roaring and crying, and entreating her to come back : — not she ! He then applied to the police, and they applied to me : I told them and her husband to take her ; I did not want her ; she had come, and I could not fling her out of the window ; but they might conduct her through that or the door if they chose it. She went before the commissary, but was obliged to return with that 1 becco ettico,' as she called the poor man, who had a phthisic. In a few days she ran away again. After a precious piece of work, she fixed herself in my house, really and truly without my consent ; but, owing to my indolence, and not being able to keep my countenance —for if I began in a rage, she always finished by making me laugh with some Venetian pantaloonery or another; and the gipsy knew this well enough, as well as her other powers of persuasion, and ex- erted them with the usual tact and success of all she-things ; — hi^h and low, they are all alike for that. " Madame Benzoni also took her under her protection, and then her head turned. She was always in extremes, either crying or laughing, and so fierce when angered, that she was the terror of men, women, and children — for she had the strength of an Amazon, with the temper of Medea. She was a fine animal, but quite untameable. / was the only person that could at all keep her in any order, and when she saw me really angry (which they tell me is a savage sight), she subsided. But she had a thousand fooleries. In her fazziolo, the dress of the lower orders, she looked beautiful ; but, alas ! she longed for a hat and feathers ; and all I could say or do (and I said much) could not prevent this travestie. I put the first into the fire ; but I got tired of burning them before she did of buying them, so that she made herself a figure — for they did not at all become her. " Then she would have her gowns with a tail — like a lady, forsooth : nothing would serve her but ' l'abita colla cowa,' or cua (that is tin . Venetian for ' la cola,' the tail or train), and as her cursed pronuncia- tion of the word made me laugh, there was an end of all controversy, and she dragged this diabolical tail after her every where. " In the mean time, she beat the women and stopped my letters. I found her one day pondering over one. She used to try to find out by their shape whether they were feminine or no ; and she used to lament her ignorance, an'd actually studied her alphabet, on purpose (as she declared) to open all letters addressed to me, and read their contents. " I must not omit to do justiqe to her housekeeping qualities. After she came into my house as 'donna di governo,' the expenses were reduced to less than half, and every body did their duty better — the apartments were kept in order, and every thing and every body else, except herself. " That she had a sufficient regard for me in her wild way, I had many reasons to believe. T will mpntion one. In the autumn, on<- Vol. II.— I 130 r ■ JOl U ES 01 THE [a.d, L818 day. going to th< Lido with my goridoliers, we were overtaken by a heavy squall, and the gondola put in peril — liats Mown away, boat filling, oar lost, tumbling sea, thunder, ram in torrents, nighl coming, and wind unceasing. On out return, after a tight struggle, 1 found her on the open steps of the Wocenigo palace, on the Grand ('anal, with her great Mack eyes Bashing through her tears, and the long dark hair, which was streaming, drenched with rain, over her brows and breast, she was perfectly exposed to the storm; and the wind blowing her hair and dress about her thiii tall figure, and the lightning flashing around her, and the waves rolling at her feet, made her look like Medi a alighted from her chariot, or the Sibyl of the tempest that was rolling around her, the only living thing within hail at that mo- ment except ourselves. On Beeing me safe, Bhe did not wait to greet me, as might have been expected, hut calling out tome — 'Ah! can' delta Madonna, se esto il tempo por andar' al' Lido?' (Ah! dog of the Virgin, is this a time to go to Lido?) ran into the house, and solaced herself with scolding the boatmen for not foreseeing the • temporale.' 1 am told by the servants that sbe had only been pre- vented from coining in a boat to look after me, by the refusal of all the gondoliers of the canal to put out into the harbour in such a mo- ment ; and that then she sat down on the steps in all the thickest of the squall, and would neither he removed nor comforted. Her joy at seeing me again was moderately mixed with ferocity, and gave me the idea of a tigress OV( t her recovered cubs. "But her reign drew near a rinse. She became quite ungovernable some mouths alter, ami a concurrence of complaints, some true, and many false— 'a favourite has no friends' — determined me to part with her. 1 told her quietly that she must return home (she had acquired a sufficient provision for herself and mother, Kr. in my service), and she refused to quit the house. 1 was firm, and she went threatening knives and revenge. 1 told her that I had seen knives drawn before her time, and that if she chose to begin, there was a knife, and fork also, at her service cm the table, and that intimidation would not do. The next day, while I was at dinner, she walked in (having broken Open a glass door that Led from the hall below to the staircase, by wa\ of prologue), and advancing straight up to the table, snatched the knife from on hand, cutting me slightly m the thumb in the operation. Whether she meanl to use tins against herself or me, I know not — probably against neither— hut Fletcher seized her by the arms, and disarmed her. 1 then called my boatmen, and desired them to get the gondola ready, and conduct her to her own house again, seenrj carefull) that she did herself no mischief by the way. she seemed quite quiet, and walked down Btairs. l resumed my dinner. " \\ e heard a great noise, and went out, and met them on the stair- e, carrying her up stairs. She had thrown herself into the canaL That Bhe intended to destiny herself, 1 do not believe: but when we onsider the fear women and men who can't swim have of deep or even of shallow water (and the Venetians in particular, though they live on the waves), and that it was also night, and dark, and very >- Rov. 1 shall be 'dad of Whistlecraft." 3« LETTER CCCXXI. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, August 26th, 1818. "Von may ffo on with your edition, without calculating on the Memoir, which I shall not publish at present. It is nearly finished, but will be too Long; and there are so many things, which, out of a, d. 1818.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 135 regard to the living, cannot be mentioned, that I have written with too much detail of that which interested me least ; so that my autobio- graphical Essay would resemble the tragedy of Hamlet at the country theatre, recited ' with the part of Hamlet left out by particular desire." I shall keep it among my papers ; it will be a kind of guide-post in case of death, and prevent some of the lies which would otherwise be told, and destroy some which have been told already. " The Tales also are in an unfinished state, and I can fix no time for their completion: they are also not in the best manner. You must not, therefore, calculate upon any thing in time for this edition. The Memoir is already above forty-four sheets of very large, long paper, and will be about fifty or sixty; but I wish to go on leisurely ; and when finished, although it might do a good deal for you at the time, I am not sure that it would serve any good purpose in the end either, as it is full of many passions and prejudices, of which it has been impossible for me to keep clear : — I have not the patience. " Enclosed is a list of books which Dr. Aglietti would be glad to receive by way of price for his MS. letters, if you are disposed to pur- chase at the rate of fifty pounds sterling. These he will be glad to have as part, and the rest / will give him in money, and you may carry it to the account of books, &c. which is in balance against me, deducting it accordingly. So that the letters are yours, if you like them, at this rate ; and he and I are going to hunt for more Lady Montague letters, which he thinks of finding. I write in haste. Thanks for the article, and believe me, " Yours, &c." To the charge brought against Lord Byron by some English travellers of being, in general, repulsive and inhospitable to his own countrymen, I have already made allusion ; and shall now add to the testimony then cited in disproof of such a charge some particulars, communicated to me by Captain Basil Hall, which exhibit the courtesy and kindliness of the noble poet's disposition in their true, natural light. " On the last day of August, 1818 (says this distinguished writ«v and traveller), I was taken ill with an ague at Venice, and having heard enough of the low state of the medical art in that country, I was not a little anxious as to the advice I shoidd take. I was not acquainted with any person in Venice to whom I could refer, and had only one letter of introduction, which was to Lord Byron; but as there were many stories floating about of his lordship's unwillingness to be pestered with tourists, I had felt unwilling, before this moment, to intrude myself in that shape. Now, however, that I was seriously unwell, I felt sure that this offensive character would merge in that of a countryman in distress, and I sent the letter by one of my travelling companions to Lord Byron's lodgings with a note, excusing the liberty I was taking, explaining that I was in want of medical assistance, and saying I should not send to any one till I heard the name of the person who, in his lordship's opinion, was the best prac- titioner in Venice. " Unfortunately for me, Lord Byron was still in bed, though it was near noon, and still more unfortunately, the bearer of my message scrupled to awake him, without first coming back to consult me. By this time I was in all the agonies of a cold ague fit, and, therefore, not at all in a condition to be consulted upon any thing — so 1 replied I'M \()| |i ES OB 'I'll I. La. d. 1M> pettishiv. • Oli, l>\ ii<> means disturb I, mil Byron on my account — ring tor the landlord, and scud for any < » 1 1< ■ be recommends.' This absurd injunction being forthwith and bterall) attended to, in the course of an hour I was under the discipline of mine host's friend, w hose skill and success it is no part of my present purpose to descant upon: — it is sufficient to mention that I was irrevocably in his hands long before the following most kind note was brought to me, in great haste, by Lord Byron's servant. 'Venice, August 31st, 1818. ' in: Ait BIB, ' Dr. AgliettJ is the best phj aician, not only in Venice, but in Italy : Ins residence is on the Grand Canal, and easily found; [forget the number, but am probably the oul\ person in Venice who don't know it. There is no comparison between bun and any of the other medical people here. I regret very much to hear of your indisposition, and shall do m\ sell the honour of waiting upon you the moment I am up. 1 write this m bed, and have only just received the letter and note. I ben you to believe that nothing but the extreme lateness of my hours could have prevented me from replying immediately, or coming in person. 1 have not been called a minute. — I have the honour to be. erj truly, ' Your most obedient servant, ' Byron.' " His lordship soon followed this note, and I heard his voice in the next room ; but although he waited more than an hour, 1 could not see him, being under the inexorable hands of the doctor. In the course of the same (veiling he again called, but I was asleep. When I awoke I found his lordship's valet sitting by my bedside. ' He had his mas- ter's orders,' he said, • to remain with me while 1 was unwell, and \\ as instructed to say, that whatever his lordship had, or could procure, was at my service, and that he would come to me and lit with me, or do whatever 1 liked, if I would only let him know in what way he could be useful.' "Accordingly, on the next day, I sent for some hook, which was brought, with a list of his library. 1 forget what n was which pre- vented my Beeing Lord llyron on this day, though he called more than Once ; and on the next, 1 was too ill with fever to talk to any one. " The moment I could go out, I took a gondola and went to pay my respects, and to thank Ins lordship for Ins attentions. It was then nearly three o'clock, but he was not yet up; and when I went again on the following day at rive, I had the mortification to learn that he had rone, at the same hour, to call upon me. so that we had crossed each other on the canal ; and, to my deep and lasting regret, I was obliged to leave Venice without seeing him." LHTTER CCCXXII. TO MR. MOORE. " Venice, September 19, 1818. \n English newspaper here would be a prodigy, and an opposition ones monster; and, except some extractsyrwn extracts in the vile, gar- t Paris gazettes, nothing of the kind reaches the Veneto-Lombard B a. d. 1818.] LIFE OP LORD BYRON. 137 public, who are perhaps the most oppressed in Europe. My corres- pondences with England are mostly on business, and chiefly with my * * *, who has no very exalted notion, or extensive conception, of an author's attributes ; for he once took up an Edinburgh Review, and, looking at it a minute, said to me, 'So, I see you have got into the magazine,' — which is the only sentence I ever heard him utter upon literary m ' rs, or the men thereof. " My first news of your Irish apotheosis has, consequently, been from yourself. But, as it will not be forgotten in a hurry, either by your Inends or your enemies, I hope to have it more in detail from some of the former, and, in the mean time, I wish you joy with all my heart. Such a moment must have been a good deal better than West- minster-Abbey, — besides being an assurance of that one day (many years hence, I trust) into the bargain. " I am sorry to perceive, however, by the close of your letter, that even you have not escaped the " surgit amari,' &c. and that your damned deputy has been gathering such ' dew from the still vext Ber- moothes' — or rather vexatious. Pray, give me some items of the affair, as you say it is a serious one ; and, if it grows more so, you should make a trip over here for a few months, to see how things turn out. 1 suppose you are a violent admirer of England by your staying so long in it. For my own part, I have passed, between the age of one-and-twenty and thirty, half the intervenient years out of it without regretting any thing, except that I ever returned to it at all, and the gloomy prospect before me of business and parentage obliging me, one day, to return again, — at least, for the transaction of affairs, the signing of papers, and inspecting of children. " I have here my natural daughter, by name Allegra, — a pretty little girl enough, and reckoned like papa.* Her mamma is English, — but it is a long story, and — there 's an end. She is about twenty months old. * * * * " I have finished the First Canto (a long one, of about 180 octaves) of a poem in the style and manner of ' Beppo,' encouraged by tiie good success of the same. It is called ' Don Juan,' and is meant to be a little quietly facetious upon every thing. But 1 doubt whether it is not — at least, as far as it has yet gone — too free for these very modest days. However, I shall try the experiment, anonymously, and if it do n't take, it will be discontinued. It is dedicated to S * * in good, * This little child had been sent to him by its mother about four or five months before, under the care of a Swiss nurse, a young girl not above nine- teen or twenty years of age, and in every respect unfit to have the charge of such an infant, without the superintendence of some more experienced person. " The child, accordingly," says my informant, " was but ill taken care of; — not that any blame could attach to Lord Byron, for he always expressed himself most anxious for her welfare, but because the nurse wanted the necessary experience. The poor girl was equally to be pitied ; for, as Lord Byron's household consisted of English and Italian men-servants, with whom she could hold no canverse, and as there was no other female to con- sult with and assist her in her charge, nothing could be more forlorn than her situation proved to be." Soon after the date of the above letter, Mrs. Hoppner, the lady of the Consul General, who had, from the first, in compassion both to father and child, invited the little Allegra occasionally to her house, very kindly pro- posed to Lord Byron to take charge of her altogether, and an arrangement was accordingly concluded upon for that purpose. 138 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1816 simple, savage verse, upon the * ' ' "s politics, and the way he got ilicin. lint me bore of copying it out i> intolerable; and if 1 had an amanuensis be would be of no use, as my writing is so difficult to decipher. •' My poem's Epic, and is meant to be Divided in twelve I ks each book containing, With love and war, a heavy gale at sea — A lisi of ships, and captains, and kings reigning — New character-, &C. fee. The above are two stanzas, which I send you as a brick of my Babel, mid by which you can judge of the texture ol the structure. •• lii writing the life of Sheridan, never mind the angry lies of the humbug Whigs. Recollect that he was an Irishman and a clever fellow, and that we have had some very pleasant days with him. J)on't forget that he was at school at Harrow, where, in my time, we used to show his name— R. B. Sheridan, 1765 — as an honour to the walls. Remember * * * * * * ****** Depend upon it that there were worse folks going, of that gang, than ever Sheridan was. •• What did Pan mean by 'haughtiness and coldness?' I listened to him with admiring ignorance, and respectful Bilence. What more could a talker for fame have * — they do n't like to be answered. It was at Payne Knight's 1 met him, where he gave me more Greek than I could carry away. But I certainly meant to (and did) treat him with the most respectful deference. ••I wish you good night with a Venetian benediction, 'Benedetto te, e la terra che ti fara !' — ' May you be blessed, and the earth which you will make" — is it nol pretty] You would think it still prettier if you had heard it, as I did two hours ago, from the lips of a Vene- tian girl, with large black eyes, a face like Faustina's, and the figure «d' a Juno — tall mikI energetic as a 1'ythoness, with eyes Bashing, and her dark hair Btreaming in the moonlight — one of those women who may be made any thing. 1 am sure if I put a poniard into Un- hand of this one, she would plunge il where I told her, — and into me, if l offended her. I like this kind of animal, and am sure that I should have preferred Medea to anj woman that ever breathed. You may, perhaps, wonder thai I do n't in thai case I could have forgiven the dagger orthe bow I. anv thinqs but the delibe- rate desolation piled upon me, when I stood alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered around me.* * * *. Do you suppose 1 have forgotten or forgiven it i It has comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and I am only a spectator upon earth, till a tenfold opportunity offers. It may come yet. There are others more to lie blamed than Mid it "is on these that my eyes are fixed unceasingly." * **:] liail one only fount of quiet left, And that they poison'd ! Jtfy pure household gods Wert s'ntrr'd on m>i hearth.'" Marino Faliero. a. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 139 LETTER CCCXXIII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, Sept. 24, 1818. " In the one hundred and thirty-second stanza of Canto 4th, the stanza runs in the manuscript " And thou, who never yet of human wrong Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis ! and not ' losW which is nonsense, as what losing a scale means, I know not ; but leaving an unbalanced scale, or a scale unbalanced, is intelli- gible.* Correct this, I pray, — not for the public, or the poetry, but I do not choose to have blunders made in addressing any of the deities so seriously as this is addressed. "Yours, &c. " P.S. In the translation from the Spanish, alter " In increasing squadrons flew, to— " To a mighty squadron grew. "What does ' thy waters wasted them' mean (in the Canto) 1 That is not 7/ie.f Consult the MS. always. "I have written the first Canto (180 octave stanzas) of a poem in the style of Beppo, and have Mazeppa to finish besides. * In referring to the mistake in stanza 132, 1 take the opportunity to desire that in future, in all parts of my writings referring to religion, you will be more careful, and not forget that it is possible that in addressing the Deity a blunder may become a blasphemy ; and I do not choose to suffer such infamous perversions of my words or of my intentions. " I saw the Canto by accident." LETTER CCCXXIV. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, January 20, 1819. ****** " The opinions which I have asked of Mr. H. and others were with regard to the poetical merit, and not as to what they may think due to the cant of the day, which still reads the Bath Guide, Little's Poems, Prior, and Chaucer, to say nothing of Fielding and Smollet. If pub- * This correction, I observe, has never been made, — the passage still remaining, unmeaningly, " Lost the unbalanced scale." t This passage also remains uncorrected. uu NOTICES OP THE [a. d. 1819. Lished, publish entire, with the above-mentioned exceptions; or you ma) publish anon) mously, or not at nil. In the latter event, print 50 on my account, for private distribution. " Yours, &c. ■ 1 have written to Messrs. K. and H. to desire that they will not erase mure than I have Btated. "The Second Canto of Dun Juan is finished in -jot; stanzas." LETTER CCCXXV. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, January 25, 181:'. - You will do me the favour to print privately (for private distri- bution) fifty copies of ' Don Juan.' The list of the men to whom I wish it to be presented, 1 will send hereafter. The other two poems had best be added to the collective edition: I do not approve of their being published separately. Print Don Juan entire, omitting, of course, the lines on Castle reajjh, as I am not on the spot to inert him. I have a Second Canto ready, which "ill be sent by-and-by. By this post, I have written to .Mr. Hobhouse, addressed to your care. •■ fours, &e. •• P.S. 1 have acquiesced in the request and representation ; and having done so, n is idle to detail my arguments in favour of my own self-love and ' Poeshir ;' but I protest. If the poem has poetry, it would stand; if not, fall; the rest is 'leather and prunella. " and has never yet affected any human production 'pro or eon.' Dulness is the only aumlulator in such cases. As to the cant of the day, 1 despfte it, as 1 have ever done all its other finical fashions* which become you as paint became the ancient Britons. It you admit this prudery, you must omit half Ariosto, I, a Fontaine, Shakspearr, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, all the Charles Second writers ; in short, something of most who ha\c written before Pope and are worth reading, and much of Pope himself. Read him — most of you don't — but do — and I will forgive you ; though the inevitable consequence would be that you would burn all I have ever written, and all your other wretched Claudians of the day (except Scott and Crabbe) into the bargain. 1 ivrong Claudian, who was a poet, b) naming him with such fellows; but lie was the ' ultimus RomaaoronV the tad of the count, and these persons are the tail of an old gOWU cut into a waistcoat for .lackey; but being both tails, I have compared the one with the other, though very unlike, like all similes. I write in a passion and a sirocco, and I was up till six this morning at the Carnival ; but I protest, as I did in former letter." a. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 141 LETTER CCCXXVI. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, February 1, 1819. " After one of the concluding- stanzas of the First Canto of ' Don Juan,' which ends with (I forget the number) — "To have, when the original is dust, A book, a d — d bad picture, and worse bust, insert the following stanza : — " What are the hopes of man, &c. •' 1 have written to j*ou several letters, some with additions, and some upon the subject of the poem itself, which my cursed puritanical committee have protested against publishing. But we will circumvent them on that point. I have not yet begun to copy out the Second Canto, which is finished, from natural laziness, and the discouragement of the milk and water they have thrown upon the First. I say all this to them as to you, that is, for you to say to them, for I will have nothing underhand. If they had told me the poetry was bad, I would have acquiesced; but they say the contrary, and then talk to me about morality — the first time I ever heard the word from any body who was not a rascal that used it for a purpose. I maintain that it is the most moral of poems ; but if people won't discover the moral, that is their fault, not mine. I have already written to beg that in any case you will print fifty for private distribution. I will send you the list of persons to whom it is to be sent afterward. " Within this last fortnight I have been rather indisposed with a rebellion of stomach, which would retain nothing (liver, I suppose), and an inability, or fantasy, not to be able to eat of any thing with relish but a kind of Adriatic fish called ' scampi,' which happens to be the most indigestible of marine viands. However, within these last two days, I am better, and very truly yours. " LETTER CCCXXVII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, April 6, 1819. •■ The Second Canto of Don Juan was sent, on Saturday last, by post, in four packets, two of four, and two of three sheets each, con- taining in all two hundred and seventeen stanzas, octave measure. But I will permit no curtailments, except those mentioned about Cas- tlereagh and * * * * * * # you sha' n't make canticles of my cantos. The poem will please, if it is lively ; if it is stupid, it will fail : but I will have none of your damned cutting and slashing. If you please, you may publish anonymously ; it will, per- haps, be better ; but I will battle my wav against them all, hke a por- cupine. tl. tfQTICES OF THE lA . d. lbia. •■ So you and Mr. Foscolo, &c. want me to undertake what you call a •great work?' an Epic Poem,] suppose, or some such pyramid. ! 'II try no such thing; 1 hate tasks. And then 'seven or eight years!' God send US all well this day three months, let alone years. If oia ■'- years can't be b< Iter employed than in sweating poesy, a man had better be a ditcher. And works, too! — is Cfulde Harold nothing' You have so many 'divine 1 poems, is it nothing to have written a human one ! without any of jour worn-out machinery. Why, man, I could, have spun the thoughts of the Four Cantos of that poem into twenty, had ! wanted to hook-make, and its passion into as many modern tragedies. Since you want length, you shall have enough of Juan, for I 'II make Fifty Cantos. " Lnd Foscolo, too ! Why does he not do something more than the Letters of Ortis, and a tragedy, and pamphlets ? He has good fifteen years more at his command than 1 have : what lias he done all that time ? — proved his genius, doubtless, but not fixed its fame, nor done his utmost. " Besides, I mean to write my best work in Italian, and it will tak. me nine years more thoroughly to master the language ; and then if my fancy exists, and I exist too, I will try what 1 can do really. As to the estimation of the English which you talk of, let them calculate what it is worth, before they insult me with their insolent conde- scension. " I have not written for their pleasure. If they are pleased, it is that they chose to be so; I have never flattered their opinions, nor their pride; nor will I. Neither will I make 'Latins' books' 'al dilettar le femine e la ph be.' I have written from the fulness of my mind, from passion, from impulse, from many motives, but not for their ' sweet voices.' " I know the precise worth of popular applause, for few scribblers have had more of it ; and if I chose to swerve into their paths, I could retain it, or resume it. Hut I neither love ye. nor fear J e ; and though I buy with ye and sell with ye, I will neither eat with ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye. They made me, without my search, a species of popular idol ; they, without reason or judgment, beyond the caprice of their good pleasure, threw down the image from its pedestal : it w as not broken with the fall, and they would, it seems, again replaoe it, — Ian they shall not. "You a>k about my health: about the beginning of the year I was in a state of great exhaustion, attended by such debility of sto- inaeli that nothing remained upon it; and I was obliged to reform mv 'way of life,' which was conducting me from the 'yellow leaf* to th ground, with all deliberate speed. 1 am better in health and nioral>. and very much yours, &c. "P.S. 1 have read Hodgson's 'Friends.' * * * * He is right in defending Pope against the bastard pelicans of the poetical winter day, who add insult to their parricide, by sucking the blood of tin parent of English real poetry — poetry without fault — and then spurning the bosom which fed them." It was about the time when the foregoing letter was written, and when, as we perceive, like the first return of reason after intoxication, a full consciousness of some of the evils of his late libertine course of life had broken ppon him, that an attachment, differing altogether, a. D. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 143 both in duration and devotion, from any of those that, since the dream of his boyhood, had inspired him, gained an influence over his mind which lasted through his few remaining years ; and, undeniably wrong and immoral (even allowing for the Italian estimate of such frailties) as was the nature of the connexion to which this attachment led, we can hardly, perhaps, — taking into account the far worse wrong from which it rescued and preserved him, — consider it otherwise than an event fortunate both for his reputation and happiness. The fair object of this last, and (with one signal exception) only real love of his whole life, was a young Romagnese lady, the daughter of Count Gamba, of Ravenna, and married but a short time before Lord Byron first met with her, to an old and wealthy widower, of the same city, Count Guiccioli. Her husband had in early life been the friend of Alfieri, and had distinguished himself by his zeal in pro- moting the establishment of a National Theatre, in which the talents of Alfieri and his own wealth were to be combined. Notwithstanding his age, and a character, as t it appears, by no means reputable, his great opulence rendered him an object of ambition among the mothers of Ravenna, who, according to the too frequent maternal practice, were seen vying with each other in attracting so rich a purchaser for their daughters, and the young Teresa Gamba, then only eighteen, and just emancipated from a convent, was the selected victim. The first time Lord Byron had ever seen this lady was in the autumn of 1818, when she made her appearance, soon after her marriage, at the house of the Countess Albrizzi, in all the gayety of bridal array, and the first delight of exchanging a convent for the world. At this time, however, no acquaintance ensued between them ; — it was not. till the spring of the present year that, at an evening party of Madame Benzoni's, they were introduced to each other. The love that sprung out of this meeting was instantaneous and mutual, — though with the usual disproportion of sacrifice between the parties ; such an event be- ing, to the man, but one of the many scenes of life, while, svith woman, it generally constitutes the whole drama. The young Italian found herself suddenly inspired with a passion, of which, till that moment, her mind could not have formed the least idea;— she had thought of love but as an amusement, and now became its slave. If at the outset, too, less slow to be won than an Englishwoman, no sooner did she begin to understand the full despotism of the passion, than her heart shrunk' from it as something terrible, and she would have escaped, but that the chain was already around her. No words, however, can describe so simply and feelingly as her own, the strong impression which their first meeting left upon her mind : — " I became acquainted (says Madame Guiccioli) with Lord Byron in the April of 1819 : — he was introduced to me at Venice, by the Countess Benzoni, at. one of that lady's parties. This introduction, which, had so much influence over the lives of us both, took place contrary to our wishes, and had been permitted by us only from courtesy. For myself, more fatigued than usual that evening on. account of the late hours they keep at Venice, I went with great repugnance to this party, and purely in obedience to Count Guiccioli. Lord Byron, too, who was averse to forming new acquaintances, — alleging that he had entirely renounced all attachments, and was unwilling anymore to expose himself to their consequences,— on ireincr requested by the Countess TSenzoni to allow himself to be pr< 144 NOTICES OF THE La.d. 1819. seated to me, refused, and, at last, only assented from a desire to Oblige her. " iii> noble and exquisitely beautiful countenance, the tone of his voire, his manners, the thousand enchantments thai surrounded him, rendered him so different and so superior a being t<> any whom 1 had hitherto seen, that it was impossible he should not have left the most profound impression upon me. from that evening, during the whole of my subsequent stay at Veni&e, we met every day."* LETTER CCCXXVIIL TO MB, MIHKAY. "Venice, May 16th, 1S1D. #••♦•• ••1 have got your extract, and the ' Vampire.' I need not say it is not mi vr. There is a rule to go by: yqu are my publisher (till we quarrel), and what is not published by you is not written by me. # * '. # * " Next week I set out for Romagna — at least in all probability. You had better go on with the publications, without waiting to hear farther, for 1 have other things in my head. ' Mazeppa' and the ' Ode' separate 1 — what think you? Juan ancnptnowt,wiihimtthe Dedication; for I won't be shabby, and attack Southe} under cloud of night. " Yours, &c. 5, In another letter on the subject of the Vampire, I find the following interesting particulars. TO MR. • The story of Shelley's agitation is true.f ' can't tell what seized him for he don't want courage, lie was onee w it h me in a gah Wind, in a small boat, right under the rocks between Medlerie and St. (Jingo. We were five in the boat — a servant, two boatmen, and our- * " Noll' Aprile del IB 19, io feci la oonoacenza di Lord Byron; c mi fa ututo u Venezia dalla <'ontessa Benzoni nella di lei society. Qucsta preaentaziono che ebbe tante consequcn/e per tutli a due fu latta contro la /olonta d'entrambi, e aolo per condiacendenza I'abbianro permesaa. I" ataoca ;>iii che mai quelle sera per It' ore tarda cne si coatuma 'are in Venezia andai con it ii >!ta ripugnauza e solo per ubbidire al Conte Guiccioli in qaella sm Lord Myron cne Bcansava di tare nuove cbnoacenze, dicendo aempre chi i interamente rinunciato alle paaaioni e che non voleva eaporai piii alle loro consoquenze, quando la Conteaaa Benzoni la pregd di volerai far pre entare a me egll ricoad, e aolo per la compiacenza glielo permiae. La nobile ■ belhaaima sua fiaonomia, il saono della sua voir, le sue manicrc, i mille nir.iiiti obe 1" circondavano lo randevsno un eaaere cos) difierente, cosl sue riore B tntti quelli che io aveva sino allora veduti che non potei a meno di non provarne la piu profunda impreaaione. Da quella sera in poi in tutti i giorni che mi fcrmai in Veneziq ci siamo aempre ved»ti." — JVS. Tins story, as given in the Preface to the " Vampire," is as follows :— " It api lal our evening Lord I',.. Mr. P. B. Shelley, two ladies, and the gentleman before alluded to, alter having perused a German work called Phantasmagoria, began relating gboat stories, when his lordship having re inning of < !hri tabel, then unpublished the whole took so strong ,\. d. ltil'J.j LIFE UF LORD BYHOX. 145 selves. The sail was mismanaged, and the boat was filling last. He can't swim. I stripped off my coat, made him strip off his, and take hold of an oar, telling him that 1 thought (being myself an expert swimmer) I could save him, if he would not struggle when I took hold of him — unless we got smashed against the rocks, which were high and sharp, with an awkward surf on them at that minute. We were then about a hundred yards from shore, and the boat in peril. He answered me, with the greatest coolness, ' that he had no notion of being saved, and that I would have enough to do to save myself, and begged not to trouble me.' Luckily, the boat righted, and, bailing, we got round a point into St. Gingo, where the inhabitants came down and embraced the boatmen on their escape, the wind having been high enough to tear up some huge trees from the Alps above us, as we saw next day. " And yet the same Shelley, who was as cool as it was possible to be in such circumstances (of which I am no judge myself, as the chance of swimming naturally gives self-possession when near shore), certainly had the fit of fantasy which Polidori describes, though not exactly as he describes it. " The story of the agreement to write the ghost-books is true ; but the ladies are not sisters. * # * * # # # * Mary Godwin (now Mrs. Shelley) wrote Frankenstein, which you have reviewed, thinking it Shelley's. Methinks it is a wonderful book for a girl of nineteen, not nineteen indeed, at that time. I enclose you the beginning of mine, by which you will see how far it resembles Mr. Colburn's publication. If you choose to publish it, you may, stating why, and with such explanatory proem as you please. I never went on with it, as you will perceive by the date. I began it in an old ac- < <>unt-book of Miss Milbanke's, which I kept because it contained the word 'Household,' written by her twice on the inside blank page of the covers, being the only two scraps I have in the world in her writ- ing, except her name to the Deed of Separation. Her letters I sent hack, except those of the quarrelling correspondence, and those, being documents, are placed in the hands of a third person, with copies of several of my own ; so that I have no kind of memorial whatever of her, but these two words,— and her actions. I have torn the leaves containing the part of the Tale out of the book, and enclose them with this sheet. ****** " What do you mean ? First you seem hurt by my letter, and then, in your next, you talk of its 'power,' and so forth. ' This is a d— d blind story, Jack ; but never mind, go on.' You may be sure I said nothing on purpose to plague you, but if you will put me ' in a phrensy, 1 will never call you Jack again.' I remember nothing of the epistle at present. a hold of Mr. Shelley's mind, that he suddenly started up, and ran out of the room. The physician and Lord Byron followed, and discovered him leaning against a mantel-piece, with cold drops of perspiration trickling down his face. After having given him something to refresh him, upon inquiring into the cause of his alarm, they found that his wild imagination having pictured fo him the bosom of one of the ladies with eyes (which was reported of a lady in the neighbourhood where he lived), he was obliged to leave the room in order to destroy the imnression." Vol. TT.—K Ho NO HUES OF 'Jill- |a. d. iolX, "What do you mean by Polidori'a Diary? Why, I defy him to saj any thiiig abort me inn he is welcome. I have nothing to reproach me with On his seine, and I am much mistaken if thai is not Ins own opinion, lint whj publish the name of the two girls I and in such e manner ! — w hat a blundering piece <>f exculpation ! Ife asked Pictet, ' About the middle of April, Madame Guiccioli had been obliged to quit Venice with her husband. Having several houses on the road from Venice to Ravenna, it was his habit to stop at these mansions, one after the other, in his journeys between the two cities ; and from all these places the enamoured young Countess now wrote to her lover, expressing in the most passionate and pathetic terms, her de- spair at leaving him. So utterly, indeed, did this feeling overpower her, that three times, in the course of her first day's journey, she was seized with fainting-fits. In one of her letter.-, which I saw when at Venice, dated, if I recollect right, from " Ca Zen, Cavanelle di Po," she tells him that the solitude of this place, which she had before found irksome, was, now that one sole idea occupied her mind, become dear and welcome to her, and promises that, as soon as she arrives at Ravenna, " she will, according to his wish, avoid all general society, and devote herself to reading, music, domestic occupations, riding on horseback, — exery thing, in short, that she knew he would most like." What a change for a young and simple girl, who, but a few weeks before, had thought only of society and the world, but who now saw no other happiness but in the hope of becoming worthy, by seclusion and self-instruction, of the illustrious object of her love ! On leaving this place she was attacked with a dangerous illness on the road, and arrived half dead at Ravenna; nor was it found possi- ble to revive or comfort her till an assurance was received from Lord Byron, expressed with all the fervour of real passion, that, in the course of the ensuing month, he would pay her a visit. Symptoms of consumption, brought on by her state of mind, had already shown themselves ; and, in addition to the pain which this separation had caused her, she was also suffering much grief from the loss of her mother, who, at this time, died in giving birth to her twentieth child. Towards the latter end of May she wrote to acquaint Lord Byron that, having prepared all her relatives and friends to expect him, he might now, she thought, venture to make his appearance at Ravenna. Though, on the ladv's account, hesitating as to the prudence of such K2 146 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 181 a step, he, in obedience to bet wishes, on the 2d of Jane, set out from La Mini (;it winch place he had again taken a villa for the summer), and proceeded towards Romagna. Prom Padua he addressed a letter to Mr. Iloppner, chiefly occupied with matters of household concern which thai gentleman had under- taken to manage for him at Venice, but on the immediate ohject of his journey, expressing himself in a tone so light and jesting, as it would be difficult for those not versed in his character to conceive thai he could ever bring himself* while under the influence of a passion so sincere, to assume. Hut BUch is ever the wantonness of the mocking spirit, from which nothing, — not even love,— remains sacred ; and which at last, forwanl of other food, turns upon self. The same horror, too, of hypocrisy that led Lord Byron to I Kagg) rate Ins own errors, led him also to disguise, under a Beemingh heartless ridicule, all those natural and kindly qualities bj which tnej were redeemed. This letter from Padua concludes thus : — "A journey in an Italian June is a conscription; and if I was not the most constant of men, 1 should now be swimming from the Lido, instead of smoking in the dust of Padua. Should there he letters from England, let them wait my return. And do look at my house and (not lands, but) waters, and scold ; — anil deal out the moneys to Edge- combe* with an air of reluctance and a shake of the head — and put queer questions to him — and turn up your nose when he answers. " Make my respects to the Consuless — and to the < 'hevalier — and to Scotin — and to all the counts and countesses of our acquaintance. •' And believe ine ever •• Your disconsolate and affectionate, &c.'* \s a contrast to the strange levity of this letter, as well as in justici to the real earnestness of the passion, however censurable in all other respects, that now engrossed him, 1 shall here transcribe some stanzas which he wrote in the course of tins journey to Romagna, and which. though already published, are not comprised in the regular collection his works. •• h'lUT.t thai rollesl by the ancient walls, \\ here dwells the ladj of my love, when sin Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls \ faint and fleeting memory of me; "What if thy deep and ample stream should be A mirror of my heart, where she maj read The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee Wild as thy wave, am! headlong as thy speed ' •• What do 1 say — a mirror of my heart ? Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? Such as my feelings were and are, thou art; And such as thou art were my passions long. A clerk of the English Consulate, whom he at this time employed to :ontrol his accounts. The Po. a. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 149 " Time may have somewhat tamed them, — not for ever; Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye Thy bosom overboils, congenial river ! Thy floods subside, and mine -have sunk awav. •• But left long wrecks behind, and now again, Borne in our old unchang'd career, we move ; Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main, And I — to loving one I should not love. " The current I behold will sweep beneath Her native walls and murmur at her feet ; Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat. " She will look on thee, — I have look'd on thee, Full of that thought ; and, from that moment, ne'er Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see, Without the inseparable sigh for her ! •• Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,— Yes ! they will meet the wave I gaze on now : Mine cannot witness, even in a dream, That happy wave repass me in its flow ! • ; The wave that bears my tears returns no more : Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep? — Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore, I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep. " But that which keepeth us apart is not Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, But the distraction of a various lot, As various as the climates of our birth. •• A stranger loves the lady of the land, Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood Is all meridian, as if never fann'd By the black wind that chills the polar flood. • : My blood is all meridian ; were it not, I had not left my clime, nor should I be, In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot, A slave again of love, — at least of thee. - ! T is vain to struggle — let me perish young — Live as I lived, and love as I have loved ; To dust if I return, from dust I sprung, And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved. ,; On arriving at Bologna and receiving no farther intelligence from the Contessa, he began to be of opinion, as we shall perceive in the annexed interesting letters, that he should act most prudently, for all parties, by returning to Venice. 150 NOTICES OF Till |a. D. 181K. LETTER CCCXXX. TO MR. BOPPNCB. "Bologna, June Clli, 1819. •• 1 am at length joined to Bologna, where I am settled like a sausage, and shall be broiled like one, if this weather continues. Will you thank Mengaldo on my part for the Ferrara acquaintance, which was a very agreeable one. 1 staid two days at Ferrara, and was much pleased with the < lounl Mosti, and the Little the shortness of the time permitted me to sec of his family. I went to his conversazione which is very far superior to any thing of the kind at Venice — the women almost all young — se\ era] pretty — and the nun courteous and cleanly. The lady of the mansion, who is young, lately married, and with child, appeared very pretty by candlelight (1 did not see her by day), pleas- ing in her manners, and very lady-like, or thorough-bred, as we call it iu England, — a kind of thing which reminds one of a racer, an ante- lope, or an Italian greyhound. !She seems very fond of her husband, who is amiable and accomplished ; he has been in England two or three times, and is young. The sister, a Countess somebody — 1 for- get what — (they are both Mallei by birth, and Veronese of course) — is a lady of more display ; she sings and plays divinely ; but 1 thought she was a d — d long time about it. Her likeness to Madame Flahaut (Miss Mercer that was) is something quite extraordinary. " I had but a bird's-eye view of these people, and shall not probably see them again; but I am very much obliged to Mengaldo for letting me see them at all. Whenever 1 meet will) any thing agreeable in this ■world, it surprises me so much, and pleases me so much (when my passions are not interested one way or the other), that I go on won- dering for a week to come. I feel, too, in great admiration of the Car- dinal Legate's red stockings. " I found, too, such a pretty epitaph in the Certosa cemetery, or rather two ; one was the other. • Martini Luigi Implora pace;' • Lucretia Picini Implora eterna quiete." That was all ; but it appears to me that these two and three words comprise and compress all that can be said on the subject, — and then, in Italian, they are absolute music. They contain doubt, hope, and humility; nothing can be more pathetic than the 'implora* and tin modesty of the request ; — they have had enough of life — they want nothing but rest — they implore it, and 'eterna quiete.' It is like a Creek inscription in some »oodold heathen 'City of the Dead.' Pray, if I am shovelled into the Lido churchyard in your time, let me have the 'implora pace,' and nothing else, for my epitaph. 1 never met with any, ancient or modern, that pleased me a tenth part so much. " In about a day or two after you receive this letter, I will thank you to desire Edgecombe to prepare for my return. I shall go back in Venicn hpfore I villa?'' on the Hrenta. i shall sfav hut a few davs a. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 151 in Bologna. I am just going out to see sights, but shall not present my introductory letters for a day or two, till I have run over again the place and pictures ; nor perhaps at all, if I find that I have books and sights enough to do without the inhabitants. After that, I shall return to Venice, where you may expect me about the eleventh, or perhaps sooner. Pray make my thanks acceptable to Mengaldo ; my respects to the Consuless, and to Mr. Scott. " I hope my daughter is well. " Ever yours, and truly. " P.S. I went over the Ariosto MS. &c. &c. again at Ferrara, with the castle, and cell, and house, &c. &c. " One of the Ferrarese asked me if I knew ' Lord Byron,' an ac- quaintance of his now at Naples. I told him '■JVoP which was true both ways ; for I knew not the impostor, and in the other, no one knows himself. He stared when told that I was ' the real Simon Pure.' — Another asked me if I had not translated ' Tasso.' You see what Fame is ! how accurate ! how bound/ess ! I do n't know how others feel, but 1 am always the lighter and the better looked on when I have got rid of mine ; it sits on me like armour on the Lord Mayor's cham- pion ; and I got rid of all the husk of literature, and the attendant babble, by answering, that I had not translated Tasso, but a namesake had; and by the blessing of Heaven, I looked so little like a poet, that everv bodv believed me." LETTER CCCXXXT. TO MR. MURRAY. "Bologna, June 7th, 1819. " Tell Mr. Hobhouse that I wrote to him a few days ago from Fer- rara. It will therefore be idle in him or you to wait for any farther answers or returns of proofs from Venice, as I have directed that no English letters be sent after me. The publication can be proceeded in without, and I am already sick of your remarks, to which I think not the least attention ought to be paid. " Tell Mr. Hobhouse, that since I wrote to him, I had availed my- self of my Ferrara letters, and found the society much younger and better there than at Venice. I am very much pleased with the little the shortness of my stay permitted me to see of the Gonfaloniere Count Mosti, and his family and friends in general. " I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domeni- chino and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterward went to the beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides the superb burial ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded one of the grave-digger in Hamlet. He has a collection of capuchins' skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of them, said, ' This was Brother Desiderio Berro, who died at forty — one of my best friends. I begged his head of his brethren after his decease, and they gave it me. 1 put it in lime, and then boiled it. Here it is, teeth and all, in excellent preservation. He was the merriest, cleverest fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went he brought joy; and whenever any one was melancholy, the sight of him was enough to make him cheerful again. He walked so actively, you misrht have taken him for a dancer l.v.' N0TI1 ES <>i THE | v. d. LJ — ho joked— hi ■ l — i >ti ! lie was such ;i Frate as 1 never saw before, nor ever shall again! 1 '•He told me thai he had himself planted all tin- cypresses in the Cemetery ; that he had the gfeatesl attachment to them and to his dead people; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand persons. In showing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a princess Harlorim, dead two centuries a'_ro ; be Baid, thai on opening her grave, they had found her hair complete, and ' as yellOW as gold.' Some of (he epitaphs a! Ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at Bo- logna ; for instance — • Martini Luigi lmplora pace ;' • Luerezia Pieini lmplora elerna quiete." 1 an any thing' be more full of pathos ? Those few words say all that can be said or sought; the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they implore ! There is all the helpless- ness, and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the grave — ' implora pace.'* I hope whoever may survive me, and shall see me put in the foreigners' burying ground at the Lido, within the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put over me. I trust they won't think of ' pickling, and bringing me home to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall.' 1 am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could 1 suppose that any of my friends would lie base enough to convey my carcass back to your soil. — 1 would not even feed your worms, if I could help it. " So, as Shakspeare says of Mowbray, the banished Duke of Nor- folk, who died at Venice (sec Richard 2d), that he, after fighting ' Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens, \nd toil'd with works of war, retired himself To Italy, and there, at Venice, gave His body to that pleasant country's earth, \nd his pure soul unto his captain, Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long "Before Heft Venice,] had returned to you your late, and Mr. Hob- house's, sheets of Juan. Do n't wail lor farther answers from me, but address yours to Venice, as usual. 1 know nothing of my own movements; 1 may return there in a few days, or not for some time. • Though Lord Byron, like most other persons, in writing to different friends, was sometimes led to repeat the same circumstances and thoughts, there is, from the ever ready fertility of his mind, much less of such repe- tition in his correspondence than in that, perhaps, of any other multifarious letter-writer ; and, in the instance before us, where the same facts and re- flections arc, tor the second lime, introduced, it is with such now touches, both of thought and expression, as render them, even a second time, interest- ing ; — what is wanting in the novelty of the matter being made up by the new a«i>i-ii given to it. v. i). 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 15iJ All this depends on circumstances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well. My daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty ; her hair is growing darker, and her eyes, are blue. Her temper and her ways, Mr. Hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features : she will make, in that case, a manageable young lady. " I have never heard any thing of Ada, the little Electra of my My- cenae, * * * *. But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it. I have at least seen * * * shivered, who was one of my assassins. When that man was doing his worst to uproot my whole family, tree, branch, and blossoms — when, after taking my retainer, he went over to them — when he was bringing desolation on my hearth, and destruction on my household gods — did he think that, in less than three years, a natural event — a severe, do- mestic, but an expected and common calamity — would lay his carcass in a cross-road, or stamp his name in a Verdict of Lunacy ! Did he (who in his sexagenary * * *) reflect or consider what my feelings must have been, when wife, and child, and sister, and name, and fame, and country, were to be my sacrifice on his legal altar — and this at a moment when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and my mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointment — while I was yet young, and might have reformed what might be wrong in my conduct, and retrieved what was perplexing in my affairs ! But he is in his grave, and * * * * What a long letter I have scribbled ! " Yours, &c. " P.S. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine." While he was thus lingering irresolute at Bologna, the Countess Guiccioli had been attacked with an intermittent fever, the violence of which, combining with the absence of a confidential person to whom she had been in the habit of intrusting her letters, prevented her from communicating with him. At length, anxious to spare him the disappointment of finding her so ill on his arrival, she had begun a letter, requesting that he would remain at Bologna till the visit to which she looked forward should bring her there also ; and was in the act of writing, when a friend came m to announce the arrival of an English lord at Ravenna. She could not doubt for an instant that it was her noble lover ; and he had, in fact, notwithstanding his declara- tion to Mr. Hoppner that it was his intention to return to Venice im- mediately, wholly altered this resolution before the letter announcing it was despatched, — the following words being written on the outside cover:—" I am just setting off for Ravenna, June 8, 1819.— I changed .my mind this morning, and decided to go on." The reader, however, shall have Madame Guiccioli's own account of these events, which, fortunately for the interest of my narration, I am enabled to communicate. " On my departure from Venice, he had promised to come and see me at Ravenna. Dante's tomb, the classical pine wood,* the relics of * " Tal qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi, Quando Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie." Dante, purg. canto xxvm. Dante himself fsavs Mr. Carev. in one of the notes on his admirable trans- 154 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1819. antiquity which are to be found in thai place, afforded a sufficient pre- text for me to invite him to conic, and for linn to accept my invitation. He came, in fact, in the month of June, arriving at Ravenna on the day of the festival of the Corpus Domini j while I, attacked by a consump- tive complaint, winch had its origin from the moment of my quitting Venice, appeared on the point of death. The arrival of a distinguished foreigner at Ravenna,' a town so remote from the routes ordinarily followed by travellers, was an evenl which gave rise to a good deal of conversation. His motives for Buch a visit became the subject of discussion, and these he himself afterward involuntarily divulged ; for having made some inquiries with a view to paying me a\ isit, and being told that it was unlikely that he would ever Bee me again, as 1 was at the point of death, he replied, if such were the case, he hoped thai he should die also; which circumstance, being repeated, revealed the object of lus journey- Count Guiccioli, having been acquainted with Lord By- ron at Venice, went to visit him now, and in the hope that his presence might amuse, and be of some use to me in the state m v Inch I then found myself, invited him to call upon me. He came the day following. It is impossible to describe the anxiety he showed, — the delicate atten- tions that he paid me. Tor a long time lie had perpetually medical books in his hands ; and not trusting my physicians, he obtained per- mission from Count Guiccioli to send for a very clever physician, a nd of his, in whom he placed great confidence. The attentions of Professor Aghetti (for so this celebrated Italian was called). ether with tranquillity, and the inexpressible happiness which 1 cx- lenced in Lord Byron's society, had so good an effect on my health. . only two months afterward I was able to accompany my husband lour he was obliged to make to visit his various estates."* >n of this poet) " perhaps wandered in this wood during his abode with «u.do Novello da Polenta." * " Partendo io da Venezia egli promise di venir a vedermi ;i Ravenna. La Tornba di Dante, il classico boseo di pini,gli avvanzi di antichita die a Ravenna si trovano davano a me ragioni plausibili per invitarlo a venire, ed a lui per accettare ['invito. Egli venne difatli nel rncsc Guigno, c giunse a Ravenna nel giorno della Solennita del Corpus Domini, mentre io attaecata da una malattia de consunzione eh' ebbe principio dalla mia partenza da Ve- nezia ero vicini a morire. L'arrivo in Ravenna d'un forestiero distinto, in • in paese eosi lonlano dalla strade elm ordinariauicnlc t, ugono i via"'Matori era un avveniinento del quale rnolto si parlava, indagandosene i motivi, che involontariamente poi egli feci conoscere. Perche avendo egli domandato di me per venire a vedermi ed easendogli risposto ' che non potrebbe vedermi pin perrlu- ero vicina a morire' — egli rispnse ehr in <|iirl caso voleva morire egli jiu re ; la (|ualrosacssendosi poi ripetata Biconobbecosi I'oggettodelauoviaggio. " Jl Conte Guiccioli visito Lord Byron, cssendolo COnoaciotO in Venezia, o Delhi speranza che la di lui compagnia poteeae distrarmi ed esserrni di qualche novamento nello stato in cui mi trovavoegli lo inviln ili venire a visitarmi. II giorno appresso egli venne. Non si [)otrebbero descrivero le cure, i pensicri delicati, quanto egli fece per me. Per Diolto tempo egli non ebbe per le inniu che del Libri di Medicini ; e poeo confidaudosi nel unci medici ottennc dal < "ute Guiccioli il permesso di far venire un valente medico di lui amico nel quale egli aveva inolta confidenza. Le cure del Professorc Aghetti (cosi si cbiama questo distinto Italiano) la tranquillita, anzi la fclicita inesprimibile che mi cagionava la ptewnzadi Lord Myron migliorarono cos) rapidamento la mia salute cbc entro lo spa/.io di due meal potei seguire mio marito in un •firo che egli doreva fare per le sue terje." — MS. a. d. 1819.1 LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 155 LETTER CCCXXXII. TO MR. HOPPNER. " Ravenna, June 20th, 1819. ****** " I wrote to you from Padua, and from Bologna, and since from Ravenna. I find my situation very agreeable, but want my horses very much, there being good riding in the environs. I can fix no time for my return to Venice — it may be soon or late — or not at all — it all de- pends on the Donna, whom I found very seriously in bed with a cough and spitting of blood, &c, all of which has subsided. * * ******•**. I found all the people here firmly persuaded that she would never recover ; — they were mis- taken, however. " My letters were useful as far as I employed them ; and I like both the place and people, though I do n't trouble the latter more than I can help. She manages very well — ***** ****** **#* but if I come away with a stiletto in my gizzard some fine afternoon, I shall not be astonished. I can't make him out at all — he visits me frequently, and takes me out (like Whittington, the Lord Mayor) in a coach and six horses. The fact appears to be, that he is completely governed by her — for that matter, so am I.* The people here do n't know what to make of us, as he had the character of jealousy with all his wives— this is the third. He is the richest of the Ravennese, by their own account, but is not popular among them. * * * * * * * * * * * * Now do, pray, send off Augustine, and carriage and cattle, to Bologna, without fail or delay, or I shall lose my remaining shred of senses. Do n't forget this. My coming, going, and every thing depend upon her entirely, just as Mrs. Hoppner (to whom I remit my reverences) said in the true spirit of female prophecy. " You are but a shabby fellow not to have written before. " And 1 am truly yours, &c." * That this task of " governing" him was one of more ease than, from the ordinary view of his character, might be concluded, I have more than once, in these pages, expressed my opinion, and shall here quote, in corroboration of it, the remark of his own servant (founded on an observation of more than twenty years), in speaking of his master's matrimonial fate : — " It is very odd, but I never yet knew a lady that could not manage my Lord, except my Lady." " More knowledge," says Johnson, " may be gained of a man's real cha- racter by a short conversation with one of his servants, than from the most formal and studied narrative." 15b NOTICES OF THE |.v. d. 181 LETTER COCXXXIII. TO MR- ML'RRAV. " Ravenna, June 29th, 18H>. "The letters have been forwarded from Venice, but I trust thai you will not have waited for farther alterations — 1 will make none. You ask me to spare * * * * — ask the worms. His dust can suffer nothing from the truth being spoken — ami if it could, how did he be- have to me? You may talk to the wind, winch will carry the sound — id to the caves, which will echo you — but not to me, on the sub- •t of a * * * who wronged me — whether dead or alive. u I have no time to return you the proofs — publish without them. I i lilad you think the poesy good; and as to 'thinking of tin effect,' ink yovoi the sale, and leave me to pluck the porcupines who ma\ lint their quills at you. "I have been here (at Ravenna) these four weeks, having left Ve- c a month ago ; — 1 came to see my ' Ainica,' the Countess Guiccioli, 10 has been, and still continues, very unwell. * * * * * ***** le is only twenty years old, but not of a strong constitution. * * ***** le has a perpetual cough and an intermittent fever, but bears up most ■.llantly in every sense of the word. Her husband (this is his third fe) is the richest noble of Ravenna, and almost of Romagiia ; he is so not the youngest, being upwards of threescore, but in good pre- rvation. All this will appear strange to you, who do not understand s meridian morality, nor our way of life in such respects, and I nnot at present expound the difference ; — but you would find it much e same in these parts. At Faenza there is Lord * * * * with an opera rl ; and at the inn in the same town is a Neapolitan Prince, who rves the wife of the Gonfaloniere of that city. I anion duty here — so you see 'Cosi fan tut// e luUe.' " I have my horses here, saddle as well as carriage, and ride or drive every day in the forest, the Pineta, the scene of Boccaccio's novel, and Dryden's fable of Monona, &c. A c; and 1 see my J)ama ev< i . day * * * * * * ; but I feel seriously uneasy about her health, which seems very precarious. In losing her, l should lose a being who has run great risks 0B my account, and whom I have every rea- son to love — but I must not think this possible. 1 do not know what T should do if she died, but 1 ought to blow my brains out— and I hope that I should. Her husband is a very polite personage, but I wish he would not carry me out in his coach and six, like VVhittington and ins cat. "You ask me if I mean to continue D. J., &c. How should I know ? What encouragement do you give me, all of you, with your nonsensical prudery? — publish the two Cantos, and then you will sec. I desired Mr. Kinnaird to speak to you on a little matter of business; I lther he has not spoken, or you have not answered. You are a pretty pan, hut I will be even with you both. I perceive that Mr. Hobhouse lias been challenged by Major CaitWlight. — Is the Major 'so cunning of feneei' — why did nut thev ficrht ? — they ought. "Yours. &c." A. d. 1819. J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 157 LETTER CCCXXXIY. TO MR. HOPPNER. "Ravenna, July 2d, 1819. " Thanks for your letter and for Madame's. I will answer it directly. Will you recollect whether I did not consign to you one or two receipts of Madame Mocenigo's for house-rent — (I am not sure of this, but think I did — if not, they will be in my drawers) — and will you desire Mr. Dorville* to have the goodness to see if Edgecombe has receipts to all payments hitherto made by him on my account, and that there are no debts at Venice ? On your answer, I shall send order of farther remittance to carry on my household expenses, as my present return to Venice is very problematical; and it may happen — but I can say nothing positive — every tiling with me being indecisive and undecided, except the disgust which Venice excites when fairly compared with any other city in this part of Italy. When I say Venice, 1 mean the Venetians — the city itself is superb as its history — but the people are what I never thought them till they taught me to think so. " The best way will be to leave Allegra with Antonio's spouse till I can decide something about her and myself — but I thought that you would have had an answer from Mrs. V r.f You have had bore enough with me and mine already. " 1 greatly fear that the Guiccioli is going into a consumption, to which her constitution tends. Thus it is with every thing and every body for whom I feel any thing like a real attachment ; — ' War, death, or discord, doth lay siege to them.' I never even could keep alive a dog that I liked or that liked me. Her symptoms are obstinate cough of the lungs, and occasional fever, &c. &c, and there are latent causes of an eruption in the skin, which she foolishly repelled into the system two years ago ; but I have made them send her case to Aglietti ; and have begged him to come — if only for a day or two — to consult upon her state. If it would not bore Mr. Dorville, I wish he would keep an eye on E and on my other ragamuffins. I might have more to say, but I am absorbed about La Gui. and her illness. I cannot tell you the effect it has upon me. " The horses came, &c. &c, and I have been galloping through the pine forest daily. " Believe me, &c. * The Vice-Consul of Mr. Hoppner. t An English widow lady, of considerable property in the north of Eng- land, who, having seen the little Allegra at Mr. Hoppner's, took an interest in the poor child's fate, and having no favnily of her own, offered to adopt. and provide for this little girl, if Lord Byron would consent to renounce all claim to her. At first he seemed not disinclined to enter into her views— so far, at least, as giving permission that she should take the child with her to England and educate it ; but the entire surrender of his paternal authorit}- he would by no means consent to. The proposed arrangement accordinglv was never carried into effect. lite SO riCES OF I'M I. [a. d. 1819 " T.S. My benediction on Mrs. Hoppner, a pleasant journey among the Bernese tyrants, and safe return. Vou ought to bring back a Platonic Bernese for my reformation. 11" any thing happens to my present tanica, I have done with the passion for ever — it is my last love. As to libertinism, 1 have sickened myself of that, as was natu- ral in the way I went on, and 1 have at least derived that advantage from vice, to love in the better sense of the word. Tliis will be my last adventure — I ran hope no more to inspire attachment, and I trust never again to feel it." The impression which, I think, cannot but he entertained, from me passages of these letters, of the real fervour and sincerity of his achmenl to Madame Gniccioli,* would he stili farther confirmed by B perusal of his letters to that lady herself, both from Venice and ring his present stay at Ravenna — all bearing, throughout, the true irks both of affection and passion. Such effusions, however, are t little suited to the general eye. It is the tendency of all strong ding, from dwelling constantly on the same idea, to be monotonous ; d those often-repeated vows and verbal endearments, which make s charm of true love-letters to the parties concerned in them, must • ever render even the best of them cloying to others. Those of >rd Byron to Madame Gniccioli, which are for the most part in Italian, d written with a decree of ease and correctness attained rarely foreigners, refer chiefly to the difficulties thrown in the way of nr meetings, — not so much by the husband himself, who appears to ve liked and courted Lord Byron's society, as by the watchfulness other relatives, and the apprehension felt by the lovers themselves t their imprudence should give uneasiness to the father of the lady, unt (iamba, a gentleman to whose good-nature and amiablen< :se of character all who know him bear testimony. In the near approaching departure of the young Countess for Bologna, Lord Byron foresaw a risk of their being again separated; and under the impatience of this prospect, though through the w hoh of his preceding letters the fear of committing her by any imprudence .-i ems to have been his ruling thought, be now, with that wilfulness of the moment which has so often settled the destiny of years, pro- posed that she should, at once, abandon her husband and fly with dm: — "e'e imo solo rimedio efficace,"he says, — " cioe d' andar via insieme." To an Italian wife, almost every thing but this is permis- sible. The same system which so indulgently allows her a lover, as "iic of the regular appendages of her matrimonial establishment, take i • " During my illness," says Madame Gniccioli, in her recollections of ihis period, "he was for ever near me. paying me the most amiable atten- tions, and win n 1 became convalescent he was constantly at my side. In society, at the theatre, riding, walking, he never w as absent from me. Being deprived at thai time of his books. Ills leii.es. and all that occupied him a Venice, I begged him to (.'ratify me by writing something on the subject of Dante, ai.d.w ith his u.Mial facility and rapidity, he composed his ' Propnec ■■ Durante la mia malattia L 15. era sempre presso di me, prestandomi ■ piu sensibili cure, c qnando passai alio state di eonvalesccnza egli era tempre al mio fianco ; — e in societa, e al teatro, e cavalcando, e passeggiand" egli non ai allontanava mai da me. In (jueP epoca cssendo egli privo de" suoi libri, e de' suoi cavalli e di tuttocio cho lo occupava in Vcnczia io lo prcgai di volersi occupare per me scrivendo qualcbe cosa sul Dante : cd egli oolla usata sua facilita e rapidita sensse la sua ' Profezia.' " a. d. lbi'J.J LIFE OF LORD BYRU.V i^y care also to guard against all unseemly consequences ui' this privi- lege; and in return for such convenient facilities of wrong exacts rigidly an observance of all the appearances of right. Accordingly, the open step of deserting the husband for the lover, instead of being considered, as in England, but a sign and sequel of transgression, takes rank, in Italian morality, as the main transgression itself; and being an offence, too, rendered wholly unnecessary by the latitude otherwise enjoyed, becomes, from its rare occurrence, no less mon- strous than odious. The proposition, therefore, of her noble lover seemed to the young Contessa little less .than sacrilege, and the agitation of her mind, between the horrors of such a step, and her eager readiness to give up all and every thing for him she loved, was depicted most strongly in her answer to the proposal. In a subsequent letter, too, the romantic girl even proposed, as a means of escaping the ignominy of an elopement, that she should, like another Juliet, " pass for dead," — assuring him that there were many easy ways of effecting such ;t deception. LETTER CCCXXXA TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, August. 1st, 1819. •• [Address your answer to Venice, however.] •• Do n't be alarmed. You will see me defend myself gayly — that is, if I happen to be in spirits ; and by spirits, I do n't mean your meaning of the word, but the spirit of a bull-dog when pinched, or a bull when pinned ; it is then that they make best sjjort ; and as my sensations under an attack are probably a happy compound of the united ener- gies of these amiable animals, you may perhaps see what Marrall calls ' rare sport,' and some good tossing and goring, in the course of the controversy. But I must be in the right cue first, and I doubt I am almost too far off to be in a sufficient fury for the purpose. And then I have effeminated and enervated myself with love and the summer in these last two months. " I wrote to Mr. Hobhouse the. other day, and foretold that Juan would either fall entirely or succeed completely ; there will be no medium. Appearances are not favourable ; but as you write the day after publication, it can hardly be decided what opinion will predomi- nate. You seem in a fright, and doubtless with cause. Come what may, I never will flatter the million's canting in any shape. Circum- stances may or may not have placed me at times in a situation to lead the public opinion, but the public opinion never led, nor ever shall lead, me. I will not sit on a degraded throne ; so pray put Messrs. * * or * *, or Tom Moore, or * * * upon it ; they will all of them be trans- ported with their coronation. * •.- # # # "P.S. The Countess Guiccioli is mucii better than she was. 1 sent you, before leaving Venice, the real original sketch which gave rise to the ' A 7 ampire,' &c. Did you get it ?" This letter was, of course, (like most of those he addressed tu England at this time) intended to be shown; and having been, among lbo NOTICES OF THE [a. i>. 1819. others, permitted to see it, I took occasion, in my verj next comrrmni- cation to Lord Byron, to twit him a little with the passage in it relating to myself, — the only one, as far as I can learn, that ever fell from inv nohle friend's pen daring our intimacy, in which he has spoken of me otherwise than in terms of kindness and the most undeserved praise. Transcribing his own words, as well as I could recollect them, at the top of my letter, I added, underneath, " Is this the way you speak of your friends V Not long after, too, when visiting him at Venice, I remember making the same harmless little snei r a subject of raillery with him ; but he declared boldlv that he had no recollection of having ±r written such words, and that, if they existed, " he must have sn half asleep when he wrote them." have mentioned this circumstance merely for the purpose of narking, thai with a sensibility vulnerable at so many points as his s, and acted upon by an imagination so long practise d in seg- menting, it is only wonderful that, thinking constantly, as his letters »ve him to have been, of distant friends, and receiving from few or ie equal proofs of thoughtfulness in return, he should not more fre- ntly have broken out into such sallies against the absent and "un- 'lying." For myself, I can only say that, from the moment I began to ravel his character, the most slighting and even acrimonious expres- sions that I could have heard he had, in a fit of spleen, uttered against me, would have no more altered my opinion of his disposition, nor disturbed my affection for him, than the momentary clouding over of a bright sky could leave an impression on the mind of gloom, after its shadow had passed away. LETTER CCCXXXVL TO MR. MURRAY. •• Ravenna, August 9th, 1819. # * * "Talking of blunders reminds me of Ireland — Ireland of Moon. What is this I see in (Jalignani about 'Bermuda — agent — deputy — appeal — attachment,' &e. ] What is the matter? Is it any thing in which his friends can lie of use to him 1 Pray inform me. "Of Don Juan I hear nothing farther from you; * * *, but the papers don't seem so fierce as the letter you sent me seemed to antici- pate, by their extracts at least in (ialignani'- Messenger. I never saw such a set of fellows as you are! And then the pains taken to excul- pate the modest publisher — he remonstrated, forsooth! I will write a preface that shall exculpate you and***, &e. completely on thai point; but, at the same tune, 1 will cut you up like gourds. You have no more soul than the Count de Caylns (who assured his friends, on his death-bed, that be had none, and that lie must know better than they whether he had one or no), and no more blood than a water- melon ! And I see there hath been asterisks, and what Perry used to ■ all 'doomed cutting and slashing' — but, nevermind. "I write in haste. To-morrow I set off for Pologna. I write to you with thunder, lightning, &C and all the winds of heaven whistling through my hair, and the racket of preparation to boot. ' My mistress dear, who hath fed my heart upon smiles and wine 1 for the last two months, set off with her husband for Hnlogna this morning, and it a. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON, 161 seems that I follow him at three to-morrow morning. 1 cannot tell how our romance will end, but it hath gone on hitherto most eroti- cally. Such perils and escapes ! Juan's are as child's play in com- parison. The fools think that all my poeskie is always allusive to my own adventures : I have had at one time or another better and more extraordinary and perilous and pleasant than these, every day of the week, if I might tell them ; but that must never be. " I hope Mrs. M. has accouched. " Yours ever." LETTER CCCXXXVII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Bologna, August 12th, 1819. " I do not know how far I may be able to reply to your letter, for I am not very well to-day. Last night I went to the representation of Alfieri's Mirra, the last two acts of which threw me into convulsions. I do not mean by that word a lady's hysterics, but the agony of reluc- tant tears, and the choking shudder, which I do not often undergo for fiction. This is but the second time for any thing under reality : the first was on seeing Kean's Sir Giles Overreach. The worst was, that the ' Dama,' in whose box I was, went off in the same way, I really believe more from fright than any other sympathy — at least with the players : but she has been ill, and I have been ill, and we are all lan- guid and pathetic this morning, with great expenditure of sal volatile.* But, to return to your letter of the 23d of July. " You are right, Gifford is right, Crabbe is right, Hobhouse is right —you are all right, and I am all wrong ; but do, pray, let me have that pleasure. Cut me up root and branch ; quarter me in the Quarterly ; send round my ' disjecti membra poetae,' like those of the Levite's concubine ; make me if you will a spectacle to men and angels ; but do n't ask me to alter, for I won't :— I am obstinate and lazy — and there's the truth. " But, nevertheless, I will answer your friend P * *, who objects to the quick succession of fun and gravity, as if in that case the gravity did not (in intention, at least) heighten the fun. His metaphor is, * The " Dama," in whose company he witnessed this representation, thus describes its effect upon him : — " The play was that of Mirra; the actors, and particularly the actress who performed the part of Mirra, seconded with much success the intentions of our great dramatist. Lord Byron took a .strong interest in the representation, and it was evident that he was deeply affected. At length there came a point of the performance at which he could no longer restrain his emotions ;— he burst into a flood of tears, and, his sobs preventing him from remaining any longer in the box, he rose and left the theatre.— I saw him similarly affected another time during a representa- tion of Alfieri's l Philip,' at Ravenna."—" Gli attori. e specialmente 1' attrice che rappresentava Mirra secondava assai bene la mente del nostro grande Tragico. L. B. prese molto interesse alia rappresentazione, e si conosceva che era molto commosso. Venne un punto poi della Tragedia in cui non pote piu frenare la sua emozione,— diede in un diretto pianto e i singhiozzi gl' impedirono di piu restare nel palco ; onde si lev6, e parti dal teatro. In uno stato simile lo viddi un altra volta a Ravenna ad una rappresentazione del Filippo d'Alfieri." Vol. IL— L NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 181! (h;ii ■ \\i are u< vet scorched and drenched at ihc same time.' Bless- ings on his experience! Ask him these questions about ' scorching and drenching'. Did he never play at cricket, or walk a mile in hot weather ! Did he never spill a dish of tea over himself in handing the cup to his charmer, to the great shame of his nankeen breeches ? Did he never swim in the sea at noonday with the sun in his eyes and on his head, which all the foam of ocean could not cool? Did he never draw his foot out of too hot water, d — ning his eyes and his valet's? ******* Was he ever in a Turkish bath — that marble paradise of sherbet and * * ? Was he ever in a cauldron of boiling oil, like St. John ? or in the sulphureous waves of h — 1? (where he ought to be for his ' scorching and drenching at the same time.') Did he never tumble into a river or lake, fishing, and sit in his wet clothes in the boat, or on the bank afterward. 4 scorched and drenched,' like a true sportsman? ' Oh for breath to utter!' — but make him my compliments; he is a clever fellow for all tiiat — a very clever fellow. '• You ask me for the plan of Donny Johnny : I have no plan ; I had no plan; but 1 had or have materials; though if, like Tony Lumpkin, 1 1 am to be snubbed so when 1 am in spirits,' the poem will be naught, and the poet turn serious again. If it don't take, I will leave it off where it is, with all due respect to the public; but if continued, it must be in my own way. You might as well make Hamlet (or Diggory) 'act mad' in a strait waistcoat as trammel my buffoonery, if I am to be a buffoon ; their gestures and my thoughts would only be pitiably absurd and ludicrously constrained. Why, man, the soul of such writing is its license ; at least the liberty of that license, if one likes — not that one should abuse it. It is like Trial by Jury and Peerage and the Habeas Corpus — a very fine thing, but chiefly in the reversion ; because no one wishes to be tried for the mere pleasure of proving his possession of the privilege. " Hut a truce with these reflections. You are too earnest and eager about a work never intended to be serious. Do you suppose that I could have any intention hut to giggle and make giggle? — a playful satire, with as little poetry as could be helped, was what 1 meant. \nd as to the indecency, do pray, read in Boswell what Johnson, the sullen moralist, says of Prior and Paulo Purgante. " Will you get a favour done for me? You can, by your govern- ment friends, Croker, Canning, or my old schoolfellow Peel, and 1 can't. Here it is. Will you ask them to appoint (without salary or emolument) a noble Italian (whom I will name afterward) consul or \ ice-consul for Ravenna 1 He is a man of very large property — noble too; but he wishes to have a British protection in case of changi Ravenna is near the sea. He wants ?io emolument whatever. Thai his office might be useful, I know; as I lately sent off from Ravenna to Trieste a poor devil of an English sailor, who had remained there sick, sorry, and pennyless (having been set ashore in 1814), from the want of any accredited agent able or willing to help him homewards. Will you get this done? If you do, I will then send his name and condition, subject of course to rejection, if not approved when known. '• I know that in the Levant you make consuls and vice-consuls. perpetually, of foreigners. This man is a patrician, and has twelve thousand a year. His motive is a British protection in case of new invasions. Don't you think Croker would do it for us? To be sure. my interest is rare! ' but perhaps a brother wit in flic Tory line might a. n. 1619.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 163 do a good turn at the request of so harmless and long absent a Whig, particularly as there is no salary or burthen of any sort to be annexed to the office. " I can assure you, I should look upon it as a great obligation ; but, alas ! that very circumstance may, very probably, operate to the con- trary—indeed, it ought ; but I have, at least, been an honest and an open enemy. Among your many splendid government connexions, could not you, think you, get our Bibulus made a Consul ? or make me one, that I may make him my Vice. You may be assured that, in case of accidents in Italy, he would be no feeble adjunct — as vou would think, if you knew his patrimony. " What is all this about Tom Moore 1 but why do I ask 1 since the state of my own affairs would not permit me to be of use to him, though they are greatly improved since 1816, and may, with some more luck and a little prudence, become quite clear. It seems his claimants are American merchants'? There goes Nemesis! Moore abused America. It is always thus in the long run: — Time, the Avenger. You have seen every trampler down, in turn, from Buona- parte to the simplest individuals. You saw how some were avenged even upon my insignificance, and how in turn * * * paid for his atro- city. It is an odd world ; but the watch has its mainspring, after all. " So the Prince has been repealing Lord Edward Fitzgerald's for- feiture ? Ecco un? sonetto ! " To be the father of the fatherless, To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise His offspring, who expired in other days To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less, — This is to be a monarch and repress Envy into unutterable praise. Dismiss thy guard and trust thee to such traits, For who would lift a hand except to bless ? " Were it not easy, sir, and is 't not sweet, To make thyself beloved ? and to be Omnipotent by Mercy's means ? for thus Thy sovereignty would grow but more complete, A despot thou, and yet thy people free, And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us. ■• There, you dogs ! there 's a sonnet for you : you won't have such as that in a hurry from Mr. Fitzgerald. You may publish it with my name, an ye wool. He deserves all praise, bad and good ; it was a very noble piece of principality. Would you like an epigram— a translation ? " If for silver, or for gold, Y'ou could melt ten thousand pimples Into half a dozen dimples, Then your face we might behold, Looking doubtless much more snugly, Yet ev'n then 't woidd be d d ugly. " This was written on some Frenchwoman, bv Rulhieres, I believe. " Yours." L2 184 NOTICES OF TUB [a.d. 1819 LETTER cccww III. TO Mil. Ml KKAV. •• Bologna, August 23d, 1819. ••I scud you a letter to R * * ts, signed ' Worttey Clutterbuck," which you may publish in what form you please, in answer to his article. 1 have bad many proofs of men's absurdity, but he beats all in folly. Why, the wolf m sheep's clothing has tumbled into the very trap! We 11 strip him. The letter is written in great haste, and amid a thousand vexatious. Your letter only came yesterday, so that there is no time to polish: the post goes out to-morrow. The date is 'Little Pidlington.' Let * * ** correct the press : he knows and can read the handwriting. Continue to keep the anonymous about ' Juan ;' it helps us to fight against overwhelming numbers. 1 have a thousand distractions at present ; so excuse haste, and wonder I can act or write at all. Answer by post, as usual. " Yours. "P.S. If 1 had had time, and been quieter and nearer, I would have cut him to hash ; but as it is, you can judge for yourselves." The letter to the Reviewer, here mentioned, had its origin in rather an amusing circumstance. In the First Canto of Don Juan appeared the following passage. " For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, I've bribed My Grandmother's Review, — the British! " I sent it in a letter to the editor, Who thank'd me duly by return of post — 1 'm for a handsome article his creditor; Yet if my gentle Muse he please to roast, \nd break a promise after having made it her. Denying the receipt of what it cost, \nd smear Ins page with gall instead of honey. \ll I can say is — that he had the money." On the appearance Of the Poem, the learned editor of the Uc\ it u i (|iiesti(in allowed himself to be decoyed into the ineffable absurditj of taking the charge as serious, and, m his succeeding number, came forth witli an indignant contradiction of it. To this tempting Bubjecl the letter, written so hasnl\ offal Bologna, related ; but, though printed for Mr. Murray, in a pamphlet consisting of twenty-three pages, it wai never published." Being valuable, however, as one of the best speci- mens we have of Lord Hvron's simple and thoroughly English prose, I shall here preserve some extracts from it. * It has appeared, however, I understand, in some of the foreign editions of his lordship's works. A. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 165 " TO THE EDITOR OF THE BRITISH REVIEW. " MY DEAR R TSi " As a believer in the church of England — to say nothing of the State — I have been an occasional reader, and great admirer, though not a subscriber -to your Review. But I do not know that any article of its contents ever gave me much surprise till the eleventh of your late twenty-seventh number made its appearance. You have there most manfully refuted a calumnious accusation of bribery and corrup- tion, the credence of which in the public mind might not only have damaged your reputation as a clergyman and an editor, but, what would have been still worse, have injured the circulation of your journal; which, I regret to hear, is not so extensive as the ' purity (as you well observe) of its, &c. &c.' and the present taste for propriety, would in- duce us to expect. The charge itself is of a solemn nature, and, although in verse, is couched in terms of such circumstantial gravity as to induce a belief little short of that generally accorded to the thirty-nine articles, to which you so generously subscribed on taking, your degrees. It is a charge the most revolting to the heart of man from its frequent occurrence ; to the mind of a statesman from its oc- casional truth ; and to the soul of an editor from its moral impossi- bility. You are charged then in the last line of one octave stanza, and the whole eight lines of the next, viz, 209th and 210th of the First Canto of that ' pestilent poem,' Don Juan, with receiving, and still more foolishly acknowledging, the receipt of certain moneys to eulo- gize the unknown author, who by this account must be known to you, if to nobody else. An impeachment of this nature, so seriously made, there is but one way of refuting; and it is my firm persuasion, that whether you did or did not (and /believe that you did not) receive the said moneys, of which I wish that he had specified the sum, you are quite right in denying all knowledge of the transaction. If charges of this nefarious description are to go forth, sanctioned by all the solem- nity of circumstance, and guaranteed by the veracity of verse (as Coun- sellor Phillips would say), what is to become of readers hitherto im- plicitly confident in the not less veracious prose of our critical jour- nals 1 what is to become of the reviews; and, if the reviews fail, what is to become of the editors ] It is common cause, and you have done well to sound the alarm. I myself, in my humble sphere, will be one of your echoes. In the words of the tragedian Liston, ' I love a row,' and you seem justly determined to make one. " It is barely possible, certainly improbable, that the writer might have been in jest ; but this only aggravates his crime. A joke, the proverb says, ' breaks no bones ;' but it may break a bookseller, or it may be the cause of bones being broken. The jest is but a bad one at the best for the author, and might have been a still worse one for you, if your copious contradiction did not certify to all whom it may concern your own indignant innocence, and the immaculate purity of the British Review. I do not doubt your word, my dear R ts, yet I cannot help wishing that in a case of such vital importance, it had assumed the more substantial shape of an affidavit sworn before the Lord Mayor Atkins, who readily receives any deposition ; and doubt- less would have brought it in some way as evidence of the designs of 166 NOTICES OF THE [a. n. 1819. the Reformers to set fin- to London, at the same time that he himself meditates the Bame good office towards the river Thames* • * • • • " I recollect hearing, soon after the publication, this subject discussed at the tea-table of Mr. " * * the poet, — and Mrs. and the Misses* * * * • being in a corner of the room perusing the proof sheets of Mr. * * *'s poems, the male part Of the i izione were at liberty to make some observations on the poem and passage in question, and there was a difference of opinion. Some thought the allusion was to the • British Critic;' others, that by the expression, ' My Grandmother's Review,' it was intimated that ' my grandmother 9 was not the reader of the review, but actually the writer; thereby insinuating, my dear Mr. R ts, that you were an old woman ; because, as people often Bay, ' Jeffrey's Review,' ' Gifford's Review,' in lieu of Edinburgh and Quarterly, so l .M) Grandmother's Review' and R ts's might be also synony- mous. Now, whatever colour this insinuation might derive from the circumstance of your wearing a gown, as well as from your time of life, your general .style, and various passages of your writings, — I will take upon myself to exculpate you from all suspicion of the kind, and assert, without calling Mrs. R ts in testimony, that if ever you should be chosen Pope, you will pass through all the previous cere- monies with as much credit as any pontiff since the parturition of Joan. It is very unfair to judge of sex from writings, particularly from those of the British Review. \\"e are all liable to be deceived, and it is an indisputable fad that many of the best articles in your journal, which were attributed to a veteran female, were actually written by you yourself, and yet to this day there are people who could never find out the difference. But let us return to the more im- inediate question. " I agree with you that it is impossible Lord B. should be the author, not only because, as a British peer and a British poet, it would be im- practicable for him to have recourse to such facetious fiction, but for some other reasons which you have omitted to state. In the first place, his lordship has no grandmother. Now the author — and we may believe lum in this — doth expressly state that the ' British' is his 'Grandmother's Review;' and if, as I think I have distinctly proved, this was not a mere figurative allusion to your supposed intellectual age and sex, my dear friend, it follows, whether you be she or no, that there is such an elderly lady still extant. • * # • # "Shall I give you what I think a prudent opinion? I don't mean to insinuate, God forbid! but if, by any accident, there should have been such a correspondence between you and the unknown author, whoever he mav be, semi him back his inonev ; 1 dare say he will be very glad to have it again; it can'l be much, considering the value of the article and the circulation of the journal ; and you are too modest to rate your praise .bey ond its real worth: — don't be angry, I know you won't, at tins appraisement of J our powers of eulogy : for on the other hand, my dear fellow, depend upon it your abuse is worth, not its own weight, thai 's a leather. I. ut your weight iii gold. So do n't spare it ; if he has bargained for (hut. give it handsomely, and depend upon your doing him a friendly Office. • • * * * "What the motives of this writer may have been for (as you mag- nificently translate his quizzing you) ' stating, with the particularity A. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 167 which belongs to fact, the forgery of a groundless fiction' (do, pray, my dear R., talk a little less 'in king Cambyses' vein'), I cannot pre- tend to say ; perhaps to laugh at you, but that is no reason for your be- nevolently making all the world laugh also. 1 approve of your being angry, I tell you 1 am angry too, but you should not have shown it so outrageously. Your solemn 'if somebody personating the editor of the &c. &c. has received from Lord B. or from any other person,' re- minds me of Charley Incledon's usual exordium when people came into the tavern to hear him sing without paying their share of the reckoning — ' if a maun, or ony maun, or ony other maun,' &c. &c. ; you have both the same redundant eloquence. But why should you think any body would personate you'? Nobody would dream of such a prank whoever read your compositions, and perhaps not many who have heard your conversation. But I have been inoculated with a little of your prolixity. The fact is, my dear R ts, that somebody has tried to make a fool of you, and what he did not succeed in doing, you have done for him and for yourself." Towards the latter end of August, Count Guiccioli, accompanied by his lady, went for a short time to visit some of his Romagnese estates, while Lord Byron remained at Bologna alone. And here, with a heart softened and excited by the new feeling that had taken pos- session of him, he appears to have given himself up, during this in- terval of solitude, to a train of melancholy and impassioned thought such as, for a time, brought back all the romance of his youthful days. That spring of natural tenderness within his soul, which neither the world's efforts nor his own, had been able to chill or choke up, was now, with something of its first freshness, set flowing once more. He again knew what it was to love and be loved, — too late, it is true, for happiness, and too wrongly for peace, but with devotion enough, on the part of the woman, to satisfy even his thirst for affection, and with a sad earnestness, on his own, a foreboding fidelity, which made him cling but the more passionately to this attachment from feeling that it would be his last. A circumstance which he himself used to mention as having oc- curred at this period will show how overpowering, at times, was the rush of melancholy over his heart. It was his fancy, during Madame Guiccioli's absence from Bologna, to go daily to her house at his usual hour of visiting her, and there, causing her apartments to be opened, to sit turning over her books, and writing in them.* He would then descend into her garden, where he passed hours in musing ; and it was on an occasion of this kind, as he stood looking, in a state of unconscious reverie, into one of those fountains so common in the gardens of Italy, that there came suddenly into his mind such deso- * One of these notes, written at the end of the 5th chapter, 18th book of Corinne (" Fragmens des Pensees de Corinne"), is as follows : — " I knew Madame de Stael well. — better than she knew Italy, — but I littlo thought that, one day, I should think with her thoughts, in the country where she has laid the scene of her most attractive productions. She is sometimes right, and often wrong, about Italy and England ; but almost always true in delineating the heart, which is of but one nation, and of no country, — or, rather, of all. " Byron. " Bologna, August 23, 1819." 1C8 >TICES OF THE „ [a. d. 1819. late fancii 9, Buch bodings of i ry he might bring on her he loved, l>y th;ii doom which (as hi elf written) "makes it fatal to be ! that, overwhelmed with his own thoughts, he burst into an agony of tears. During the same few days it wa* thai he wrote hi the last page of Madame Guiccioli's copy of " < lorinne" the following remarkable note: " My dearest Teresa, — I have read this book in your garden; — my love, you were abs< at, on Ise 1 1 tiaveread it. Ii is a favour- ite hook of yours, and thi writer was a Friend of mine. You will not understand these Enj lish won hers will not und< rstand them, — which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian, lint you will recognise the handwrithi in who passionately loved you, and \ ou w ill divine that, over a book which was y< urs, he could only tlnnk of love. In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours — Amormio — is comprised mj existence here ami here- after. I feel I exist here, and 1 fear that 1 shall exist hereafter, — to XL-hat purpose you will decide; in i\ rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, \:nA two oul of a convent. I wish that you had staid there, with all my heart, — or, at least, that I had never met you in your married state. " But all this is too late. I Love you, and you love me, — at least, you soy so, and act as if you did so. which las I is a greal consolation in all events. But / more than love j ou, and cannot cease to love you. " Think of me, sometimes, v> hen the Alps and the ocean divide us, — but they never w ill, unless you wish it. "Byron. "Bologna, August 25, 1819." LETTER CCCXXMX. TO MR. MURRAY. "Boloirna, A i . . 1819. "I wrote to you by Last post. en< i buffooning letter for pub- lication, addressed to the buffoon R ts, who has thought propei to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written oif-hand, and in the midst of circumstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of small acid punch : — you will tell me. " Keep the anonymous, in an} tl helps what fun then maj be« But. if the matter grows set ou1 Don Juan, and you feel your* self in a scrape, or mc cither, own thai I am th r. / will never shrink; and if you do, 1 can always answer you in the question of Guatimozin to his minister — each being onhis own coals. f * »« 0!i Love, what is it, in tiiis world of ours, Which maki ah, why With cypi i thou wreath'd thy bowers, And d irpreter a sigh ? As ■ on odours pluck tho flowers, And place 1 their breasts — but place to die — Thus the fro would fondly cherish Arc laid within our bosoms but to perish. t " Am I now reposing on u b »?' — Sec Robeiitson. A. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 169 " I wish that I had been in better spirits ; but I am out of sorts, out of nerves, and now and then (I begin to fear) out of my senses. All this Italy has done for me, and not England : I defy all you, and your climate to boot, to make me mad. But if ever I do really become a bedlamite, and wear a strait waistcoat, let me be brought back among you ; your people will then be proper company. " I assure you what I here say and feel has nothing to do with England, either in a literary or personal point of view. All my present pleasures or plagues are as Italian as the opera. And after all, they are but trifles ; for all this arises from my ' Dama's' being in the coun- try for three days (at Capo-flume). But as I could never live but for one human being at a time (and, I assure you, that one has never been myself, as you may know by the consequences, for the selfish are suc- cessful in life), I feel alone and unhappy. " I have sent for my daughter from Venice, and I ride daily, and walk in a garden, under a purple canopy of grapes, and sit bv a foun- tain, and talk with the gardener of his tools, which seem greater than Adam's, and with his wife, and with his son's wife, who is the youngest of the party, and, I think, talks best of the three. Then I revisited the Campo Santo, and my old friend, the sexton, has two — but one the prettiest daughter imaginable ; and I amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful and innocent face of fifteen, with the skulls with which he has peopled several cells, and particularly with that of one skull dated 1766, which was once covered (the tradition goes) by the most lovely features of Boiogna — noble and rich. When I look at these, and at this girl — when I think of what they were, and what she must be — why, then, my dear Murray, I won't shock you by saying what I think. It is little matter what becomes of us ' bearded men,' but I do n't like the notion of a beautiful woman's lasting less than a beau- tiful tree — than her own picture — her own shadow, which won't change so to the sun as her face to the mirror. — I must leave off, for my head aches consumedly. I have never been quite well since the night of the representation of Alfieri's Mirra, a fortnight ago. " Yours ever." LETTER CCCXL. TO MR. MURRAY. " Bologna, August 29, 1819. " I have been in a rage these two days, and am still bilious there- from. You shall hear. A captain of dragoons, * *, Hanoverian by birth, in the Papal troops at present, whom I had obliged by a loan when nobody would lend him a paul, recommended a horse to me, on sale by a Lieutenant * *, an officer who unites the sale of cattle to the purchase of men. I bought it. The next day, on shoeing the horse, we discovered the thrush, — the animal being warranted sound. I sent to reclaim the contract and the money. The lieutenant desired to speak with me in person. I consented. He came. It was his own particular request. He began a story. I asked him if he would return the money. He said no — but he would exchange. He asked an exorbitant price for his other horses. I told hnn that he was a thief. He said he was an officer and a man of honour, and pulled out a Parmesan passport signed by General Count Neifperg. 1 answered, 170 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1819. that as he was an Officer, 1 would Hi at him as such ; and that as to his being a gentleman, he might prove it bj n turning the money : as for Ins Parmesan passport, I should have valued it more if it bad been a Parmesan cheese. He answered in high terms, ami said that if it were in the morning 1 (it was about eighl o'clock in the evening) he would have satisfaction. 1 then lost m\ temper: 'As for that,' 1 replied, 'you Bhall have it directlj , — it will be nun mil satisfaction, I can assure you. You arc a thief, and, as you say, an officer; my pistols are in the next room loaded; take oue of the candles, examine, and make your choice of weapons.' He replied thai pistols were English weapons; he always fought with the sword. I told him that] was able to accommodate him, having three regimental swords in a drawer near us ; ami be mighl take the longi st, and put himself on guard. '•All tins passed m presence of a third, person. He then said Ab, but to-morrow morning he would give me the meeting at any time or place. I answered that it was not usual to appoinl meetings in the presence of witness* s, and that we had besl speak man to man, and appoint time and instruments. But as the man present was leav- ing the room, the Lieutenant * *, before he could shut the door after him, ran out, roaring 'help and murder' most lustily, and fell into a sort of hysterie in the arms of about fifty people, who all saw that I had no weapon of any sort or kind about me, and followed him, asking him what the devil was the matter \\ ith him. Nothing would do : he ran away without his hat, and weni to bed, ill of the fright, lie then tried his complaint at the police, which dismissed it as frivolous. He is, I believe, remain in some da»* corner of ins mansion, from which she might be able to catch ■•< glimpse of his form as he passed. Her in trayer \\ as obdurate, and the unfortunate young lad\ , in despair at being thus abandoned b) him, threv herself into the canal, from which Bhe was taken out but to be consigned to a mad-house. Though cone vinced that there must be considerable exaggeration in this Btor] , it was only on my arrival at Venice I ascertained that the whole was a ro- mance; and that out ol the circumstances (already laid before the reader) connected with Lord Byron's fantastic and, it must be owned* discreditable fane} for the Fornarina, this pathetic tale, so implicitly believed at Geneva, was fabricated. Having parted, at Milan, with Lord John Russell, whom I had accompanied from England, and whom 1 was to rejoin, after a short visit to Home, at Genoa, 1 made purchase Of a small ami (as it soon proved) crazy travelling carriage, and proceeded alone on my way to Venice. My time being limited, I stopped no longer at the intervening places than was sufficient to hurry over their respect i\ e wonders, and, leaving Padua at noon on the 8th of < tatOD r, I found myself, about two o'clock, at the door of my friend's villa, at LaMira. He was but just up, and in his bath; but the servant having announced my arrival, he returned a message that, if 1 would wait nil he was dressed, he would accompany me to Venice. The interval I employed in conversing with my old acquaintance, Fletcher, and in viewing, under his guidance, some of the apartments of the villa. It was not long before Lord Byron himself made his appearance, and the delight I felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many \ ears, was not a little heightened by obsen ing that his plea- sure was,' to the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the evident rarity of such meetings to him of late, and the frame outbreak of cordiality and gayety with which he gave way to his feelings. It would be impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some time or other, felt the charm of his manner, any idea of W hat it could be when under the influence of such pleasurable excitement as it was most flatteringly evident he experienced at this moment. I w as a g 1 di al struck, how< ver, by the alteration that had taken place in Ins personal appearance. I le had grown fatter both in person and face, and the latter had most Buffered bj the change,— having lost, bj the enlargement of the features, some of that refined and spirit- ualized look that had, in other tunes, distinguished it. The addition of w hiskers, too, w hich he had nol long before been induced to adopt, from hearing that some one had said he had a " facua di musico," as well as the length to which his hair grew down on his neck, and the rather foreign air of his coat and cap,— all combined tO produce that dissimilarity to his former self I had observed In him. He was still, however, emiuently handsome; and, in exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high, romantic character, they had becomt more fitted for the expression of that arch, waggish wisdom, that Epicurean play of humour, which he had shown to he enuallv inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while, by the somewhat increased roundness of the contours, the resemblance of a.d. 181U.J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 173 his finely formed mouth and chin to those of the Belvedere Apollo had become still more striking-. His breakfast, which I found he rarely took before three or four o'clock in the afternoon, was speedily despatched, — his habit being to eat it standing, and the meal in general consisting of one or two raw eggs, a cup of tea without either milk or sugar, and a bit of dry bis- cuit. Before we took our departure, he presented me to the Countess Guiccioli, who was at this time, as my readers already know, living under the same roof with him at La Mira ; and who, with a style of beauty singular in an Italian, as being fair-complexioned and delicate, left an impression upon my mind, during this our first short interview, of intelligence and amiableness such as all that I have since known or heard of her has but served to confirm. We now started together, Lord Byron and myself, in my little Milanese vehicle, for Fusina,— his portly gondolier Tita, in a rich livery and most redundant mustachios, having seated himself on the front of the carriage, to the no small trial of its strength, which had already once given way, even under my own weight, between Verona and Vicenza. On our arrival at Fusina, my noble friend, from his familiarity with all the details of the place, had it in his power to save me both trouble and expense in the different arrangements relative to the custom-house, remise, &c. ; and the good-natured assiduity with which he bustled about in despatching these matters gave me an op- portunity of observing, in his use of the infirm limb, a much greater degree of activity than I had ever before, except in sparring, wit- nessed. As we proceeded across the Lagoon in his gondola, the sun was just setting, and it was an evening such as Romance would have chosen for a first sight of Venice, rising " with her tiara of bright towers" above the wave; while, to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, I beheld it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its glories, and sung of that fair City of the Sea thus grandly : " I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs ; A palace and a prison on each hand : I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand : A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles." But, whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which I now viewed it was altogether the very reverse of what might have been expected. The exuberant gayety of my companion, and the recollections,— any thing but romantic,— into which our conversa- tion wandered, put at once completely to flight all poetical and histo- rical associations ; and our course was, I am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and laughter till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend's palazzo on the Grand Canal. All that had ever happened of gay or ridiculous, during our London life together, — 1 lis scrapes and my lecturings,— our joint adventures with the Bores and 171 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. i«iy. Blues, the two great enemies, as he always called them, of London happiness,— our joyous nights together at Waller's, Kinnaird's, &c, and "that d — (1 supper of KanclihVs which ought to have been a dinner, 11 — all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a flow of humour and hilarity, on Ins side, of which it would have been dif- ficult, even for persons far graver than 1 can pretend to be, not to have caught the contagion. He had all along expressed his determination that I should not go to any hotel, but fix my quarters at his house during the period of m\ stay; and, had he been residing there himself, such an arrangement would have been all thai I must desired. Hut this not being the case, a common hotel was, I thought, a far readier resource; and I there- fore entreated that he would allow me to order an apartment at the Gran Bretagna, which had the reputation, I understood, of being a comfortable hotel. This, however, he would not hear of; and, as an inducement for me to agree to his plan, said, that as long as I chose to stay, though he should be obliged to return to La Mini in the evenings, he would make it a point to come to Venice every day and dine with me. As we now turned into the dismal canal, and stopped before his damp- looking mansion, my predilection for the Gran Bretagna returned in full force; and 1 again ventured to hint that it would save an abun- dance of trouble to let me proceed thither. But "No — no," he an- swered, — "I see you think you'll be very uncomfortable here; but you '11 find that it is not quite so bad as you expect." As I groped my way after him through the dark hall, he cried out, "Keep (dear of the dog;" and before we had proceeded many paces farther, " Take care, or that monkey will fly at you ;" — a curious proof, among many others, of his fidelity to all the tastes of his youth, as it agrees perfectly with the description of his life at Newstead, in 1809, and of the sort of menagerie which his visiters had then to encounter in their progress through his hall. Having escaped these dangers, I followed him up the staircase to the apartment destined for me. All this time he had been despatching servants in various directions, — one, to procure me a laquait de place ; another to go in quest of Mr. Alexander Scott, to whom he wished to give me in charge; while a third was sent to order his Segretario to come to him. " So. then, you keep a secretary'?" 1 said. " Yes," he answered, "a fellow who can't write* — but such are the names these pompous people give to things." When we had reached the door of the apartment it was discovered 10 be locked, and, to all appearance, had been so for some time, as the key could not be found ; — a circumstance which, to my English appre- hension, naturally connected itself with notions of damp and desola- tion, and I again sighed inwardly for the Gran Bretagna. Impatient at the delay of the key, my noble host, with one of his humorous male- dictions, gave a vigorous kick to the door and hurst it open; on which we at once entered into an apartment not only spacious and elegant, but wearing an aspect of comfort and habitableness which to a tra- veller's eye is as welcome as it is rare. " Here," he said, in a voice whose every tone spoke kindness and hospitality, — "these are the rooms I use myself, and here 1 mean to establish you." He had Ordered dinner from some Tratteria, and while wailing its arrival — as well as that of Mr. \h wander Scott, whom he had invited ' The till of Sepretario is sometimes iriven, as in this case, to a head- servant itr housi -steward. a. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 175 to join us — we stood out on the balcony, in order that, before the day- light was quite gone, 1 might have some glimpses of the scene which the canal presented. Happening to remark, in looking up at the clouds, which were still bright in the west, that, " what had struck me in Italian sunsets was that peculiar rosy hue " I had hardly pro- nounced the word " rosy," when Lord Byron, clapping his hand on my mouth, said, with a laugh, "Come, d— n it, Tom don't be poetical." Among the few gondolas passing at the time, there was one at some distance, in which sat two gentlemen, who had the appearance of being English ; and, observing them to look our way, Lord Byron, putting his arms a-kimbo, said, with a sort of comic swagger, " Ah, if you, John Bulls, knew who the two fellows are, now standing up here, I think you ■would stare !" — I risk mentioning these things, though aware how they may be turned against myself, for the sake of the otherwise indescribable traits of manner and character which they convey. After a very agreeable dinner, through which the jest, the story, and the laugh were almost uninterruptedly carried on, our noble host took leave of us to return to LaMira, while Mr. Scott and I went to one of the theatres, to see the Ottavia of Alfieri. The ensuing evenings, during my stay, were passed much in the same manner, — my mornings being devoted, under the kind superin- tendence of Mr. Scott, to a hasty and, I fear, unprofitable view of the treasures of art with which Venice abounds. On the subjects of painting and sculpture Lord Byron has, in several of his letters, expressed strongly and, as to most persons will appear, heretically his opinions. In his want, however, of a due appreciation of these arts, he but resembled some of his great precursors in the field of poetry; — both Tasso and Milton, for example, having evinced so little tendency to such tastes,* that, throughout the whole of their pages, Tnere is not, I fear, one single allusion to any of those great masters "of the pencil and chisel, whose works, nevertheless, both had seen. That Lord Byron, though despising the imposture and jargon with which the worship of the arts is, like other worships, clogged and mystified, felt deeply, more especially in sculpture, whatever imaged forth true grace and energy, appears from passages of his poetry which are in every body's memory, and not a line of which but thrills alive with a sense of grandeur and beauty such as it never entered into the capacity of a mere connoisseur even to conceive. In reference to this subject, as we were conversing one day after dinner about the various collections I had visited that morning, on un- saying that fearful as I was, at all times, of praising any picture, lest I should draw upon myself the connoisseur's sneer for my pains, I would yet, to him, venture to own that I had seen a picture" at Milan * That this was the case with Milton is acknowledged by Richardson, who admired both Milton and the arts too warmly to make such an admission upon any but valid grounds. " He does not appear," says this writer, " to have much regarded what was done with the pencil ; no, not even when in Italy, in Rome, in the Vatican. Neither does it seem sculpture was much esteemed by him." After an authority like this, the theories of Hayley and others, with respect to the impressions left upon Milton's mind by the works of art he had seen in Italy, are hardly worth a thought. Though it may be conceded that Dante was an admirer of the arts, his recommendation of the Apocalypse to Giotto, as a source of subjects for the pencil, shows, at least, what indifferent judges poets are, in general, of the sort of fancies fittest to be imbodied by the painter. i?o NOTICES OF THE [a.d. 1819. winch "The rlagar!" he exclaimed, eagerly interrupting me; and it was, in fact, this very picture I \\ as about to mention as having wakened in me, by the truth of its expression, more real emotion than an\ 1 had yel seen among the chefs-d'oeuvre of Venice. It was with no small degree of pride and pleasure I now discovered that my noble friend bad fell equally with myself the affecting mixture of sorrow and reproach with w Inch the woman's i j es tell the whole story in that picture. On the second evening of m\ Btay, Lord Byron having, as before, left us for La Mira, I most willinglj accepted the offer of Mr. Scott to introduce me to the conversazioni of the two celebrated ladies, with whose names, as leaders of \ eiieiian fashion, the tourists to Italy have made every body acquainted. To the Countess A. * *'s parties Lord Byron bad chiefly confined himself during the first winter he passed at Venice ; i>ut the tone of conversation at these small meetings being much too learned for his tastes, he was induced, the following year, to discontinue his attendance at them, and chose, in preference, the lese erudite, but more easy, society of the Countess B * *. Of the sort of learning sometimes displayed by the "blue" visitants at Madami A * *'s, a circumstance mentioned by the noble poet himself may afford some idea. The conversation happening to turn, one evening, upon the statue of Washington, by Canova, which had been just shipped off for the United States, Madame \ * *, who was then engaged in compiling a Description Raisonnee of Canova's works, and was anxious for information respecting the subject of this statue, requested that some of her learned guests would detail to her all they knew 01 him. This task a Signor * * (author of a book on Geography and •Statistics) undertook to perform, and, after some other equally sage and authentic details, concluded by informing her that ''Washington was killed in a duel by Burke.." — " What," exclaimed Lord Byron, as he stood biting his lips with impatience during this conversation. "what, in the name of folly, are you all thinking of?" — for he now recollected the famous duel between Hamilton and Colonel Ihirr, whom, it was evident, this learned worthy had confounded with Wash- ington and Burke '. In addition to the motives easily concei\ aide for exchanging such a society for one that offered, at least, repose from such erudite efforts, there was also another cause more immediate!) leading to the discon- tinuance of Ins visits to Madame A * *. This lady, who has been sometimes honoured with the title of "the De Stael of Italy," had written a hook called " Portraits," containing sketches of the charac- ters of various persons of note ; and ii being her intention to introduce Lord Myron into this assemblage, she had it intimated to his lordship that an article in which his portraiture had been attempted was to appear in a new edition she was about to publish of her work. It w . ■ expected, of course, thai this intimation WOUld awaken in him sona desire to see the sketch ; hut, on the contrary, he was provoking enough not to manifest the least symptom* of curiosity. Again and again Was the same hint, with as little success, conveyed ; till, at length, OH finding that no impression could be produced in this manner, a direr offer was made, in Madame \ ' *'s own name, to submit the article to his perusal. He could now contain himself no longer. With more sincerity than politeness, he returned for answer to the lady, that h< was by no means ambitious of appearing in her work; that, from th< shortness, as well as the distant nature of their acquaintance, i' " a.d. ltsiy.J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 17; impossible she could have qualified herself to be his portrait-painter, and that, in short, she could not oblige him more than by committing the article to the flames. Whether the tribute thus unceremoniously treated ever met the eyes of Lord Byron, I know not ; but he could hardly, I think, had he seen it, have escaped a slight touch of remorse at having thus spurned from him a portrait drawn in no unfriendly spirit, and, though affect- edly expressed, seizing some of the less obvious features of his cha- racter, — as, for instance, that diffidence so little to be expected from a career like his, — with the discriminating niceness of a female hand. The following are extracts from this Portrait : — " ' Toi, dont le monde encore ignore le vrai noni, Esprit mysterieux, Mortel Ange, ou Demon, Qui que tu sois, Byron, bon ou fatal genie, J'aime de tes conceits la sauvage harmonie.' Lamartine. %i It would be to little purpose to dwell upon the mere beauty of a countenance in which the expression of an extraordinary mind was so conspicuous. What serenity was seated on the forehead, adorned with the finest chesnut hair, light, curling, and disposed with such art, that the art was hidden in the imitation of most pleasing nature ! What varied expression in his eyes ! They were of the azure colour of the heavens, from which they seemed to derive their origin. His teeth, in form, in colour, and transparency, resembled pearls ; but his cheeks were too delicately tinged with the hue of the pale rose. His neck, which he was in the habit of keeping uncovered as much as the usages of society permitted, seemed to have been formed in a mould, and was very white. His hands were as beautiful as if they had been the works of art. His figure left nothing to be desired, particularly by those who found rather a grace than a defect in a certain light and gentle undulation of the person when he entered a room, and of which you hardly felt tempted to inquire the cause. Indeed it was scarcely perceptible, — the clothes he wore were so long. " He was never seen to walk through the streets of Venice, nor along the pleasant banks of the Brenta, where he spent some weeks of the summer; and there are some who assert that he has never seen, excepting from a window, the wonders of the ' Piazza di San Marco ;' — so powerful in him was the desire of not showing himself to be deformed in any part of his person. I, however, believe that he has often gazed on those wonders, but in the late and solitary hour, when the stupendous edifices which surrounded him, illuminated by the soft and placid light of the moon, appeared a thousand times more lovely. " His face appeared tranquil like the ocean on a fine spring morning ; but, like it, in an instant became changed into the tempestuous and terrible, if a passion, (a passion did I say 1) a thought, a word, occur- red to disturb his mind. His eyes then lost all their sweetness, and sparkled so that it became difficult to look on them. So rapid a change would not have been thought possible ; but it was impossible to avoid acknowledging that the natural state of his mind was the tempestuous. " What delighted him greatly one day annoyed him the next ; and whenever he appeared constant in the practice of any habits, it arose merely from the indifference, not to say contempt, in which he held them all : whatever they might be, they were not worthy that he Vol, II.— M in NOTICES OF THE [a.d. it should occup\ ins thoughts with them. His heart was highly sensi live, and suffered itself to be governed in an extraordinary degree by s\ mpathy ; but Ins imagination carried him away, and spoiled every thin jr. 1 1«' believed in presages, and delighted in the recollection that he held this belief in common with Napoleon. It appeared that, in proportion as Ins intellectual education was cultivated, his moral education was neglected, and that he never suffered himself to know or observe other restraints than those imposed by bis inclinations. Nevertheless, who could believe that he had a constant, and almost infantine timidity, of which the evidences were so apparent as to render its existence indisputable, notwithstanding the difficulty expe- rienced in associating with Lord Byron a sentiment which had the appearance Of modesty. Conscious as lie was that, wherever he pre- sented himself, all eyes were fixed on him, and all lips, particularly those of the women, were opened to say 'There he IS, that is Lord Byron,' — he necessarily found himself in the situation of an actor obliged to sustain a character, and to render an account, not to others (for about them he gave himself no concern), but to himself, of bis every action and word. This occasioned him a feeling of uneasiness which was obvious to every one. "He remarked on a certain subject (which in 181 1 was the topic of universal discourse), that' the world was worth neither the trouble taken in its conquest, nor the regret felt at its loss,' which saying (if the worth of an expression could ever equal that of many and great actions) would almost show the thoughts and feelings of Lord Hvron to be more stupendous and unmeasured than those of him respecting whom lie spoke. " His gymnastic exercises were sometimes violent, and at otlu n almost nothing. His body, like bis spirit, readih accommodated itself to all his inclinations. During an entire winter, he went out every morning alone to row himself to the island of Armenians (a small island situated in the midst of a tranquil lake, and distant from Venice about half a league), to enjoy the society of those learned and hospi- table monks, and to learn their difficult language ; and, in the evening, entering again into his gondola, he went but only for a couple of hours into company. A second winter, whenever the water of the lake was violently agitated, he was observed to cross it, and landing on the nearest irrra Jirma, to fatigue at least two horses with riding. '• No one ever heard I utter a word of French, although he was perfectly conversant with that language. He haled the nation audit- modern literature; in like manner, he held the modern Italian litera- ture in contempt, and said it possessed but one livhur author, — a restriction which I know not whether to term ridiculous, or false and injurious. His voice was sufficiently sweet and flexible. He spoke with much suavity, if not contradicted, but rather addressed himself to his neighbour than to the entire company. •• Very little food sufficed him ; and he preferred fish to flesh for this extraordinary reason, that the latter, he said, rendered him fero- cious, lie disliked seeing women eat; and the cause of this extra- ordinary antipathy must be sought in the dread he always had, that the notion he loved to cherish of their perfection and almost divine nature mighl be disturbed. Having always been governed by them it would seem that his very self-love was pleased to take refuge in thi lea ol theii excellence, — a sentiment which be knew how (God a. d. 1819,] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 179 knows how) to reconcile with the contempt in which, shortly after- ward, almost with the appearance of satisfaction, he seemed to hold them. But contradictions ought not to surprise us in characters like Lord Byron's ; and then, who does not know that the slave holds in detestation his ruler 1 " Lord Byron disliked his countrymen, but only because he knew that his morals were held in contempt by them. The English, them- selves rigid observers of family duties, could not pardon him the neglect of his, nor his trampling on principles ; therefore neither did he like being presented to them, nor did they, especially when they had their wives with them, like to cultivate his acquaintance. Still there was a strong desire in all of them to see him, and the women in particular, who did not dare to look at him but by stealth, said in an under voice, ' What a pity it is !' If, however, any of his compatriots of exalted rank and of high reputation came forward to treat him with courtesy, he showed himself obviously flattered by it, and was greatly pleased with such association. It seemed that to the wound which remained always open in his ulcerated heart, such soothing attentions were as drops of healing balm, which comforted him. " Speaking of his marriage, — a delicate subject, but one still agree- able to him, if it was treated in a friendly voice, — he was greatly moved, and said it had been the innocent cause of all his errors and all his griefs. Of his wife he spoke with much respect and affection. He said she was an illustrious lady, distinguished for the qualities of her heart and understanding, and that all the fault of their cruel separa- tion lay with himself. Now, was such language dictated by justice or by vanity 1 Does it not bring to mind the saying of Julius, that the wife of Caesar must not even be suspected 1 What vanity in that saying of Caesar ! In fact, if it had not been from vanity, Lord Byron would have admitted this to no one. Of his young daughter, his dear Ada, he spoke with great tenderness, and seemed to be pleased at the great sacrifice he had made in leaving her to comfort her mother. The intense hatred he bore his mother-in-law, and a sort of Euryclea of Lady Byron, — two women, to whose influence he, in a great measure, attri- buted her estrangement from him, — demonstrated clearly how painful the separation was to him, notwithstanding some bitter pleasantries which occasionally occur in his writings against her also, dictated rather by rancour than by indifference." ###### From the time of his misunderstanding with Madame A * * *, the visits of the noble poet were transferred to the house of the other great rallying point of Venetian society, Madame B * * *, — a lady in whose manners, though she had long ceased to be young, there still lingered much of that attaching charm, which a youth passed in suc- cessful efforts to please seldom fails to leave behind. That those powers of pleasing too, were not yet gone, the fidelity of, at least, one devoted admirer testified ; nor is she supposed to have thought it im- possible that Lord Byron himself might yet be linked on at the end of that long chain of lovers, which had, through so many years, graced the triumphs of her beauty. If, however, there could have been, in any case, the slightest chance of such a conquest, she had herself completely frustrated it by introducing her distinguished visiter to Madame Guiccioli, — a step by which she at last lost, too, even the ornament of his presence at her parties, as in consequent M2 i«.« n> our friendship, if, he both fell and hoped, I should survive him, UOJ to let unmerited i I sure settle upon Ins name, but, while I surrendered him up to eon demnation, where he deserved it, to vindicate him where aspersed. How groundless and wrongful were these apprehensions, the early di ath \\ hah he so often predicted ami sighed for has enabled us, un- fortunately but too soon, to testify. So far from having to defend him against an] such assailants, an unworthy voice or two, from persons more injurious as friends than as enemies, is all that I find raised ill hostility to Ins name ; while by none, I am inclined to think, woul I i gi nerous amnesty over his grave be more readily and cordially con- curred in than by her. among wdio.se numerous virtues a forgivi charity towards himself was the only one to which she had not ' taught him to rentier justice. I nays already had occasion to remark, in another part of this work, thai with persons, who, like Lord Bvron. live centred in their o ,. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. tremulous web of sensitiveness, those friends of whom they see least, and who, therefore, least frequently come in collision with them in those every day realities from which such natures shrink so mor bidly, have proportionately a greater chance of retaining a hold on their affections. There is, however, in long absence from persons of this temperament, another description of risk hardly less, perhaps, to be dreaded. If the station a friend holds in their hearts is, in near intercourse with them, in danger from their sensitiveness, it is almost equally, perhaps, at the mercy of their too active imaginations during absence. On this very point, I recollect once expressing my appre- hensions to Lord Byron, in a passage of a letter addressed to him but a short time before his death, of which the following is, as nearly as I can recall it, the substance : — " When with you, I feel sure of you ; but. at a distance, one is often a little afraid of being made the victim, all of a sudden, of some of those fanciful suspicions, which, like meteoric stones, generate themselves (God knows how) in the upper regions of your imagination, and come clattering down upon our heads, some fine sunny day, when we are least expecting such an invasion." In writing thus to him, I had more particularly hi recollection a fancy of this kind respecting myself, which he had, not long before my present visit to him at Venice, taken into his head. In a ludicrous, and now, perhaps, forgotten publication of mine, giving an account of the adventures of an English family in Paris, there had occurred the following description of the chief hero of the tale. " A fine, sallow, sublime sort of "Werter-faced man, With mustachios which gave (what we read of so oft) The dear Corsair expression, half savage, half soft,— As hyaenas in love may be fancied to look, or A something between Abelard and old Blucher." On seeing this doggerel, my noble friend,— as 1 might, indeed, with a little more thought, have anticipated,— conceived the notion that I meant to throw ridicule on his whole race of poetic heroes, and ac- cordingly, as I learned from persons then in frequent intercourse with him, flew out into one of his fits of half-humorous rage against me. This he now confessed himself, and, in laughing over the circum- stance with me, owned that he had even gone so far as, in his first moments of wrath, to contemplate some little retaliation for this per- fidious hit at his heroes. "But when I recollected," said he, "what pleasure it would give the whole tribe of blockheads and Blues to see you and me turning out against each other, I gave up the idea." He was, indeed, a striking instance of what may be almost invariably observed, that they who best know how to wield the weapon of ridi- cule themselves, are the most alive to its power in the hands of others. I remember, one day,— in the year 1813, 1 think,— as we were con- versing together about critics and their influence on the public, " For my part," he exclaimed, " I do n't care what they say of me, so they do n't quiz me." " Oh you need not fear that,"— I answered, with something, perhaps, of a half-suppressed smile on my features, — " nobody could quiz you." " You could, you villain !" he replied, clenching his hand at me, and looking, at the same time, with comic earnest ness into my face. Before I proceed any farther with my own recollections, I shall here 182 N'Ol I'. I S OF THE [a. d. L819. take the opportunity of extracting some curious particulars respecting the habits and mode of life of mv friend while a1 Venice, from an account obligingly furnished me bj a gentleman who long resided in that city, and who, during the greater pari of Kurd Byron's stay, lived on ternis of the must friendly intimacy with him. "1 have often lamented that l kepi uo notice of his observa- tions during our rides and aquatic excursions. Nothing could exceed the vivacity and variety of his conversation, or the cheerfulness of his in. inner. His remarks on the BUrrounduig objects were always Original ; and most particularly striking was the quickness u ith winch he availed himself of every circumstance, however trifling in itself, and such as would have escaped the notice of almost any other person, to carry Ins point in such arguments as we mighl chance to be engaged in. He was feelingly alive to the beauties of nature, and took greal interest in any observations, which, as a dabbler in the arts, I Ventured to make upon the effects of light and shadow, or the changes produced in the colour of objects by every variation m the atmosphere. " The spot where we usually mounted our horses had been a Jewish cemetery ; but the French, during their occupation of Venice, had thrown down the enclosures, and levelled all the tombstones with the ground, in order that they might not interfere with the fortifications upon the Lido, under the guns of which it was situated. To this place, as it was known to be that where he alighted from his gondola and met his horses, the curious among our country people, who were anxious to obtain a glimpse of him, used to resort ; and it was amusing in the extreme to witness the excessive coolness with which ladies, as well as gentlemen, would advance within a very few paces of him, eyeing him, some with their glasses, as they would have done a statue in a museum, or the wild beasts at Exeter 'Change. However Mat- tering this might be to a man's vanity, Lord Byron, though he bore it very patiently, expressed himself, as 1 believe he really was. exces- sively annoyed at it. 41 1 have said that our usual ride was along the seashore, and that the spot where we look horse, and id' course dismounted, had been a cemetery. It will readily be believed, that some caution was neces- sary in riding over the broken tombstones, and that it was altogether an awkward place lor horses to pass. As the length of our ride was not very great, scarcely more than six miles in all, we seldom rode fast, that We might at least prolong its duration, and enjoy ;i> much as possible the refreshing an- of the Adriatic. <>ne day. as we were lei- surely returning homewards, Lord Byron, all at once, and without saying any thimr to me, set spurs to Ins horse and started ofl at full gallop, making the greatesl haste be could to get to his gondola. I could not conceive what lit had seized him, and had some difficulty ill keeping even within a reasonable distance of him, while 1 looked around me to discover, if I were able, what could be the cause ol his unusual precipitation. At l< ngth I perceived at some distance two or three gentlemen, who were running along the opposite side of the island nearest the Lagoon, parallel with him, towards his gondola, hoping to get there m tune to Bee him alight ; and a race actually took place between them, he endeavouring to outstrip them. In this he, in fact, succeeded, and, throwing himself quickly from his horse, leaped into his gondola, of which he hastily closed the blinds, ensconcing himself in a corner so as not to be seen. For my own part, not a.d.1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 163 choosing tp risk my neck over the ground I have spoken of, I followed more leisurely as soon as I came among the gravestones, but got to the place of embarkation just at the same moment with my curious countrymen, and in time to witness their disappointment at having had their run for nothing. I found him exulting in his success in out- stripping them. He expressed in strong terms his annoyance at what he called their impertinence, while I could not but laugh at his impa- tience, as well as at the mortification of the unfortunate pedestrians, whose eagerness to see him, I said, was, in my opinion, highly flat- tering to him. That, he replied, depended on the feeling with which they came, and he had not the vanity to believe that they were influ- enced by any admiration of his character or of his abilities, but that they were impelled merely by idle curiosity. Whether it was so or not, I cannot help thinking that if they had been of the other sex, he would not have been so eager to escape from their observation, as in that case he would have repaid them glance for glance. " The curiosity that was expressed by all classes of travellers to see him, and the eagerness with which they endeavoured to pick up any anecdotes of his mode of life, were carried to a length which will hardly be credited. It formed the chief subject of their inquiries of the gondoliers who conveyed them from terra firma to the floating city ; and these people, who are generally loquacious, were not at all backward in administering to the taste and humours of their passen- gers, relating to them the most extravagant and often unfounded stories. They took care to point out the house where he lived, and to give such hints of his movements as might afford them an oppor- tunity of seeing him. Many of the English visiters, under pretext of seeing his house, in which there were no paintings of any consequence, nor, besides himself, any thing worthy of notice, contrived to obtain admittance through the cupidity of his servants, and with the most barefaced impudence forced their way even into his bedroom, in the hopes of seeing him. Hence arose, in a great measure, his bitterness towards them, which he has expressed in a note to one of his poems, on the occasion of some unfounded remark made upon him by an anonymous traveller in Italy ; and it certainly appears well calculated to foster that cynicism which prevails in his latter works more par- ticularly, and which, as well as the misanthropical expressions that occur in those which first raised his reputation, I do not believe to have been his natural feeling. Of this I am certain, that I never wit- nessed greater kindness than in Lord Byron. ******** " The inmates of his family were all extremely attached to him, and would have endured any thing on his account. He was indeed culpably lenient to them ; for even when instances occurred of their neglecting their duty, or taking an undue advantage of his good-nature, he rather bantered than spoke seriously to them upon it, and could not bring himself to discharge them even when he had threatened to do so. An instance occurred within my knowledge of his unwillingness to act harshly towards a tradesman whom he had materially assisted, not only by lending him money, but by forwarding his interest in every way that he could. Notwithstanding repeated acts of kindness on Lord Byron's part, this man robbed and cheated him in the most bare- faced manner ; and when at length Lord Byron was induced to sue him at law for the recovery of his money, the only punishment he inflicted upon him, when sentence against him was passed, was to NOTICES OF 'I i [a, d. 1819, put li i in in prison for one w i ek, aod then in lei him out agai,n, although debtor had subjected him to a considerable additional expense, by dragging him into all the different courts of appeal, and thai he 01 rer [ast recovered one halfpenny of the money owed to him. Upon this subject he writes t<> me from Ravenna. *If * * iswi (prison), lei him out; if output him in for a week merely for a lesson, aud give him ;i good lecture.' " He \\:is also ever ready tu assist the distressed, and he was most unostentatious in lus charities : for besides considerable su as n nich he gave away to applicants at his own ho contributed largely by weekly and month!) allowances n> persons whom he had never n, and who, as the money reached them by other hands, did not even know who w.i- Hi. n benefactor. One or two instances might be adduced where ins charity certainly bore an appearance of osten- tation ; one particularly when he sent fifty hmis-d'or to a poor printer Whose house had been burned to the '/round, and all his property destroyed; but even this was not unattended with advantage; for it in a manner compelled the Austrian authorities to do something for the poor sufferer, which I have no hesitation in saying they would not have done otherwise ; and 1 attribute it entirely to the publicity of his donation, that they allowed the man the use of an unoccupied house belonging to the government until he could rebuild his own, or re-establish his business elsewhere. Other instances might be per- haps discovered where his liberalities proceeded from selrfsh, and not very worthy motives ;* but these are rare, and it would be unjust in the extreme to assume them as proofs of his character.*' It has been already mentioned that, in writing to my noble friend to announce my coming, I had expressed a hope that he'would be able to go on with me to Rome ; and I had the gratification of finding, on my arrival, that he was fully prepared to enter into this plan." On becoming acquainted, however, with all the details of Ins present situ- ation, I so far sacrificed my Own wishes and pleasure as to ad' .strongly that he should remain .it l,:i Mna. In the first place, I saw reason to apprehend that bus leaving Madame Guiceioli at th might be the means of drawing upon him the suspicion of neg if not actually deserting, a young person who had jus) sacrificed much to her love for him, and whose position, at tins moment, between husband and lover, it. required all the generous prudence of the latter to shield from farther shame or fall. There had just occurred too. as it appeared to me, a mo i favourable opening for the retrieval of, at least, the imprudent part of the transaction, bj replacing the lady instantly under her husband's protection, and Thus enabling her still to retain that station m society which, m such society, nothing but such imprudence could have endangered. This latter hope had been suggested by a letter lie one day showed me (as we were dining together alone, at the well-know n Pellegrino), which had thai morning been received by the Contessa from her husband, and the chief objeel of which was— not to express any cen- sure of her conduct, bin to BUggest that she should -prevail upon her noble admirer to transfer into ins keeping a sum of giooo, which was th.n lying, if i remember right, in the hands of Lord B) ron's banker rbe writer here, BO doubt, Alludes to such questionable liberalities as ad towards tic- Ink 1 . mmIs .>(' ins two favourites, Madame 8 * * x.d. 1819.] LItt; OF LORD BYRON. at Ravenna, but which the worthy Count professed to think would be more advantageously placed in his own. Security, the writer added, would be given, and five per cent, interest allowed ; as to accept of the sum on any other terms he should hold to be an " avvilimento" to him. Though, as regarded the lady herself, who has since proved, by a most noble sacrifice, how perfectly disinterested were her feelings throughout, this trait of so wholly opposite a character in her lord must have still farther increased her disgust at returning to him; yet so important did it seem, as well for her lover's sake as her own, to retrace, while there was yet time, their last imprudent step, that even the sacrifice of this sum, which I saw would materially facilitate such an arrangement, did not appear to me by any means too high a price to pay for it. On this point, however, my noble friend entirely dif- fered with me ; and nothing could be more humorous and amusing than the manner in which, in his newly assumed character of a lover of money, he dilated on the many virtues of a thousand pounds, and his determination not to part with a single one of them to Count Guiccioli. Of his confidence, too, in his own power of extricating himself from this difficulty he spoke with equal gayety and humour ; and Mr. Scott, who joined our party after dinner, having taken the same view of the subject as I did, he laid a wager of two sequins with that gentleman, that, without any such disbursement, he would yet bring all right again, and " save the lady and the money too." It is, indeed, certain, that he had at this time taken up the whim (for it hardly deserves a more serious name) of minute and constant watchfulness over his expenditure ; and, as most usually happens, it ■was with the increase of his means that this increased sense of the value of money came. The first symptom 1 saw of this new fancy of his, was the exceeding joy which he manifested on my presenting to him a rouleau of twenty Napoleons, which Lord K * * d, to whom he had, on some occasion, lent that sura, had intrusted me with, at Milan, to deliver into his hands. With the most joyous and diverting eager- ness, he tore open the paper, and, in counting over the sum, stopped frequently to congratulate himself on the recovery of it. Of his household frugalities I speak but on the authority of others ; but it is not difficult to conceive that, with a restless spirit like his, which delighted always in having something to contend with, and which, but a short time before, " for want," as he said, " of something craggy to break upon," had tortured itself with the study of the Ar° menian language, he should, in default of all better excitement, find a sort of stir and amusement in the task of contesting, inch by inch, every encroachment of expense, and endeavouring to suppress what he himself calls " That climax of all earthly ills, The inflammation of our weekly bills." In truth, his constaut recurrence to the praise of avarice in Don Juan, and the humorous zest with which he delights to dwell on it, shows how new-fangled, as well as how far from serious, was his adoption of this " good old-gentlemanly vice." In the same spirit he had, a short time before my arrival at Venice, established a boarding- box, with a slit in the lid, into which he occasionally put sequins, and, at stated periods, opened it to contemplate his treasures. His own ascetic style of living enabled him. as far as himself was concerned. L86 NOTICES OF THE [a.d. 181 to Ratify tills taste for economy in no ordinary degree, — his daily bill of fare, when tin- Margarita was Ins companion, consisting, I have been assured, of but four baccafichi, of which tin- Pornarinaeat three, leaving even him hungry. That his parsimony, however (if this new phasisof his ever-shiftm» character is to be called by such a name), was very far from being of that kind which Bacon condemns, "as withholding men from works ut liberality," is apparent from all that is known of his munificence, at this very period, — some particulars of which, from a most authentic. source, have just been cited, proving amply that while, for the indul- gence of a whim, he kept one hand dosed, he gave free course to his generous nature by dispensing lavishly from the other. It should be remembered, too, that as long as money shall continue to be one of the great sources of power, so long will they who seek influence over their fellow-men attach value to it as an instrument ; and the more lowly they are inclined to estimate the disinterestedness of the human heart, the more available and precious will they consider the talisman that gives such power over it. Hence, certainly, it is not among those who have thought highest of mankind that the disposition to avarice has most generally displayed itself. In Swift the love of money was strong and avowed; and to Voltaire the same propensity was also frequently imputed, — on about as sufficient grounds, perhaps, as to Lord Byron. On the day preceding that of my departure from Venice, my noble host, on arriving from I, a Mir a to dinner, told me, with all the glee of a schoolboy who had been just granted a holyday, that, as this was my last evening, the Contessa had given him leave to "make a night of it," and that accordingly he would not only accompany me to the opera, but that we should sup together at some cafe (as in the old times) afterward. Observing a volume in his gondola, with a num- ber of paper marks between the leaves, I inquired of him what it was | — " Only a book," he answered, " from which I am trying to crib, as I do whenever I can ;* — and that 's the way I get the character of an original poet." On taking it up and looking into it, 1 exclaimed, "Ah, my old friend \gathon!"t — "What!" he cried, archly, "you have been beforehand with me there, have you?" Though in thus imputing to himself premeditated plagiarism, he was, of course, but jesting, it was, I am inclined to think, his practice, when engaged in the composition of any work, to excite his vein by the perusal of others, on the same subject or plan, from which the slightest hint caught by his imagination, as he read, was sufficient to kindle there such a train of thought as, but for that spark, had never been awakened, and of which he himself soon forgOl the source. In the present instance, the inspiration he BOUghl was of no very elevating nature, — the antispintual doctrines of the Sophist in this Romance!) being what chiefly, I suspect, attracted his attention to its * This will remind the reader of Molierc's avowal in speaking of wit : — ,: C'est mon bien el je le prendl partoul ou je lo trouve." + Tho History of Ag&thon, by \\ iclaud. X Between Wicland, the author of this Romance, and Lord Byron, may bo observed some of those generic points of resemblance which it is so inte- Dg t» trace in the characters of men of genius. The German poet, it issaid, never perused any work that made a strong impression upon him, without ' stimulated to commonce one, himself, on the same topic and plan ; a.d. lSiy.J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. ItiT pages, as not unlikely to supply him with fresh argument and sarcasm for those depreciating views of human nature and its destiny, which he was now, with all the wantonness of unbounded genius, enforcing in Don Juan. Of this work he was, at the time of my visit to him, writing the Third Canto, and before dinner, one day, read me two or three hundred lines of it ; — beginning with the stanzas " Oh Wellington," &c. which at that time formed the opening of this Third Canto, but were after- ward reserved for the commencement of the Ninth. My opinion of the Poem, both as regarded its talent and its mischief, he had already been made acquainted with, from my having been one of those, — his Committee, as he called us, — to whom, at his own desire, the manu- script of the first two Cantos had been submitted, and who, as the reader has seen, angered him not a little by deprecating the publica- tion of it. In a letter which I, at that time, wrote to him on the sub- ject, after praising the exquisite beauty of the scenes between Juan and Haidee, I ventured to say, " Is it not odd that the same license which, in your early Satire, you blamed me for being guilty of on the borders of my twentieth year, you are now yourself (with infinitely greater power, and therefore infinitely greater mischief) indulging in after thirty !" Though I now found him, in full defiance of such remonstrances, proceeding with this work, he had yet, as his own letters prove, been so far influenced by the general outcry against his Poem, as to feel the zeal and zest with which he had commenced it considerably abated, — so much so, as to render, ultimately, in his own opinion, the Third and Fourth Cantos much inferior in spirit to the first two. So sensitive, indeed, — in addition to his usual abundance of this quality, did he, at length, grow on the subject, that when Mr. W. Bankes, who succeeded me as his visiter, happened to tell him, one day, that he had heard a Mr. Saunders (or some such name), then resident at Venice, declare that, in his opinion, " Don Juan was all Grub-street," such an effect had this disparaging speech upon his mind (though coming from a person who, as he himself would have it, was " nothing but a d — d salt-fish seller"), that, for some time after, by his own con- fession to Mr. Bankes, he could not bring himself to write another line of the Poem ; and, one morning, opening a drawer where the neglected manuscript lay, he said to his friend, " Look here — this is all Mr. Saunders's ' Grub-street.' " To return, however, to the details of our last evening together at Venice. After a dinner with Mr. Scott at the Pellegrino, we all went, rather late, to the opera, where the principal part in the Baccanali di Roma was represented by a female singer, whose chief claim to repu- tation, according to Lord Byron, lay in her having stilettoed one of her and in Lord Byron the imitative principle was almost equally active, — there being few of his Poems that might not, in the same manner, be traced to the strong impulse given to his imagination by the perusal of some work that had interested him. In the history, too, of their lives and feelings, there was a strange and painful coincidence, — the revolution that took place in all Wieland's opinions, from the Platonism and romance of his youthful days, to the material and Epicurean doctrines that pervaded all his maturer works, being chiefly, it is supposed, brought about by the shock his heart had re- ceived from a disappointment of his affections in early life. Speaking of the illusion of this first passion, in one of his letters, he says, — " It is one for which no joys, no honours, no gifts of fortune, not even wisdom itself can afford an equivalent, and which, when it has once vanished, returns no more." iSh NO ri( BS OF THE [a.d. L8] favoui In the intervals betwi en the singing be pointed oui td me different persons among tin- audience, to whom celebrity of various sorts, l>ui, lor the must part, disreputable! attached; and of one lady who sit near us, be related an anecdote, which, whether new or old, may, as creditable to Venetian facetiousness, be worth, per- haps, repcatiqgi This lad] had, it Beems, !»<*in pronounced by Napo- leon the finest woman in V enice ; but the \ enetians; not quite agreeing wiili tins opinion of the greal man, contented themselves with calling her " La Bella pet Decrito? — adding (as the Decrees always begin with the worn " Considerando"), " Ma senza il Considerando." From the opera, in pursuance of our agreement to "make a night of it," we betook ourselves to a sort of cabaret in the Place of St. Mark, and there, within a few yards of the Palace of the Doges, sat drinking hot brandy punch, and laughing over old tunes, till the clock of St. nark struck the second hour of the morning. Lord Byron then took me in his gondola, and, the moon being in its fullest splendour; he madclhe gondoliers row us to such points of vievi as might enable me to see Venice, at that hour, to advantage. Nothing could In more solemnly beautiful than the whole scene around, and I had, for the first tune, the Venice of my dreams before me. All those meaner details which so offend the eye by day were now softened down by the moonlight into a sort of visionary indistinctness; and the effeel of that silent city of palaces, sleeping, as it were, upon the waters, in the bright stillness of the night, was such as could not but affect deeply even the leasl susceptible imagination. My companion saw that I was moved by it, and, though familiar with the scene him- self, seemed to give way, for the moment, to the same strain of feeling; and, as we exchanged a few remarks suggested by that wreck of human glory before us, his voice, habitually so cheerful, sunk into a of mournful sweetness, such as 1 had rarely before heard from him, and sliall not easily forget. This mood, however, was bul of the moment; some quick turn of ridicule soon carried him off into a ily different vein, and at about three oelook ill the morning, at the door of his own palazzo, we parted, laughing, as we had met; — an ement having been first made thai 1 should take an early dinner with him next day, at Ins villa, on my road u> Ferrara. Having employed the morning of i he following day in completing my round of Bights at Venice, — taking care to v-i«-it specialh "thai picture bj Giorgione," to winch, the poet's exclamation, "such a woman!"* will long continue to attract all votaries of beauty. — I took my departure from Venice, and, at aboul three o'clock, arrived at La Mira. I found my noble host waiting to n ceive me, and, in passing with him through the hall, saw his little Allegro, who, with her nursery-maid) was standing there as if just returned from a walk. I'o the perverse fancy he had for falsifying his own character, ;m B woman \ love in life !" Burro, stanza ttl. This seem*, by-the-way, to bo an incorrect description of the picture, as, according to Vasari and others, Giorgione never was married, and died \ QUDflf A.'d.1819.] LIFE OF LORD UYRON- iby and made some remark on its beauty, he said to me — " Have you any notion — but I suppose you have — of what they call the parental feel- ing? For myself, I have not the least." And j^et, when that child died, in a year or two afterward, he who now uttered this artificial speech was so overwhelmed by the event, that those who were about him at the time actually trembled for his reason ! A short time before dinner he left the room, and in a minute or two returned, carrying in his hand a white leather bag. " Look here," he said, holding it up, — " this would be worth something to Murray, though you, I dare say, would not give sixpence for it." " What is it ?" I asked. — " My Life and Adventures," he answered. On hearing this, I raised my hands in a gesture of wonder. " It is not a thing," he continued, " that can be published during my lifetime, but you may have it, if you like — there, do whatever you please with it." In taking the bag, and thanking him most warmly, I added, " This will make a nice legacy for my little Tom, who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century with it." He then added, " You may show it to any of our friends you think worthy of it :" — and this is, nearly word for word, the whole of what passed between us on the subject. At dinner we were favoured with the presence of Madame Guiccioli, who was so obliging as to furnish me, at Lord Byron's suggestion, with a letter of introduction to her brother, Count Gatnba, whom it was probable, they both thought, I should meet at Rome. This letter I never had an opportunity of presenting ; and as it was left open for me to read, and was, the greater part of it, I have little doubt, dictated by my noble friend, I may venture, without impropriety, to give an extract from it here ; — premising that the allusion to the " Castle," &c. refers to some tales respecting the cruelty of Lord Byron to his wife which the young count had heard, and, at this time, implicitly believed. After a few sentences of compliment to the bearer, the letter proceeds — " He is on his way to see the wonders of Rome, and there is no one* I arn sure, more qualified to enjoy them. I shall be gratified and obliged by your acting, as far as you can, as his guide. He is a friend of Lord Byron's, and much more accurately acquainted with his his- tory than those who have related it to you. He will accordingly describe to you, if you ask him, the shape, the dimensions, and what- ever else you may please to require, of that Castle, in which he keeps imprisoned a young and innocent wife, &c. &c. My dear Pietro, when- ever you feel inclined to laugh, do send two lines of answer to your sister, who loves and ever will love you with the greatest tenderness. — Teresa Guiccioli."* After expressing his regret that I had not been able to prolong my stay at Venice, my noble friend said, " At least, I think, you might spare a day or two to go with me to Arqua. I should like," he con- tinued, thoughtfully, "to'visit that tomb with you:" — then, breaking x " Egli viene per vedere le meraviglie di questa Citta, e sono certa che nessuno meglio di lui saprcbbe gustarle. Mi sara grato clie vi facciate su;> guida come potrete, e voi poi me ne avrete oboligo. Egli e amico de Lord Byron — sa la sua storia assai piu precisamente di quelli che a voi la raccon- tarono. Egli dunque vi raccontera se lo interrogherete la forma, le dimen- sioni,e tuttocio che vi piacera del Caslello ore time imprigionatauna giovane inn¢e sposa, &c. &l. Mio caro Pietro, quando ti sci bene sfbgato a ridere, nllora rispohdi due righe alia tua sorella, che t' ama e t' amera sempre eoll roaggiore tenerezza." 190 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1819. off into his usual gay tone, "a pair of poetical pilgrims — eh, Tom, what s;i\ you I" — Thai I should have declined ilus oner and thus lost the opportunity of an excursion, which would have been remembered, as a bright dream, through all my after life, is a circumstance 1 never can think of without wonder and self-reproach. Hut the main design on which 1 had then set my mind of reaching Rome and, if possible, Naples, within the limited period which circumstances allowed, ren- dered me far less alive than I ought to have been to the preciousness of the episode thus offered to me. When it was time for me to depart, he expressed his intention to accompany me a few miles, and. ordering his horses to follow, pro- ceeded with me in the carriage as far as Sua, where for the last tune — how little thinking it was to be the last! — 1 bade my kind and admirable friend farewell. LETTER CCCXLI. TO MR. HOPPNER. " October 22d, 1819. " I am glad to hear of your return, but I do not know how to con- gratulate you — unless you think differently of Venice from what I think now, and you thought always. I am, besides, about to renew your troubles by "-enuesting you to be judge between Mr. E * * * and myself in a small matter 01 imputed peculation and irregular accounts on the part of that phoenix of secretaries. As 1 knew that you had not parted friends, at the same time that / refused for my own part any judgment but yours, 1 offered him his choice of any person, the least scoundrel native to be found in Venice, as his own umpire ; but he expressed himself so convinced of your impartiality, that he declined any but you. This is in his favour. — The paper within will explain to you the default in his accounts. You will hear his explana- tion, and decide, if it so please you. I shall not appeal from the decision. "As he complained that his salary was insufficient, I determined to have his accounts < xamined, and the enclosed was the result. — It is all in black and white with documents, and I have despatched Fletcher tO explain (or rather to perplex) the matter. "1 have had much civility and kindness from Mr. Dorville during your join ne_\ , and I thank him accordingly. "Your letter reached me at your departure,* and displeased me very much: — not that it might not be true in its statement and kind m its intention, but you have lived long enough to know how useless all such representations ever are and must lie 111 cases where the passions ' Mr. Iloppner, before his departure from Venice for Switzerland, had, with all the zeal of a true friend, writ ten a letter to Lord Byron, entreating him " to leave Ravenna, while yet he had a whole skin, and urging him not to risk the safety of a person lie appeared so sincerely attached to — as well :i- Ins own — for the gratification of a momentary passion, which could only be a source of regret to both parties.' 1 In the same letter Mr. Moppner in- formed him of some reports he had heard lately at Venice, which, though possibly, be said, unfounded, had much increased his anxiety respecting the conseqaoncet of the connexion formed by him. a. d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 191 are concerned. To reason with men in such a situation is like rea- soning- with a drunkard in his cups— the only answer you will get from him is that he is sober, and you are drunk. " Upon that subject we will (if you like) be silent. You might only say what would distress me without answering any purpose whatever ; and I have too many obligations to you to answer you in the same style. So that you should recollect that you have also that advantage over me. I hope to see you soon. " I suppose you know that they said at Venice, that I was arrested at Bologna as a Carbonaro — a story about as true as their usual con- versation. Moore has been here — I lodged him in my house at Venice, and went to see him daily ; but I could not at that time quit La Mira entirely. You and I were not very far from meeting in Switzerland. With my best respects to Mrs". Hoppner, believe me ever and truly, &c. " P.S. Allegra is here in good health and spirits— I shall keep her with me till I go to England, which will perhaps be in the spring. It has just occurred to me that you may not perhaps like to under- take the office of judge between Mr. E. and your humble servant. — Of course, as Mr. Liston (the comedian, not the ambassador) says, *it is all hoptionalf but I have no other resource. I do not wish to find him a rascal, if it can be avoided, and would rather think him guilty of carelessness than cheating. The case is this— can I, or not, give him a character for honesty ? — It is not my intention to continue him in my service." LETTER CCCXLII. TO MR. HOPPNER. " October 25th, 1819. •You need not have made any excuses about the letter ; I never said but that you might, could, should, or would have reason. I merely described my own state of inaptitude to listen to it at that time, and in those circumstances. Besides, you did not speak from your own authority — but from what you said you had heard. Now my blood boils to hear an Italian speaking ill of another Italian, because, though they lie in particular, they speak truth in general by speaking ill at all — and although they know that they are trying and wishing to lie, they do not succeed, merely because they can say nothing so bad of each other, that it may not, and must not be true from the atrocity of their long-debased national character.* * " This language," says Mr. Hoppner, in some remarks upon the above letter, " is strong, but it was the language of prejudice ; and he was rather apt thus to express the feelings of the moment, without troubling himself to consider how soon he might be induced to change them. He was at this time so sensitive on the subject of Madame * *, that, merely because some persons had disapproved of her conduct, he declaimed in the above manner against the whole nation. I never," continues Mr. Hoppner, " was partial to Venice ; but disliked it almost from the first month of my residence there. Yet I experienced more kindness in that place than I ever met with in any country, and witnessed acts of generosity and disinterestedness such a* rarely are met with elsewhere." 19-j OF THE |_a. u. lolu. "With regard to E. you will perceives m i it, extravagaa ount, withoul proper documents to support it. He demanded an increase of salary, which made me suspect him; he supported an outrageous extravagance of expenditure, and did not Like the i mission of the rook; he never coi i I of him — us in duty bound — ai the time of his robberies* I can only say, that the house expensi is now under one-Aoj^of whal it then was, as he himself admits. 1 1 « charged for a comb eighteen francs, — the real price was eight. ll< chargi d a passage from Pusina for a ,- : - >"ii named Eambelli, who paid il herself, as siic w ill prove, if necessary. 1 Le fancies, or asserts himself, the victim of a domestic cdmplot against him ; — accounts are accounts — prices arc prices;— let him make out a fair detail. / am not pre- judiced against him— on the contrary,] supported him against the complaints of his wife, and of ins former master, at a tunc when I could have crushed him like an ear-wig, and if he is a scoundrel, lie is the greatest of scoundrels, an ungrateful one. The truth is, pro bably, tiiat he thought I was Leaving Venice, and determined to make the most of it. At present he keeps bringing in account after account, though he had always money in hand — as I believe you know my system was never to allow longer than a week's bills to run. Praj read him this letter — I desire nothing to be concealed against which he may defend himself. " Pray how is your Little boyl and how are you — T shall be up in Venice very soon, and we will be bilious together, i hate the place and all that it inherits. • Yours, &c." LETTER CCCXLIII. TO MR. HOPPNEU. " October 38th, 1819, # ■ # • " I have to thank you for your letter, and your compliment to Don Juan. I said nothing to you about it, understanding that it is a sore .subject witii the moral nadcr, and has been the cause of a greal row; but I am glad you Like it. 1 will saj nothing about the shipwreck, excepl that I hope you think it is as nautical and technical as verse could admit in the Octave incisure. "The poem has not told well, so Murray says— * but the best judg &c. say, &c' so Bays that worthy man. 'I have never seen it in print. The Third Canto is in advance about one hundred stair/:, but the failure of the first two has weakened my tstro, and it will neither be so good as the former two, nor completed, unless 1 get a little more risctil in its behalf. I understand the outcry was beyond every thing. — Pretty cant for people who read Tom .lones, mi Roderick Random, and the Bath Guide, and Iriosto, and Dryden, and Popt — to say nothing of tittle's Poems. Of course I referto the morality of these works, and not to any pretension of mine to compete with them in an) thing but decency. 1 hope yours is the Paris edition, and that you did not pay the London price. I have seen tier except in the newspapers. " Pray make ,o\ respects to Mis. II., and lake care of your little boy. \ti myhousehold have the fever and ague, excepl Fletcher, a. d. ibiy.j LIFE OF LORD BY RON. *93 Allegra, and mysen (as we used to say in Nottinghamshire), and the horses, and Mutz, and Moretto. In the beginning of November, perhaps sooner, I expect to have the pleasure of seeing you. To-day I got drenched by a thunder-storm, and my horse and groom too, and his horse all bemired up to the middle in a cross-road. It was summer, at noon, and at five we were bewintered ; but the lightning was sent perhaps to let us know that the summer was not yet over. It is queer weather for the 27th of October. •• Yours, &c."' LETTER CCCXLIY. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, October 29th, 1819. " Yours of the 15th came yesterday. I am sorry that you do not mention a large letter addressed to your care for Lady Byron, from me, at Bglogna, two months ago. Pray tell me, was this letter re- ceived and forwarded ? " You say nothing of the vice-consulate for the Ravenna patrician- from which it is to be inferred that the thing will not be done. " I had written about a hundred stanzas of a Third Canto to Doit Juan, but the reception of the first two is no encouragement to you nor me to proceed. " I had also written about six hundred lines of a poem, the Vision (or Prophecy) of Dante, the subject a view of Italy in the ages down to the present — supposing Dante to speak in his own person, previous to his death, and embracing all topics in the way of prophecy, like Lycophron's Cassandra ; but this and the other are both at a stand- still for the present. " I gave Moore, who is gone to Rome, my life in MS., in 78 folio sheets, brought down to 1816. But this I put into his hands for his care, as he has some other MSS. of mine — a Journal kept in 1814, &c. Neither are for publication during my life, but when I am cold, you may do what you please. In the mean time, if you like to'read them you may, and show them to any body you like — I care not. " The Life is Memoranda, and not Confessions. I have left out ail my loves (except in a general way), and many other of the most im- portant things (because I must not compromise other people), so that it is like the play of Hamlet — ' the part of Hamlet omitted by particu- lar desire.' But you will find many opinions, and some fun, with a detailed account of my marriage and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such account, for I suppose we are all pre^ judiced. " I have never read over this Life since it was written, so that I know not exactly what it may repeat or contain. Moore and I passed some merry days together. ****** " I probably must return for business, or in my way to America. Pray, did you get a letter for Hobhouse, who will have told you the contents'? I understand that the Venezuelan commissioners had orders to treat with emigrants ; now I want to go there. I should not make a bad South American planter, and I should take my natural daughter, Allegra, with n"*, and settle. J wrnfr, zt ^ngtb, to Hob- m NOTICES OF THE [a. d. lbiv- house, to g< . information from Perry, who, 1 suppose, is the In topographer and trumpeter of the new republicans. Pray write. " Yours, ever. " P.S. Moore and I did nothing but laugh. He will tell you 01 •my whereabouts, 1 and all my proceedings at ihis present; they are as usual. You should not let those fellows publish false ' Don .hums;" but do not put my name, because I mean to cut H — ts up like a gourd •n the preface, if I continue the poem." LETTER CCCXL\ . TO MR. HOPPNER. •■ October 29th, 1819. "The Ferrara story is of a piece with all the reel of the Venetiai manufacture, — you may judge : 1 only changed horses there since I wrote to you, after my visit in June last. ' Convent,'' and k carry off} quotha! and i girW 1 should like to know -who has been earned off, except poor dear me. I have been more ravished myself than any body since the Trojan war ; but as to the arrest, and its causes, one is as true as the other, and I can account for the invention of neither. I suppose it is some confusion of the tale of the F** and of M' . Guiccioli. and half a dozen more ; but it is useless to unravel the web, when one has only to brush it away, I shall settle with Master V,., who looks very blue at your in-decision, and swears that he is the best arithme- tician in Europe; and so 1 think also, for he makes out two and two to be five. " You may see me next week. I have a horse or two more (five in all), and I shall repossess myself of Lido, and I will rise earlier, and we will go and shake our Livers over the beach, as heretofore, if you like — and we will make the Adriatic roar again with our hatred of that now empty oyster-shell, without its pearl, the city of Venice. " Murra\ sent me a litter yesterday: the impostors have published two new Third Cantos , of Don Juan: — the devil take the impudenct of some blackguard bookseller or other there/or/ Perhaps 1 did not make myself understood; he told 1 me the sale had been great, 1-300 out of 1600 quarto, I believe (which is nothing, after selling 13,000 of the Corsair in one day); but that the 'best judges,' &c. had said it was very fine, and clever, and particularly good English, and poetry, and all those consolatory things, which are not, however, worth a Single copy to a bookseller: and as to the author, of course 1 am ill a d — ned passion at the bad taste of the times, and swear there is nothing like posterity, who, of course, must know more of the matter than their grandfathers. There has been an eleventh commandment to the women not to read it, and what* Btill more extraordinary, thi \ seem not to have lirokeu it. Hut tl™ can he of little import to them, poor things, for the reading or non-reading a book will neve "Count (i. conies to Venice next week, and I am requested to con- sign his wife to him, which shall be done. * * What you say of the long evenings at the Mira, or Venice, reminds me of what Curran said to Moore : — ' So I hear you have married a pretty very good creature, too — an excellent creature. Pray a. i>. 1819. J LIFE OF LOUD BYRON. 196 — um ! — how do you pass your evenings /" It is a devil of a question that, and perhaps as easy to answer with a wife as with a mistress. " If you go to Milan, pray leave at least a Vice-Consul — the only vice that will ever be wanting at Venice. D'Orville is a good fellow. But you shall go to England in the spring with me, and plant Mrs. Hoppner at Berne with her relations for a few months. I wish you had been here (at Venice, I mean, not the Mira) when Moore was here — we were very merry and tipsy. He hated Venice, by-the-way, and swore it was a sad place.* " So Madame Albrizzi's death is in danger — poor woman ! * * * * * * * . * Moore told me that at Geneva they had made a devil of a story of the Fornaretta : — ' Young lady seduced ! — subsequent abandonment ! — leap into the Grand Canal !' — and her being in the ' hospital ofjbus in consequence !* I should like to know who was nearest being made i Jbu,' > and be d d to them ! Do n't you think me in the interesting character of a very ill-used gentleman ? I hope your little boy is well. Allegrina is flourishing like a pomegranate blossom. " Yours, &c, " LETTER CCCXLVI. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, November 8th, 1819. "Mr. Hoppner has lent me a copy of ' Don Juan,' Paris edition, which he tells me is read in Switzerland by clergymen and ladies, \jith considerable approbation. In the Second Canto, you must alter the 49th stanza to " 'T was twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters, like a veil Which if withdrawn would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail ; Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale And the dim desolate deep ; twelve days had Fear Been their familiar, and now Death was here. " I have been ill these eight days with a tertian fever, caught in the country on horseback in a thunder-storm. Yesterday I had the fourth attack : the two last were very smart, the first day as well as the last being preceded by vomiting. It is the fever of the place and the season. I feel weakened, but not unwell, in the intervals, except headache and lassitude. " Count Guiccioli has* arrived in Venice, and has presented his spouse (who had preceded him two months for her health and the prescriptions of Dr. Aglietti) with a paper of conditions, regulations of hours, and conduct, and morals, &c. &c. &c, which he insists on her accepting, and she persists in refusing. I am expressly, it should seem, excluded by this treaty, as an indispensable preliminary ; so * I beg to say, that this report of my opinion of Venice is coloured some- what too deeply by the feelings of the reporter. N2 1K6 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. ibii, that they arc in high dissension, and what the result may be, I ki, not, particularly as they are consulting friends. •* To-night, as Countess Guiccioli observed me poring over 'Don Juan,' she .stumbled by mere chance <>n the |37tb stanza of the first • '.into, and asked me what it meant. I told her, ' Nothing, — but " your husband is coming." 1 As I said tins in Italian with some ernpha- she started up in a fright, and said, ' Oh, my God, is he coming'' thinking it was her own, who either w as or ought t<> have been at tin theatre. You may suppose we laughed when she found out the mis- take. You will be amused, as I was; — it happened not three hours ago. " I wrote to you last week, but have added nothing to the Third Canto since my fever, nor to ' The Prophecy of Dante.' Of the for- mer there are about a hundred octaves done; of the latter about fivt hundred lines — perhaps more. Moore saw the Third Juan, as far as it then went. 1 do not know if my fever will let me go on with either, and the tertian lasts, they say, a good while. 1 had it m Malta on m\ way home, and the malaria fever in Greece the year before that. The Venetian is not very fierce, but 1 was delirious one of the nights with it, for an hour or two, and, on my senses coining back, found Fletcher sobbing on one side of the bed, and La Contessa Guiccioli* weeping on the other; so that I had no want of attendance. 1 have not yet taken any physician, because, though I think they may relievi ji chronic disorders, such as gout and the like, &c. &c Kc (though they can't cure them) — just as surgeons are necessary to set bom . ad tend wounds — yet 1 think fevers quite out of their reach, and re- mediable only by diet and nature. " I do n't like the taste of bark, but I suppose that 1 must takfe i: soon. "Tell Rose that somebody at Milan (an Austrian, Mr. Noppner says), is answering his book. William Bankes is in quarantine at Trieste. I have not lately heard from you. Excuse this paper: it is 'i' • The following curious particulars of his delirium are given by Mao rmiccioli: — "At the beginning of winter Count Quiocioli came from Ra- venna to fetch inc. When In: arrived, Lord Byron was ill of a fever, occa- sioned by his having got wet through; a violent Btorm having Burpri him while taking lus usual exercise on horseback. He had been delirious the whole night, and I had watched continually by his bedside. During bin delirium he composed a troud many verses, and ordered his servant to - rite them down from his dictation. The rhythm of these verses was quite correct, and the poetry itself bad no appearance of being the work of a delirious mind, lie preserved them for some time after begot well, and then burned them." — " Sul cominciare dell' inverno il ( lonte < ; uiccioli venne ;> prendcrmi per ricondurini a Ravenna. Quando egli giun e l.d. Byron era ammalatodi orpresi un forte temporals mentrs .,il\i ati I li aveva delirato tutta la nottc, ed io aveva sempre vegliato , al suo letto. Nol suo delirio egli compi molti vcrsi che ordino al - neatico di sorivore sotto la sua dittaturu. La misura doi versi era ei ■ e la poesia pure non pareva opera di una tnentn in delirio. Egli la conservd lungo rcstabilito — poi Tab bruccio." I bavo been informed, too, that during his ravings at this time, he wai constantly haunted by thi bis mother-in-law, — taking every one tba' ii'-.. '• ■ ching those about him for m i. D. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 197 long paper shortened for the occasion. What folly is this of Carlisle's trial 1 why let him have the honours of a martyr 1 it will only adver- tise the books in question. " Yours, &c. " P.S. As I tell you that the Guiccioli business is on the eve of ex- ploding in one way or the others I will just add, that without attempt- ing to influence the decision of the Contessa, a good deal depends upon it. If she and her husband make it up, you will perhaps see me in England sooner than you expect. If not, 1 shall retire with her to France or America, change my name, and lead a quiet provincial life. All this may seem odd, but I have got the poor girl into a scrape ; and as neither her birth, nor her rank, nor her connexions by birth or marriage, are inferior to my own, I am in honour bound to support her through. Besides, she is a very pretty woman — ask Moore — and not yet one-and-tvventy. " If she gets over this, and I get over my tertian, I will perhaps look in at Albemarle-street, some of these days, en passant to Bolivar. LETTER CCCXLVII. TO MR. BANKES. " Venice, November 20th, 1819. • 4 A tertian ague which has troubled me for some time, and the indis- position of my daughter, have prevented me from replying before to your welcome letter. I have not been ignorant of your progress nor of your discoveries, and I trust that you are no worse in health from your labours. You may rely upon finding every body in England eager to reap the fruits of them; and as you have done more than other men, I hope you will not limit yourself to saying less than may do justice to the talents and time you have bestowed on your perilous researches. The first sentence of my letter will have explained to you why I cannot join you at Trieste. I was on the point of setting out for England (before I knew of your arrival) when my child's illness has made her and me dependent on a Venetian Proto- Medico. " It is now seven years since you and I met ; — which time you have employed better for others, and more honourably for yourself, than I have done. " In England you will find considerable changes, public and private, — you will see some of our old college contemporaries turned into lords of the treasury, admiralty, and the like, — others become reform- ers and orators, — many settled in life, as it is called, — and others settled in death ; among the latter (by-the-way, not our fellow-col- legians), Sheridan, Curran, Lady Melbourne, Monk Lewis, Frederick Douglas, &c. &c. &c. ; but you will still find Mr. * * living and all his family, as also * * * * * * # "Should you come up this way, and I am still here, you need not be assured how glad I shall be to see you ; 1 long to hear some part, from you, of that which I expect in no long time to see. At length you have had better fortune than any traveller of equal enterprise (except Humboldt), in returning safe: and after the fate of the L98 NOTICES OF THE [a.d.1819 Bro\vn< is, and the Parkes, and the Burckhardts, it is hardly less sur- prise than satisfaction to get you hack again. ■• Believe me over •' and very affectionately yours, " Byron.*' LETTER rcf XLV1I1. To Mil. HURRAY. "Venice, Dec. 4th, 1819. M You nia\ do as you pl< ase, bol you arc about a hopeless experi- ment. Bldon will decide against you, wen- it only that my name is in the recur.]. You will also recollect th.it if the publication is pro- nounced against, on the grounds you mention, as indecent and Slat phemous, that / lose all right in my daughter's gwrdiamhip and alv- cation, in short, all paternal authority, and every thing concerning her. except ** #**##***_ It was so decided in Shelley's case, because he had written Queen Mab, &c. &c. However, you can ask the lawyers, and do as you like: I do not inhibit you trying the question: 1 merely state one of ihe consequences to me. With regard to the copyright, it is hard that you should pay for a nonentity : I will therefore refund it, which I can very well do, not havingspent it, nor begun upon it ; and so wc will be quits on that score. It lies at my banker's. " Of the Chancellor's law I am no judge ; but take up Tom Jones, and read his Mrs. Waters and Molly Seagrim ; or Prior's Hans Carvel and Paulo Purganti; Smollett's Roderick Random, the chapter of Lord Strutwell, and many others ; Peregrine Pickle, the scene of the Beggar Girl ; Johnson's London, for coarse expressions ; for instance, the words ' * *,' and '* *;' Anstey's Bath Guide, the ' Hearken, Ladj Betty, hearken ;' — take up, in short, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Dryden, Fielding, Smollett, and let the Counsel select passages, and what be- comes of their copyright, if his Wat Tyler decision is to pass into a precedent ? I have nothing more to say : you must judge for your- selves. "I wrote to you some time ago. I have had a tertian ague; my daughter Allegra has been ill also, and 1 have been almost obliged to run away with a married woman; but with some difficulty, and man} internal Struggles, I reconciled the lady with her hud, and cured the fever of the child with bark, and my own with cold water. I think of .setting out for England by the Tyrol in a few days, bo that 1 could wish you to direct your next letter to Calais. Ivvuse my willing in ; ri.it haste and late m the morning, or night, whichever you pleasi io call it. The Third Canto of ' Don Juan' is completed, m about two hundred stanzas; very decent. I believe, but do not know, and it is useless to discuss until it be ascertained, if it may or may not be a property. "My present determination to quit Italy was unlooked for; but I explained the reasons in letters to my sister and Douglas Kin- laird, a week or two ago. My progress will depend upon the snows of the Tyrol, and the health of my child, who is at present quite re- ered : _ hut I hope to gel on well, :md am " Yours ever and trnh A . d. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 199 " P.S. Many thanks for your letters, to which you are not to con- sider this as an answer, but as an acknowledgment." The struggle which, at the time of my visit to him, I had found Lord Byron so well disposed to make towards averting, as far as now lay in his power, some of the mischievous consequences which, both to the object of his attachment and himself, were likely to result from their connexion, had been brought, as the foregoing letters show, to a crisis soon after I left him. The Count Guiccioli, on his arrival at Venice, insisted, as we have seen, that his lady should return with him; and, after some conjugal negotiations, in which Lord Byron does not appear to have interfered, the young Contessa consented re- luctantly to accompany her lord to Ravenna, it being first covenanted, that, in future, all communication between her and her lover should cease. " In a few days after this," says Mr. Hoppner, in some notices of his noble friend with which he has favoured me, " he returned to Venice, very much out of spirits, owing to Madame Guiccioli's de- parture, and out of humour with every body and every thing around him. We resumed our rides at the Lido, and I did my best, not only to raise his spirits, but to make him forget his absent mistress, and to keep him to his purpose of returning to England. He went into no society, and having no longer any relish for his former occupation his time, when he was not writing, hung heavy enough on hand." The promise given by the lovers not to correspond, was, as all par- ties must have foreseen, soon violated ; and the letters Lord Byron addressed to the lady, at this time, though written in a language not his own, are rendered frequently even eloquent by the mere force of the feeling that governed him — a feeling which could not have owed its fuel to fancy alone, since now that reality had been so long sub- stituted, it still burned on. From one of these letters, dated Novem- ber 25th, I shall so far presume upon the discretionary power vested in me, as to lay a short extract or two before the read?* — not merely as matters of curiosity, but on account of the strong evidence they afford of the struggle between passion and a sense of right that now- agitated him. " You are," he says, " and ever will be, my first thought. But at this moment, I am in a state most dreadful, not knowing which way to decide ; — on the one hand, fearing that I should compromise you for ever, by my return to Ravenna and the consequences of such a step, and, on the other, dreading that I shall lose both you and myself, and all that I have ever known or tasted of happiness, by never seeing you more. I pray of you, I implore you to be comforted, and to be- lieve that I cannot cease to love you but with my life."* In another part he says, " I go to save you, and leave a country insupportable to me without you. Your letters to F * * and myself do wrong to my motives — but you will yet see your injustice. It is not enough that I must leave you — from motives of which ere long you will be con- * " Tu sei, e sarai sempre mio primo pensier. Ma in questo momento sono in un' stato orribile non sapendo cosa decidere ; temendo, da una parte comprometterti in eterno col mio ritorno a Ravenna, e colle sue consequenze ; o, dal' altra psrderti, e me stesso, e tutto quel che ho conosciuto ho gustato di feliciti, nel non vederti piu. Ti prego, ti supplico calmarti. o credere che non nosso cessare ad amarti che colla vita." NO I [CES IN ii. i D. loi: 1 vinced — it is not enough that I must lly from Italy, with a heart deeplj tunded, after having passed all my days in solitude since your de- parture, sick both in body and mind — IhH 1 must also have to eiidun ,.>iir reproaches without answering and withoul deserving them. Farewell ! — in that one word is comprised the death of my happiness."* Id had now arranged everything for bis departure for England, and had even fixed the day, when accounts reached him from Rai enn that the Contesss was alarmingly ill;- her sorrow at their separation ing so much preyed upon her mind, that even her own family, fearful of the Consequences, had withdrawn all opposition to hci wishes, and now, with the sanction of Count Guiccioli himself, en- treated her lover to hasten to Waveiui a. What was lie, in this dilemma. to do? Already had he announced his coming to different friends in England, and every dictate, he felt, of prudence and manly fortitudt urged his departure. While thus balancing between dut) and incli- nation, the day appointed for his setting out arrived ; and the follow- ing; picture, from the life, of his irresolution on the occasion, is from a letter written by a female friend of Madame Guiccioli, who was pre- sent at the scene. " lie was ready dressed for the journey, his gloves and cap on, and even his little cane in his hand. Nothing was now waited for but his coming- down stairs, — his boxes being already all on hoard the gondola. At this moment, my lord, by way of pretext declares, that if it should strike one o'clock before every thing was in order (his arms being the only thing not yet quite ready), he would not go that day. The hour strikes, and Ik 1 remains!"! The writer adds. '• il is evident he has not the heart to go ;" and thr result proved that she had not judged him wrongly. The very next day's tidings from Ravenna decided his fate, and he himself, in a let- ter to the Contessa, thus announces the triumph u.ich she had achieved. " F * * * will already have told you, with her accustomed sublimity, that Love has gained the victory. I could not summon up resolution enough to leave the country where you are, without, least, once more aeeing you. On yourself, perhaps, it will depend, whether 1 ever again shall leave you. Of the rest we shall speak when we meet. You Ought, by tins tune, to know which is most con- ducive to your welfare, my presence or my absence. For myself, I am a citizen of the world — all countries are alike to me. You havi * " Io parto, per salvarti, e lascio un paesc divenuto insopportabde sen/:: di to. Le tue lettere alia V * *, cd audio a me stesso fanno torto ai miei motivi : ma col tempo vedrai la tua ingiuatilia. Tu parh del dolor — io l( •Hcnto, ma mi mancano Io parole. Non baata laaciarti |>er dei motivi (r|' • .. 1819.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON". ever been, since our first acquaintance, the sole object of my thoughts. My opinion was, that the best course I could adopt, both for your peace and that of all your family, would have been to depart and go far, Jar away from you ; — since to have been near and not approach you would have been, for me, impossible. You have however decided that I am to return to Ravenna. I shall accordingly return — and shall do —and be all that you wish. I cannot say more."* On quitting Venice he took leave of Mr. Hoppner in a short but cor- dial letter, which I cannot better introduce than by prefixing to it the few words of comment with which this excellent friend of the noble poet has himself accompanied it. " I need not say with what painful feeling I witnessed the departure of a person who, from the first day of our acquaintance, had treated me with unwearied kindness, repos- ing a confidence in me which it was beyond the power of my utmost efforts to deserve ; admitting me to an intimacy which I had no right to claim, and listening with patience, and the greatest good temper, to the remonstrances I ventured to make upon his conduct." LETTER CCCXLIX. TO MR. HOPPNER. k: MY DEAR HOPPNER, " Partings are but bitter work at best, so that I shall not venture on a second with you. Pray make my respects to Mrs. Hoppner, and assure her of my unalterable reverence for the singular goodness of her disposition, which is not without its reward even in this world — for those who are no great believers in human virtues would discover enough in her to give them a better opinion of their fellow-creatures, and — what is still more difficult — of themselves, as being of the same species, however inferior in approaching its nobler models. Make, too, what excuses you can for my omission of the ceremony of leave- taking. If we all meet again, I will make my humblest apology; if not, recollect that I wished you all well ; and, if you can, forget that I have given you a great deal of trouble. " Yours, &c. &c." * " La F * * ti avra detta, colla sua solita sublimita, che l'Amor ha vinto. Io non ho potuto trovare forza di annua par lasciare il paese dove tu sei, senza vederti almeno un' altra volta : — iorse dipendera. da te se mai ti lascio piu. Per il resto parleretno. 1 u dovresti adesso sapere cosa sara piu con- venevole al tuo ben essere la mia presenza o la mia lontananza. Io sono cit- tadino del mondo — tutti i paesi sono eguali per me. Tu sei stata sempre (dopo che ci siamo conosciuti) Vunico oggetto di miei pensieri. Credeva che il miglior partito per la pace tua e la pace di tua famiglia fosse il mio partirc, e andare ben lontano ; poiche stare vicino e non avvicinarti sarebbe per me impossibile. Ma tu hai deciso che io deb'oo ritornare a Ravenna — tornaro — » a faro — e saro cio rlip tu vnoi. Non posso dirti di piu." NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1819 LETTER CCCL. TO MR. MURRAY. " Venice, December 10th, 1819. "Since I last wrote, I have changed my mind, and shall not come to England. The more I contemplate, the more I dislike the place and the prospect. Yop may therefore address to me as usual here, though I mean to go t<> another city. I have finished the Third Canto of Don Juan, but the things I have read and heard discourage all far- ther publication — at least fur the present. Yon may try the copy question, hut you '11 lose it: the cry is up, and cant is up. 1 should have no objection to return the price of the copyright, and have writ- ten to Air. Kinnaird by this post on the subject. Talk with him. " I have not the patience, nor do 1 feel interest enough in the ques- tion, to contend with the fellows in their own slang; but I perceive Mr. Blackwood's Magazine and one or two others of your missives have been hyperbolical in their praise, and diabolical in their abuse. I like and admire W * * n, and he should not have indulged himself in such outrageous license.* It is overdone and defeats itself. What would he say to the grossness without passion and the misanthropy Without feeling of Gulliver's Travels ? — When he talks of lad] Byron's business, he talks of-what he knows nothing about ; and you may tell him that no one can more desire a public investigation of that affair than I do. " I sent home by Moore {for Moore only, who lias my journal also) my Memoir written up to 1816, and 1 gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, but not to publish, on any account. You may read it, and you may let W * * n read it, if he likes — not for his public opi- nion, but his private; for I like the man, and care very little about his magazine. And 1 could wish Lady M. herself to read it, that she may have it in her power to mark any thing mistaken or misstated; as it may probably appear after my extinction, and it would be but fair she should see it, — that is to say, herself willing. "Perhaps 1 may take a journey to you in the spring; but I have been ill and am indolent and indecisive, because few things interest me. These fellows first abused me for being gloomy, and now they are wroth that I am, or attempted to lie, facetious. I have got such a COld and headache that I can hardly Bee what I scrawl; — the winters here arc as sharp as needles. Sonic tune ago I wrote to you rather fully about mj Italian affairs; at present 1 can say no more except that you shall hear farther by-and-by. "Your Blackwood accuses me of treating women harshly: it may be so, but I have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them. I mean to leave Venice in a few days, but you will address your letters Acre as usual. When I fix elsewhere, you shall know." Tins is one of the many mistakes into which his distance from the scene of literary operations led him. The gentleman to whom the hostile article in the Magazine is here attributed, hae never, cither then or since, written upon the .subject of the noble poet's character or genius, without giving vent to a. feeling of admiration a« enthusiastic a? it is always eloquently and powei illv expressed. a. v. 1819.] LIFE OF LOUD BYRON. 203 Soon after this letter to Mr. Murray he set out for Ravenna, from which place we shall find his correspondence for the next year and a half dated. For a short time after his arrival, he took up his residence at an inn ; but the Count Guiccioli having allowed him to hire a suite of apartments in the Palazzo Guiccioli itself, he was once more lodged under the same roof with his mistress. LETTER CCCLI. TO MR. HOFPNER. "Ravenna, December 31st, 1819. " I have been here this week, and was obliged to put on my armour and go the night after my arrival to the Marquis Cavalli's, where there Avere between two and three hundred of the best company I have seen in Italy, — more beauty, more youth, and more diamonds among the women than have been seen these fifty years in the Sea-Sodom.* I never saw such a difference between two places of the same latitude (or ©latitude, it is all one),— music, dancing, and play, all in the same salle. The G.'s object appeared to be to parade her foreign lover as much as possible, and, faith, if she seemed to glory in the scandal, it was. not for me to be ashamed of it. Nobody seemed surprised ; — all the women, on the contrary, were, as it were, delighted with the excel- lent example. The vice-legate, and all the other vices, were as polite as could be ; — and I, who had acted on the reserve, was fairly obliged to take the lady under my arm, and look as much like a cicisbeo as I could on so short a notice, — to say nothing of the embarrassment of a cocked hat and sword, much more formidable to me than ever it will be to the enemy. " I write in great haste — do you answer as hastily. I can under- stand nothing of all this ; but it seems as if the G. had been presumed to be planted, and was determined to show that she was not,— planta- tion, in this hemisphere, being the greatest moral misfortune. But this is mere conjecture, for I know nothing about it— except that every body are very kind to her, and not discourteous to me. Fathers, and all relations, quite agreeable. "Yours ever, "B. "P.S. Best respects to Mrs. H. " I would send the compliments of the season ; but the season itself is so little complimentary with snow and rain that I wait for sun- shine." * " Gehenna oC the waters! thou Sea-Sodom I" MARINO FAT.IERO. NOTICES OP THE LETTER CCCLII. TO MK. MOORE. "January 2d, 1820. '*MY DEAR MOORE, "'To-day it is my wedding-day, Aild all the folks would stare If wife should dine at Edmonton, And 1 should dine at W are.' ' *r thus, — • ; Here \s a happy new year! but with reason I beg you Ml permit me to say — Wish me muny returns of the season, 13ut as Jew as you please of the day. •• My this present writing is to direct you that, if she chooses, she may see the MS. Memoir in your possession. I wish her to have fair play, in all eases, even though it will not be published till after my decease. For this purpose, it were but just thai Lady B. should know what is there said of her and hers, that she may have full power to remark on or respond to any pari or parts, as may seem fitting to her- self. This is fair dealing, I presume, in all events. " To change the subject, arc you in England ? 1 send you an epitaph for Castlereagh. • * * Vnofher for Pitt — " With death doom'd to grnpph Beneath this cold slab, he Who lied in the Chapel Now lies in the Abbey. " The gods seem to have made me poetical this day : — "In digging up your bones, Tom Paine. \\ ill. ( lobbetl has done well: You visit him on earth again. He'll visit you in hell. ••Yiiii come to him on earth again. He'll go with you to hell. •• Pray let nol these versiculi <_ r o forth with my name, except amon» the initiated, because my friend II. has foamed into a reformer, and, I greatly fear, will subside into Newgate; since the Honourable Rouse, according to Galignani's Reports of Parliamentary Debates, are aenacmg a prosecution to a pamphlet of his. I shall be very sorry to hear of any thing but good for linn, particularly in these miserable squabbles; but these are the natural effects of taking a part in them. " For my own part, I had a sad scene since you went. Count Gu. ■ •nine for bis wife, and none of those consequence': which. Srott pro- a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 205 phesied ensued. There was no damages, as in England, and so Scott lost his wager. But there was a great scene, for she would not, at first, go back with him — at least, she did go back, with him; but he insisted, reasonably enough, that all communication should be broken off between her and me. So, finding Italy very dull, and having a fever tertian, I packed up my valise and prepared to cross the Alps ; but my daughter fell ill, and detained me. 44 After her arrival at Ravenna, the Guiccioli fell ill again too ; and, at last, her father (who had, all along, opposed the liaison most vio- lently till now) wrote to me to say that she was in such a stale that, he begged me to come and see her, — and that her husband had acquiesced, in consequence of her relapse, and that he (her fattier) would guarantee all this, and that there would be no farther scenes in consequence between them, and that I should not be compromised in any way. I set out soon after, and have been here ever since. I found her a good deal altered, but getting better : — all this comes of r< ading Corinna. " The Carnival is about to begin, and I saw about two or three hundred people at the Marquis Cavalli's the other evening, with as much youth, beauty, and diamonds among the women, as ever ave- raged in the like number. My appearance in waiting on the Guiccioli was considered as a thing of course. The Marquis is her uncle, and naturally considered me as her relation. " The paper is out, and so is the letter. Pray write. Address to Venice, whence the letters will be forwarded. " Yours, &c. « B. r LETTER CCCLIII. TO MR. HOPPNER. " Ravenna, January 20th, 1820. " I have not decided any thing about remaining at Ravenna. I ma} stay a day, a week, a year, all my life ; but all this depends upon what I can neither see nor foresee. I came because I was called, and will go the moment that I perceive what may render my departure proper. My attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the microscopic accuracy of the close to such liaisons ; but ' time and the hour' must decide upon what I do. I can as yet say nothing, because I hardly know any thing beyond what I have told you. " I wrote to you last post for my moveables, as there is no getting a lodging with a chair or table here ready ; and as I have already some things of the sort at Bologna which I had last summer there for my daughter, I have directed them to be moved ; and wish the like to be done with those of Venice, that I may at least get out of the ' Albergo Imperiale,' which is imperial in all true sense of the epithet. Buffini may be paid for his poison. I forgot to thank you and Mrs. Hoppner for a whole treasure of toys for Allegra before our departure ; it was very kind, and we are very grateful. " Your account of the weeding of the Governor's parly is very en- tertaining. If you do not understand the consular exceptions, I do; and it is right that a man of honour, and a woman of probity, shouh »7rid it so, particularly in a nlpee where there are not 'ten righted 90d NOTICES OF THE [ A . d. 18SU As to nobility — ill England none arc strictly noble but peers, not even peers' suns, though titled by courtesy ; nor knights of the garter, un- less of the peerage t so that Caetlereagh himself would hardly pass through a foreign herald's ordeal till the death of his father. * The show s a foot deep here There is a theatre, and opera, — the Barber of Seville. Balls begin on Monday next. Pay the porter for never looking after the gate, and ship my chattels, and let me know, gr let Castelli let me know, how my lawsuits go on — hut fee him only in proportion to his success. Perhaps wc may meet m the Bpring yet. if you are for England, i sec II * * has got into a scrape, which does not please me ; he should not have gone so deep among those men, without calculating the consequences. I used to think myself the most imprudent of all among my friends and acquaintances, but almost begin to doubt it. "Yours, &c " LETTER CCCMV. TO MR. HOPPNER. " Ravenna, January 31st, 16:20. " You would nardly have been troubled with the removal of my fur- niture, but there is none to be had nearer than Bologna, and I have been fain to have that of the rooms which I fitted up for my daughter there in the summer removed here. The expense will be at least as great of the land carriage, so that you see it was necessity, and not choice. Here they get every thing from Bologna, except some lighter articles from Forli or Faenza. " If Scott is returned, pray remember me to him, and plead laziness the whole and sole cause of my not replying: — dreadful is the exertion of letter-writing. The Carnival here is less boisterous, but we have balls and a theatre. I carried Bankes to both, and he carried away, I believe, a much more favourable impression of the society here than of that of Venice — recollect that I speak of the native society only. " I am drilling very hard to learn how lo double a shawl, and should succeed to admiration if 1 did not always double it the wrong side out ; and then 1 sometimes confuse and bring away two, so as to put all the Serventi out, besides keeping their Servite in the cold till every- body can get back their property. But it is a dreadfully moral place, for you must not look at any body's wife except your neighbour's, — if you go to the next door but one, yOU are M-olded, and presumed to be perfidious. And then a relazione or an amicizia seems to be a re- gular affair of from five to fifteen years, at which period, if there oc- cur a widowhood, it finishes by a sposalizio; and in the mean time, it has so many rules of its own that it is not much better. A man actu- ally becomes apiece of female property, — they won't let their Serventi marry until there is a vacancy for themselves. I know two instances of this in one family here. " To-night there was a * Lottery after the opera ; it is an odd ceremony. Bankes and I took tickets of it, and buffooned together very merrily. He is gone to Firenze. Mrs. J * * should have sent voumy postscript; there was no occasion to have bored you in person. * Tl)« word here, being under the seal, is illegible a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 20?. I never interfere in any body's squabbles, — she may scratch your face herself. " The weather here has been dreadful — snow several feet — a Jiume broke down a bridge, and flooded heaven knows how many campi; then rain came — and it is stitl thawing — so that my saddle-horses have a sinecure till the roads become more practicable. Why did Lega give away the goat ? a blockhead — I must have him again. " Will you pay Missiaglia and the Buffo Buffini of the Gran Bre- tagna. I heard from Moore, who is at Paris; I had previously written to him in London, but he has not yet got my letter, apparently. " Believe me, &c." LETTER CCCLV. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, February 7th, l»-2o. " I have had no letter from you these two months ; but since I came here in December, 1819, I sent you a letter for Moore, who is God knows where — in Paris or London, I presume. I have copied and cut the Third Canto of Don Juan into two, because it was too long ; and 1 tell you this beforehand, because in ease of any reckoning between you and me, these two are only to go for one, as this was the original form, and, in fact, the two together are not longer than one of the first : so remember that I have not made this division to double upon you ; but merely to suppress some tediousness in the aspect of the thing. I should have served you a pretty trick if I had sent you, for example, cantos of 50 stanzas each. " I am translating the First Canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, and have half done it ; but these last days of the Carnival confuse and interrupt every thing. " I have not yet sent off the Cantos, and have some doubt whether they ought to be published, for they have not the spirit of the first. The outcry has not frightened but it has hurt me, and I have not writ- ten con amore this time. It is very decent, however, and as dull as • the last uew comedy.' " I think my translations of Pulci will make you stare. It must be put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse ; and you will see what was permitted in a Catholic country and a bigoted age to a churchman, on the score of religion ; — and so tell those buffoons who accuse me of attacking the Liturgy. " I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and 1 must go and buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just gone with the Countess G. in Count G.'s coach and six, to join the caval- cade, and I must follow with all the rest of the Ravenna world. Our old Cardinal is dead, and the new one not appointed yet ; but the masking goes on the same, the vice-legate being a good governor. We have had hideous frost and snow, but all is mild again. " Yours, &c." M NOTICES OF THE |a.u. I- LETTEB CCCLV1 TO MR. LINKKS. " Ravenna, February 19, \b-2v. ■• 1 have loom for you in the house here, as 1 had in Venice, il ihink fit to make use of it ; bul do not expert to find the same gor- geous suite of tapestried halls. Neither dangers nor tropical heats have ever prevented your penetrating whin ver you had a mind to it, and why should the Bnow now ! — Italian snow — tit- on it! — so pray come. Tita's heart yearns for you, and mayhap For your silver hroad pieces; and your playfellow, the monkey, is alone and inconsolable. *• 1 forget whether you admire or tolerate red hair, bo that I rather dread showing you all that 1 have about me and around me in ihis city. Conic, nevertheless, — you can pay Dante a morning visit, and 1 will undertake that Theodore and llonoria will be most happj to see you in the forest hard by. \\ e Goths, also, of Ravenna hope you will not despise our arch-Goth, Theodoric. 1 must leave it to these worthies to entertain you all the fore pari of the day, seeing that I have none at all myself — the lark, that rouses me from my slumbers, being an afternoon bird. But, then, all your evenings, and as much as you can give me of your nights, will be mine. Ay ! and you will find me eating flesh, too, like yoursi If or any other cannibal, except it be upon Fridays. Then, there are more < antos (and bed — d to them) of what the courteous reader. Mr. S , calls Grub-street, in my drawer. which I have a little scheme to commit to you charge for England; only I must first < ut up (or cut down) two afon said Cantos into three, LUSe I am grown base and mercenary, and it is an ill precedent to let my Mecaenas, Murray, get too much for his money. I am busy, also, with lhilci — translating — servilely translating, stanza for stanza, and line fur line — two octaves every night, — the same allowance as at Venne. " Would you call at your banker's it Bologna, and ask him for some letters lying there for me, and burn them ? — or I will — BO do nol bur, them, but bring them, — and believe me ever and very affectional "Yours, " Byron. •• P.S. I have a particular wish to hear from yourself sometiiiiiL about Cvorus, so pray recollect all that you can. — Good nicrht." LETTER CCCLVII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, Feb. 21st, J "The bull-dogs will never. .|c. I have only those of this ..dry, who, though good, have not the tenacity of tooth and stop in endurance of i.n canine fellow-citizens: then pray send tie the readies) conveyance— perhaps best by sea.' Mr. Kinnaird wd burse for them, and deduct from the amount on your application i • of Captain Tyler. . ne to bis ■ One • being a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 209 sorry, though blindness, and age, and insanity art- supposed to be drawbacks on human felicity ; but I am not at all sure that the latter at least might not render him happier than any of his subjects. " I have no thoughts of coming to the coronation, though I should like to see it, and though I have a right to be a puppet in it ; but my division with Lady Byron, which has drawn an equinoctial line be- tween me and mine in all other things, will operate in this also to pre- vent my being in the same procession. " By Saturday's post I sent you four packets, containing Cantos Third and Fourth. Recollect that these two cantos reckon only as one with you and me, being in fact the third canto cut into two, because I found it too long. Remember this, and do n't imagine that there could be any other motive. The whole is about 225 stanzas, more or less, and a lyric of 9G lines, so that they are no longer than the first single cantos : but the truth is, that I made the first too long, and should have cut those down also had 1 thought better. Instead of saying in future for so many cantos, say so many stanzas or pages : it was Jacob Tonson's way, and certainly the best ; it prevents mis- takes. I might have sent you a dozen cantos, of 40 stanzas each, — those of ' The Minstrel' (Beattie's) are no longer,— and ruined you at once, if you do n't suffer as it is. But recollect that you are not pinned down to any thing you say in a letter, and that, calculating even these two cantos as one only (which they were and are to be reckoned), you are not bound by your offer. Act as may seem fair to all parties. " I have finished my translation of the First Canto of the ' Morgante Maggiore' of Pulci, which I will transcribe and send. It is the parent, not only of Whistlecraft, but of all jocose Italian poetry. You must print it side by side with the original Italian, because I wish the reader to judge of the fidelity : it is stanza for stanza, and often line for line, if not word for word. " You ask me for a volume of manners, &c. on Italy. Perhaps I am in the case to know more of them than most Englishmen, because I have lived among the natives, and in parts of the country where Englishmen never resided before (I speak of Romagna and this place particularly) ; but there are many reasons why I do not choose to treat in print on such a subject. I have lived in their houses and in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as ' amico di casa,' and sometimes as ' amico di cuore' of the Dama, and in neither ease do I feel myself authorized in making a book of them. Their moral is not your moral -, their life is not your life ; you would not understand it : it is not English, nor French, nor German, which you would all under- stand. The conventual education, the cavalier servitude, the habits of thought and living are so entirely different, and the difference becomes so much more striking the more you live intimately with them, that I know not how to make you comprehend a people who are at once temperate and profligate, serious in their characters and buffoons in their amusements, capable of impressions and passions, which are at once sudden and durable (what you find in no other nation), and who actually have no society (what we would call so), as you may see by their comedies ; they have no real comedy, not even in Goldoni, and that is because they have no society to draw it from. " Their conversazioni are not society at all. They go to the theatre to talk, and into company to hold their tongues. The women sit iu a Vol. II.— jiii NOTICES OF THE [a. r>. [Q20. circle, and the men gather into groups, ne another; hut it is in a humour which you would not enter into, ye of the north. " In their houses it is hetter. I should know something of the mat- ter, having had a pretty general experience among their women, from the fisherman's wife up to the Nobil Damn, whom 1 serve. Their system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and its decorums, so as to be reduced to a kind of discipline or game at hearts, which admits few deviations, unless you wish to lose it. They are extremely tenacious, and jealous as furies, not permitting their lovers even to marry if they can help it, and keeping them always close to them in public as in private, whenever they can. Jn short, they transfer marriage to adultery, and strike the not out of that commandment. The reason is, that they marry for their parents, and love for themselves. They exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honour, while they pay the hus- band as a tradesman, that is, not at all. You hear a person's charac- ter, male or female, canvassed, not as depending on their conduct to their husbands or wives, but to their mistress or lover. If I wrote a quarto, I do n't know that I could do more than amplify what I have here noted. It is to be observed that while they do all this, the greatest outward respect is to be paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their Serveirti — particularly if the husband serves no one himself (which is not often the case, however) ; so that you would often suppose them relations — the Scrvcnte making the figure of one adopted into the family. Sometimes the ladies run a little restive and elope, or divide, or make a scene ; but this is at starting, generally, when they know no better, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or some such anomaly, — and is always reckoned unnecessary and extravagant. " You inquire after Dante's Prophecy : I have not done more than six hundred lines, but will vaticinate at leisure. "Of the bust 1 know nothing. iNo cameos or seals are to be cut here or elsewhere that 1 know of, m any good style. Hobliouse should write himself to Thorwaldsen : the bust was made and paid for three years ago. "1'ray tell Mrs. Leigh to request Lady Byron to urge forward the transfer from the funds. 1 wrote to I^idy Byron on business this post, addressed to the care of Mr. D. kinnaird." LETTER CCCLVII1. Til Mil. UANKKS. H Ravenna, February 26th, 1820. " Pulci and I are waiting for you with impatience; but I supposi we must give way to the attraction of the Bofogncse galleries for a time. I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little ; but to me their are none like the Venetian — above all, Giorgione. I remember well Ins judgment of Solomon in the Mariscalchi in I!" logna. The real mother is beautiful, exquisitely beautiful. Ibiy tu i a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. -211 by all means, if you can, and take her home with you : put her in safety — for be assured there are troublous times brewing for Italy; and as I never could keep out of a row in my life, it will be my fate, I dare say, to be over head and ears in it ; but no matter, these are the stronger reasons fOr coming to see me soon. " I have more of Scott's novels (for surely they are Scott's) since we met, and am more and more delighted. I think that I even prefer them to his poetry, which (by-the-way) I redde for the first time in my life in your rooms in Trinity College. " There are some curious commentaries on Dante preserved here, which you should see. Believe me ever, faithfully and most affec- tionately, « Yours, &c." LETTER CCCLIX. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, March 1st, 1820. " I sent you by last post the translation of the First Canto of the Morgante Maggiore, and wish you to ask Rose about the word ' sbergo,' i. e. ' usbergo,' which I have translated cuirass. I suspect thai it means helmet also. Now, if so, which of the senses is best accordant with the text 1 I have adopted cuirass, but will be amena- ble to reasons. Of the natives, some say one, and some t'other; but they are no great Tuscans in Romagna. However, I will ask Sgricci (the famous improvisatore) to-morrow, who is a native of Arezzo. The Countess Guiccioli, who is reckoned a very cultivated young lady, and the dictionary, say cuirass. I have written cuirass, but helmet rims in my head nevertheless — and will run in verse very well, whilk is the principal point. I will ask the Sposa Spina Spinelli, too, the Florentine bride of Count Gabriel Rusponi, just imported from Florence, and get the sense out of somebody. " I have just been visiting the new Cardinal, who arrived the day before yesterday in his legation. He seems a good old gentleman, pious and simple, and not quite like his predecessor, who was a bon- vivant, in the worldly sense of the words. " Enclosed is a letter which I received some time ago from Dallas. It will explain itself. I have not answered it. This comes of doing people good. At one time or another (including copyrights) this per- son has had about fourteen hundred pounds of my money, and he writes what he calls a posthumous work about me, and a scrubby letter accusing me of treating him ill, when I never did any such thing. It is true that I left off letter-writing, as I have done with almost every body else ; but I can't see how that was misusing him. " I look upon his epistle as the consequence of my not sending him another hundred pounds, which he wrote to me for about two years ago, and which I thought proper to withhold, he having had his share, methought, of what I could dispone upon others. " In your last you ask me after my articles of domestic wants : I believe they are as usual ; the bull-dogs, magnesia, soda-powders, tooth-powders, brushes, and every thing of the kind which are here unattainable. You still ask me to return to England: alas! to what purpose 1 You do not know what you arc requiring. Return I must, probably, some day or other (if I live), sooner or later.- but it will not 02 - 312 NOTICES OF THE (a. d, j be for pleasure, no* can it end in good. You inquire after my health and BPIRIT8 in large letters, my health can't bo very bad, for I cured myself of a sharp tertian ague, in three weeks, with cold water, which had held my stoutest gondolier for months, notwithstanding all the bark of the apothecary, — a circumstance u Inch surprised Dr. Aglietti, who said it was a proof of great stamina, particularly in so epidemic a season. I did it out of dislike to the taste of bark (which I can't bear), and succeeded, contrary to the prophecies of every body, by simply taking nothing at all. As to spirits, they are unequal, now high, now low, like other people's, I suppose, and depending upon circumstances. " Pray send me \Y. Scott's new novels. What are their names and characters ? I read some of his former ones, at least once a day, for an hour or so. The last are too hurried : he forgets liavenswood's name, and calls him Edgar and then Norman ; and (iirdcr, the cooper, is styled now Gilbert, and now John ; and he do n't make enough of Montrose; but Dalgetty is excellent, and so is Lucy Ashton, and the b — h her mother. What 18 lvanhoe? and what do you call his other? are there two ? Pray make him write at least two a year : I like no reading so well. " The editor of the Bologna Telegraph has sent me a paper with extracts from Mr. Mulock's (his name always reminds me of Muley Moloch of Morocco) ' Atheism answered,' in which there is a Ion eulogium of my poesy, and a great 'compatnncnto' for my misery 1 never could understand what tiny mean by accusing me of irreligion. However, they may have it their own way. This gentleman set ma to lie my great admirer, so I take what he says in good part, as he evidently intends kindness, to which I can't accuse myself of being invincible. "Yours, fcc" LETTER CCCLX TO MH. Ml'HKAY. " Ravenna, March 5th, lb^O. " In case, in your country, you should not readily lay bands on tin Morgante Maggiore, I send you the original text of the First Canto, to correspond with the translation which I sent you a few days ago. It is from the Naples edition in quarto of \1'.V2, — dated Florence, how- ever, by a trick of the truth, which you, ;is one of the allied sove- reigns of the profession, will perfectly understand without any farther spiecrazione. " It is strange that here nobody understands the real precise mean- ing of 'sberin>,' or usbergo,'* an old Tuscan word, which I have ren- dered eitirasi (but am not sure it is not helmet). I have asked at least twenty people, learned and ignorant, male and female, including poets, and officers civil and military. The dictionary says cuirass, but gives no authority ; and a female friend of mine says positively cuirass, which makes me doubt the fad still more than before. Oingueiu -(ays, 'bonnet de for,' with the usual superficial decision of a French- * It hae been suggested '<> mi that usbergo is obviously the samo as liau- ., habergeon, &c., all from the Gorman haU-berg,pp covering of the neck. a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 213 man, so that I can't believe him : and what between the dictionary, the Italian woman, and the Frenchman, there 's no trusting to a word they say. The context too, which should decide, admits equally of either meaning, as you will perceive. Ask Rose, Hobhousc, Meri- vale, and Foscolo, and vote with the majority. Is Frere a good Tus- can 1 if he be, bother him too. I have tried, you see, to be as accurate as I well could. This is my third or fourth letter, or packet, within the last twenty days." LETTER CCCLXI. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, March 14th, 1820. " Enclosed is Dante's Prophecy — Vision — or what not.* Where I have left more than one reading (which I have done often), you may adopt that which Gifford, Frere, Rose, and Hobhouse, and others of your Utican Senate think the best, or least bad. The preface will ex- plain all that is explicable. These are but the first four cantos : if approved, I will go on. "Pray mind in printing; and let some good Italian scholar correct the Italian quotations. " Four days ago I was overturned in an open carriage between the river and a steep bank : — wheels dashed to pieces, slight bruises, nar- row escape, and all that ; but no harm done, though coachman, foot- man, horses, and vehicle were all mixed together like macaroni. It was owing to bad driving, as I say ; but the coachman swears to a start on the part of the horses. We went against a post on the verge of a steep bank, and capsized. I usually go out of the town in a car- riage, and meet the saddle horses at the bridge ; it was in going there that we boggled ; but I got my ride, as usual, after the accident. They say here it was all owing to St. Antonio of Padua (serious, I assure you), — who does thirteen miracles a day, — that worse did not come of it. I have no objection to this being his fourteenth in the four-and- twenty hours. He presides over overturns and all escapes therefrom, it seems ; and they dedicate pictures, &c. to him, as the sailors once did to Neptune, after ' the high Roman fashion.' " Yours, in haste." * There were in this Poem, originally, three lines of remarkable strength and severity, which, as the Italian poet against whom they were directed was then living, were omitted in the publication. I shall here give them from memory. " The prostitution of his Muse and Wife, Both beautiful, and both by him debased, Shall salt his bread and give him moans of life." 9H NOTICES OF THF [a. n. 1880 LETTER CCCLXII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, March 20th, 183a "Last post I sent you 'The Vision of Dante,' — first four cantos. Enclosed you will find, line for line, in third rhyme (terza rima), of which your British blackguard reader as yet understands nothing, Fanny of RiminL You know that she was born here, and married, and slain, from C'ary, Hoyd, and such people. I have done it into cramp English, line for line, and rhyme for rhyme, to try the possi- bility. You had best append it to the poems already sent by last three posts. 1 shall not allow you to play the tricks you did last year, with the prose you pos<-scribcd to Mazcppa, which I sent to you not to be published, if not in a periodical paper, — and there yon tacked it, without a word of explanation. If tins is published, publish it with the original, and together with the Pulci translation, or the Dante imitation. I sup- pose \ on have both by now, and the Juan long before. "FRANCESCA OF RIMINI. " Translation from the Inferno of Dante, Canto 5th. " 'The land where I was born sits by the seas, Upon that shore to which the Po descends, With all his followers, in search of peace. Love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends, Seized him for the fair person which was ta'en From me, and me even yet the mode offends. Love, who to none beloved to love again Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong, That, as thou secst, yet, \t |o>i all patience with the atrocious cant and nonsense aboul Pope, with which our present * *s are overflowing, and am determined to make such head against it as an individual can, by prose or verse; and I will at least do it with gopd-wilL There is no bearing it any Longer; and if it L, r oes on, it will destroy what little good writing or taste remains among us. I hope there are still a few men of taste to second me; hut if not, I'll battle it alone, convinced that it is in the best cause of English literature;. " 1 nave sent you so many packets, verse and prose, lately, that you will lie tired of the postage, if not of the perusal. I want to answer some parts of your last Letter, hut I have not time, for 1 must ' boot and saddle,'' as my Captain Craigengilt (an officer of the old Napoleon Italian army) is in waiting, and my groom and cattle to noot. " You have given me a screed of metaphor and what not about Pulci, and manners, and 'going without clothes, like our Saxon ancestors. 1 * When making the observations which occur in tho early part of this work, on the singular preference given l>y the noble author to the 'Hints from Horace,' 1 was not aware OI the revival of this Strange predilection, which (;is it appears from the above letter, and, ^t ill inure strongly, from some that follow) took place so many years after, in the full maturity of his powers and taste. Such a delusion is hardly conceivable, and can only, perhaps, be accounted for by that tcnaciousnosa of early opinions and impressions by which his mind, in other respects so versatile, was characterized. a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LOUD BYRON. 217 Now, the Saxons did not go without clothes ; and, in the next place, they are not my ancestors, nor yours either ; for mine were Norman, and yours, I take it by your name, were Gael. And, in the next, I differ from you about the ' refinement' which has banished the comedies of Congreve. Are not the comedies of Sheridan acted to the thinnest houses? I know (as ex-committed) that 'The School for Scandal' was the worst stock-piece upon record. 1 also know that Congreve gave up writing because Mrs. Centlivre's balderdash drove his come- dies off. So it is not decency, but stupidity, that does all this ; for Sheridan is as decent a writer as need be, and Congreve no worse than Mrs. Centlivre, of whom Wilkes (the actor) said, ' not only her play would be damned, but she too.' He alluded to ' A Bold Stroke for a Wife.' But last, and most to the purpose, Pulci is not an indecent Avriter — at least in his first Canto, as you will have perceived by this time. " You talk of refinement : — arc you all more moral 1 are you so moral ? No such thing. / know what the world is in England, by my own proper experience of the best of it — at least of the loftiest ; and I have described it every where as it is to be found in all places. " But to return. I should like to see the proofs of mine answer, be- cause there will be something to omit or to alter. But pray let it be carefully printed. When convenient let me have an answer. " Yours." LETTER CCCLXVI. TO MR. HOPPNER. " Ravenna, March 31st, 1820. # # # # # " Ravenna continues much the same as I described it. Conversa- zioni all Lent, and much better ones than any at Venice. There are small games at hazard, that is, faro, where nobody can point more than a shilling or two ;— other card-tables, and as much talk and coffee as you please. Every body docs and says what they please ; and I do not recollect any disagreeable events, except being three times falsely accused of flirtation, and once being robbed of six sixpences by a no- bleman of the city, a Count * * *. I did not suspect the illustrious delinquent ; but the Countess V. * * * and the Marquis L * * * told me of it directly, and also that it was a way he had, of filching money when he saw it before him ; but I did not ax him for the cash, but contented myself with telling him that if he did it again, I should anticipate the law. " There is to be a theatre in April, and a fair, and an opera, and another opera in June, besides the fine weather of nature's giving, and the rides in the Forest of Pine. With my best respects to Mrs. Hopp- ner, believe me ever, &c. "Byron. " P.S. Could you give me an item of what books remain at Venice ? I do rit want them, but want to know whether the few that are not here are there, and were not lost by the way. I hope and trust you have got all your wine safe, and that it is drinkable. Allegra is prettier, I think, but as obstinate as a mule, and as ravenous as a vulture : health NOTICES OF THE [a. d, 1820. good, to judge <>i the complexion— temper tolerable, but forvanityand pertinacity. She thinks herself handsome and will do ae she pleases/ 1 LETTER CCCLXVII. ro MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, April 9th, 1830. " In the name of all the devils in the printing office, why do n't you write to acknowledge the receipt of the second, third, and fourth packets, viz. the Polci translation and original, the Danticles, the Ob- servations on, &c. ? You forgel that you keep me in hot water till I know whether they are arrived, or if I must have the bore of rceopying. » » • • » " Have you gotten the cream of translations, Franceses of Rimini, from the Inferno 1 Why, I have sent you a warehouse of trash within the last month, and you have no sort of feeling about you: a pastry- cook would have had twice the gratitude, and thanked me at least for the quantity. " To make the letter heavier, I enclose you the Cardinal Legate's (our Campeius) circular for his conversazione this evening. It is the anniversary of the Pope's fiaro-tion, and all polite Christians, even of the Lutheran creed, must go and be civil. And there will be a circle, and a faro-table (for shillings, thai is, they don't allow high play), and all the beauty, nobility, and sanctity of Ravenna present. The < !ar- dinal himself is a very good-natured little fellow, bishop of Muda, and legate lure, — a decent believer in all the doctrines of the church. He has kept his housekeeper these forty years * * * *; but is reckoned a pious man, and a moral liver. " 1 am not quite sure that I won't be among you tins autumn, for I find thai business don't goon — what with trusties and lawyers — as it should do, 'with all deliberate speed.' They differ about invest- ments in Ireland. " Between the devil and deep sea, Between the lawyer and trustee, I am puzzled ; and so much time is lost by my not being upon the spot, what with answers, demurs, rejoinders, that it maybe 1 must come and look to it; for one says do, and t' other do n't, so that I know not which way to turn : but perhaps they can manage without me. " Yours, &c. " P.S. I have begun a tragedy on the subject of Marino Faliero, lh< Doge of Venice; but you aha' n't see it these six years, if you don't acknowledge my packets with more quickness and precision. Always write, if but a line, by return of post, when any thing arrives, which i- HOI a mere letter. "Address direct to Ravenna; it saves a week's time, and much postage." a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 219 LETTER CCCLXVIIT. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, April 16th, 1820. " Post after post arrives without bringing any acknowledgment from you of the different packets (excepting the first) which I have sent within the last two months, all of which ought to be arrived long ere now; and as they were announced in other letters, you ought at least to say whether they are come or not. You are not expected to write frequent or long letters, as your time is much occupied ; but when parcels that have cost some pains in the composition, and great trouble in the copying, are sent to you, 1 should at least be put out of suspense, by the immediate acknowledgment, per return of post, addressed directly to Ravenna. I am naturally — knowing what continental posts are — anxious to hear that they are ar- rived : especially as I loath the task of copying so much, that if there was a human being that could copy my blotted MSS., he should have all they can ever bring for his trouble. All I desire is two lines, to say, such a day I received such a packet. There are at least six un- acknowledged. This is neither kind nor courteous. " I have, besides, another reason for desiring you to be speedy, which is, that there is that brewing in Italy which will speedily cut off all security of communication, and set all your Anglo-travellers flying in every direction, with their usual fortitude in foreign tumults. The Spanish and French affairs have set the Italians in a ferment ; and no wonder : they have been too long trampled on. This will make a sad scene for your exquisite traveller, but not for the resident, who naturally wishes a people to redress itself. I shall, if permitted by the natives, remain to see what will come of it, and perhaps to take a turn with them, like Dugald Dalgetty and his horse, in case of busi- ness ; for I shall think it by far the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence, to see the Italians send the barbarians of all nations back to their own dens. I have lived long enough among them to feel more for them as a nation than for any other people in existence. But they want union, and they want principle ; and I doubt their success. However, they will try, probably, and if they do, it will be a good cause. No Italian can hate an Austrian more than I do : unless it be the English, the Austrians seem to me the most obnoxious race under the sky. " But I doubt, if any thing be done, it won't be so quietly as in Spain. To be |;ure, revolutions are not to be made with rose-water, where there Sre foreigners as masters. " Write while you can ; for it is but the toss up of a paul that there will not be a row that will somewhat retard the mail by-and-by. " Yours, &e." NOTICES OF THE [a. d. i LETTER CCCLXIX TO MR. HOl'1'Nt'.K. " Ravenna, April 18th, 1830, "1 have caused wntc to Siri and Willhalm to semi with Vmcenza, in a boat, the camp-beds and swords left in i heir care when I quitted Venice. There are also several pounds of Mantorfs best po-c tier \uw japan case; but unlets 1 fell sure of getting it away from V. without seizure, 1 won't have it ventured. 1 can act it in here, by meansof an acquaintance in the customs, who Ins offered to get it ashore forme; but should like to be certiorated of its safety in leaving Venice. I would not lose it for its weight in gold — there is none such in Italy, as 1 take it to bo. " 1 wrote to you a week or so ago, and hope you arc m good plight and spirits. Sir Humphry Davy is here, and was last night at the Cardinal's. As I had been there last Sunday, and yesterday was warm, I did not go, which I should have done, if 1 had thought of meeting the man of chemistry. He called this morning, and 1 shall go in search of him at Corso time. I believe to-day, being Monday, there is no great conversazione, and only the family one ai the Mar* chese Cavalli's, where 1 go as a relation sometimes, so that, unless he stays a day or two, we should hardly meet in public. " The theatre is to open in .May for the fair, if there is not a row in all Italy by that time, — the Spanish business has set them all a constitutioning, and what will be the end no one knows — it is also n.cessary thereunto to have a beginning. " Yours, &c. " P.S. My benediction to Mrs. Hoppncr. How is your little boy ? Allcgra is growing, and has increased in good looks and obstinacy •" LETTER CCCLXX. TO MB. MURRAY. "Ravenna, April '23d, 1830. The proofs do n't contain the last stanzas of Canto Second, but end abruptly with the 105th stanza. " I told you long ago that the new Cantos* were not good, and I also tolJyou a reason. Recollect, 1 do not oblige you to publish them ; you may suppress them, if you like, but 1 can alter nothing. 1 have erase.! the six stanzas about those two impostors, * * * (which I suppose will give you great pleasure), but 1 can do no more. I can neither recast, nor replace; but I give you leave to put it all into the lire, if you like, or not to publish, and I think that's sufficient. "I told you that I wrote on with no good-will— that 1 had been, not frightened, but hurt by the outcry, and, besides, that when I wrote last November, I was ill in body, and in very great distress of mind about -nine private things Of my own; but you would have it: so I sent it 1 Of Don Juan a, n. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 221 to you, and to make it lighter, cut it in two— but I can't piece it toge- ther again. I can't cobble : I must ' either make a spoon or spoil a horn,' — and there 's an end ; for there 's no remeid : but I leave you free will to suppress the whole, if you like it. " About the Morgante Maggiore, I won't have a line omitted. It may circulate, or it may not ; but all the criticism on earth sha' n't touch a line, unless it be because it is badly translated. Now you say, and I say, and others say, that the translation is a good one ; and so it shall go to press as it is. Pulci must answer for his own irreligion : I answer for the translation only. ****** " Pray let Mr. Hobhouse look to the Italian next time in the proofs : this time, while I am scribbling to you, they are corrected by one who passes for the prettiest woman in Romagna, and even the Marches, as far as Ancona, be the other who she may. " I am glad you like my answer to your inquiries about Italian society. It is fit you should like something, and be d — d to you. " My love to Scott. I shall think higher of knighthood ever after for his being dubbed. By-the-way, he is the first poet titled for his talent in Britain : it has happened abroad before now ; but on the con- tinent titles are universal and worthless. Why do n't you send me Ivanhoe and the Monastery ? I have never written to Sir Walter, for I know he has a thousand things, and I a thousand nothings, to do ; but I hope to see him at Abbotsford before very long, and I will sweat his claret for him, though Italian abstemiousness has made my brain but a shilpit concern for a Scotch sitting ' inter pocula.' I love Scott, and Moore, and all the better brethren ; but I hate and abhor that puddle of water-worms whom you have taken into your troop. " Yours, &c. "P.S. You say that one-half is very good: you are wrong; for, if it were, it would be the finest poem in existence. Where is the poetry of which one-half is good? is it the JEneid? is it Milton's? is it Dryden's? is it any one's except Pope's and Goldsmith's, of which all is good 1 and yet these last two are the poets your pond poets would explode. But if one-half of the two new Cantos be good in your opinion, what the devil would you have more ? No — no ; no poetry is generally good — only by fits and starts — and you are lucky to get a sparkle here and there. You might as well want a midnight all stars as rhyme all perfect. " We are on the verge of a row here. Last night they have over- written all the city walls with ' Up with the republic !' and ' Death to the Pope !' &c. &c. This would be nothing in London, where the walls are privileged. But here it is a different thing : they are not used to such fierce political inscriptions, and the police is all on the alert, and the Cardinal glares pale through all his purple. " April 24th, 1820, 8 o'clock, p. m. " The police have been, all noon and after, searching for the mscribers, but have caught none as yet. They must have been all night about it, for the ' Live republics — Death to Popes and Priests,' are innumerable, and plastered over all the palaces : ours has plenty. There is ' Down with the Nobility,' too; they are down enough already, for that matter. A very heavy rain and wind having come on, I did not go out and ' sknr the country ;' but I shall mount to-morrow, and 228 NOTICES OF THE [a.b.1820. lake .1 canter among the peasantry, who are a savage, resolute race, always riding with guns in their bands. I wonder they don't suspeet the sen naders, for they play on the guitar here all night, as m Spain, to their mistresses. "Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the con- clusion of my Ode on Waterloo, written in the year 1815, and, com- paring it with the Duke de Bern's catastrophe in 1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the character of ' Vales,' in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge? 1 Crimson tears will follow yet—' and have not they ! " I can't pretend to foresee what wdl happen among you Enghshers at llus distance, bnt I vaticinate a row in Italy; in wlnik case, I do n't know that I won't have a finger in it. I dislike the Austnans, and think the Italians infamously oppressed; and if they begin, why, I will recommend 'the erection of a sconce upon Drumsnab,' like Dugald Dalgetty." LETTER CCCLXXI. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, May 8th, 1830. " From your not having written again, an intention which your letter of the 7th ultimo indicated, I have to presume that the 'Pro- phecy of Dante' lias not been found more worthy than its predeces- sors in the eyes of your illustrious synod. In that ease, you will be in some perplexity; to end which, I repeat to you, that you arc not to consider yourself as bound or pledged to publish any thing because it is mine, but always to act according to your own views, or opinions, or those of your friends; and to be sure that you will in no degree offend me by ' declining the article,' to use a technical phrase. The prose observations on John Wilson's attack, 1 do not intend lor publication at this time; and I send a copy of verses to Mr. Kinnaird (they were written last year on crossing the Po), which must not be published either. I mention this, because it is probable he may give you a copy. Pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and written upon private feelings and passions. And, moreover, I can'1 consent to any mutilations or omissions of Pidoi: the original has been ever free from such in Italy, the capital of Christianity, and the translation maybe so in England; though you will think it strange that tiny should have allowed such/reecfom for many centuries to the Morgante, while the other day they confiscated the whole translation of the Fourth « lanto of < Jhilde Harold, and have persecuted Leoni, the trans- lator—so he writes me, and so I could have told him, had he consulted me before his publication. This shows how much more politics inte- rest men m these pans than religion. Half a dozen invectives against tyranny confiscate Childe Harold in a month; andeight-and-twenty -antos of quizzing monks and knights, and church government, are Let loose for centuries. I copy Leoni's account. "'\im ignorera forsc die la una versibne del 1" Canto del Childe Harold In confiscata in ogni parte: ed m stcsso ho dovuto BOfflir ves- a. d. 1830.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 223 sazioni altrettanto ridicole quanto illiberali, ad arte che alcuni versi fossero esclusi dalla censura. Ma siccome il divieto non fa d'ordi- nario che accrescere la curiosita cosi quel carme suh" Italia e ricer- cato piu che mai, e penso di farlo ristampare in Inghilterra senza nulla escludere. Sciagurata condizione di questa mia patria ! se patria si pud chiamare una terra cosi avvilita dalla fortuna, dagli uomini, da se medesima.' " Rose will translate this to you. Has he had his letter 1 I enclosed it to you months ago. "This intended piece of publication I shall dissuade him from, or he may chance to see the inside of St. Angelo's. The last sen- tence of his letter is the common and pathetic sentiment of all his countrymen. " Sir Humphry Davy was here last fortnight, and I was in his com- pany in the house of a very pretty Italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth ascension of Mount Vesuvius, asked ' if there was not a similar volcano in Ireland?" 1 My only notion of an Irish volcano consisted of the lake of Killarney, which I naturally conceived her to mean ; but on second thoughts I divined that she alluded to /celand and to Hecla — and so it proved, though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the amiable pertinacity of ' the feminie.' She soon after turned to me, and asked me various questions about Sir Humphry's philosophy, and I explained as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the Pompeian MSS. ' But what do you call him V said she. ' A great chemist,' quoth I. ' What can he do V repeated the lady. ' Almost any thing,' said I. ' Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my eyebrows black. I have tried a thousand things, and the colours all come off; and besides, they do n't grow : can't he invent something to make them grow]' All this with the greatest earnest- ness ; and what you will be surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but really well educated and clever. But they speak like chil- dren, when first out of their convents ; and, after all, this is better than an English blue-stocking. " I did not tell Sir Humphry of this last piece of philosophy, not knowing how he might take it. Davy was much taken with Ravenna, and the primitive Italianism of the people, who are unused to foreign- ers : but he only staid a day. " Send me Scott's novels and some news. " P.S. 1 have begun and advanced into the second act of a tragedy on the subject of the Doge's conspiracy (i. e. the story of Marino Fa- liero) ; but my present feeling is so little encouraging on such mat- ters that 1 begin to think I have mined my talent out, and proceed in no great phantasy of finding a new vein. " P.S. I sometimes think (if the Italians don't rise) of coming over to England in the autumn after the coronation (at which 1 would not appear, on account of my family schism), but as yet I can decide nothing. The place must be a great deal changed since I left it, now more than four years ago." BM NOTICES OP THR [a. ©,1820*. LETTER CCCLXXII. TO MK. MUKRAY. "Ravenna, May 20th, 1890. " Murray, ray dear, make my respects to Thomas Campbell, and tell him from me, with faith and friendship, three things that he must right mhis poets : Firstly, he says Anstey's Bath Guide characters are taken from Smollett. ''1 is impossible: — the Cuidc was published in 17tW"i, and Humphrey Clinker in 1771 — (/imr/ue, 't is Smollett who has taken from Ansley. Secondly, he does not know to whom Cowper alludes, when he says that there was one who ' built a eliureh to God, and then blasphemed ins name:' it was 'Deo erexit VoUairt* to whom that maniacal Calvinist and coddled poet alludes. Thirdly, he mis- quotes and spoils a passage from Shakspeare, 'to gild refined gold, to paint the ldy,' &c. ; for lily he puts rose, and bedevils in more words than one the whole quotation. " Now, Tom is a fine fellow ; but he should be correct : for the first is an injustice (to Anstey), the second an ignorance, and the third a blunder. Tell him all this, and let him take it in good part; for I might have rammed it into a review and rowed him — instead of which, I act like a Christian. " Yours, &c" LETTER CCCLXXIII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, May 'JOth, 1820. " First and foremost, you must forward my letter to Moore dated 2d January, which 1 said you might open, but desired you t» forward. Now, you should really not forgel these little things, because thej do mischief among friends. You are an excellent man, a greal man, and live among great men, but do pray recollect your absent friends and authors. " In the first place, your packeto; then a letter from Kinnaird, on the most urgent business; another from Moore, about a communica- tion to Lady I5yron of importance ; a fourth from the mother of Vlle- gra ; ami fifthly, at Ravenna, the Contessa G. is on the eve of being divorced. — Hut the Italian public are on our side, particularly the women, — and the men also, because they say that he had no business to lake the business up now after a year of toleration. All her rela- tions (who are numerous, high in rank, and powerful) are furious i^mnsl him for his conduct. I am warned to be on my guard, as he is very capable of employing ricarii — this is Latin as well as Italian, so \ mi can understand it ; but I have anus, and do n't mind them, think- i 1 1 ■_■ that I could pepper his ragamuffins, if they do n't come unawares, and that, it they do, one may as well end that way as another; and it would besides serve you as an advertisement. ' Man may escape from rope or gun, i" things to say ; 1 h it as they arc not conic to r eft win an nt, I do u'i care to begin their, history till it is wound up. Uler you wiii I had a fever, bul ^r* >t well again without bark. Sir Hum- phry Davy was here the other day, and liked Ravenna very much. He will tell you an} thing you maj wish to know about the place and j our humble servitor. •• N our apprehensions ^arising from Scott's) were anfounded. Then are no damages in tins country, but there will probably be a separation between them, as her family, which is a principal one, by its connexions, i erj much against him, for the whole of Ins conduct ; — and he is oW i i . j obstinate, and she is young and a woman, determined to sacrifice even thin g tn her affections. 1 have given her the best advice, viz. to Stay with him, — pointing out the state of a separated woman (for the priests won't lei lovers live openly together, unless the husband sanctions il), and making the most exquisite moral reflections, — hut to no purpose. She says, ' 1 will stay wijh him, it" he will let you remain with me. It is hard that I should be the only woman in Romagna who is not to have her Amico ; but, if not, I will not live with him ; and as for the consequences, love, &c. &c. &c.' — you know how females reason on such occasions. " He says he has let it go on, till he can do so no longer. But he wants her to stay, ami dismiss me; for he doesn't like to pay hack her down and to make an alimony. Her relations are rather for the separation, as they detesl him,— indeed, so dm > every body. 'Hie populace and the women are. as usual, all for those who are in the wrong, viz. the lady and her lover. I should have retreated, but ho- nour, and an erysipelas which has attacked her, prevent me, — to say nothing of love, for I love her most entirely, though not enough to persuade her to sacrifice every thing to a phrensy. 'I see how it will end ; she will be the sixteenth Mrs. shufllcton.' •• My paper is finished, and so must this letter. " Yours ever, « B. u P.S. I rev, ret that you have noi completed the Italian Pudges. Pray.bowcome you to be still in Paris 1 Murray has four or five things of mine in hand — the new Don Juan, which his back-shop jynod don't admire;— a translation of the first Canto of Pulci's Mor- gante Maggiore, excellent ; — a short ditto from Dante, not so much iin Prophecj of Dante, very grand and worthy,&c. &c. & c# . — a furious prose answer to Blackwood's Observations on Don Juan, with a savage Defence of Pope— likely to make a row. The opinions above I quote from Murray and Ins Utican senate;— you will i oil 1 1 your own, when you see the things. ■• \ on w dl have mi greal chance of seeing me, for I begin to think I musl finish in Italy. But, if you come my way, you shall have a turei n of macaroni. Pray tell me about yourself and your intents. \U trustees are going to lend Karl Blessington sixty thousand pounds (at six per cent.) on a Dublin mortgage. Only think of my becoming an Irish absentee !" a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 227 LETTER CCCLXXV. TO MR. HOPPNER. " Ravenna, May 25, 1820. " A German named Ruppsecht has sent me, heaven knows why, several Deutsche Gazettes, of all which I understand neither word nor letter. I have sent you the enclosed to beg- you to translate to me some remarks, which appear to be Goethe's upon Manfred — and if I may judge by two notes of admiration (generally put after something ridiculous by us), and the word ' hypocondrischj are any thing but fa- vourable. I shall regret this, for I should have been proud of Goethe's good word ; but I sha' n't alter my opinion of him, even though he should be savage. "Will you excuse this trouble, and do me this favour? — Never mind — soften nothing — I am literary proof — having had good and evil said in most modern languages. " Believe me, &c." LETTER CCCLXXVI. TO MR. MOORE. "Ravenna, June 1st, 1820. " I have received a Parisian letter from W. W., which I prefer an- swering through you, if that worthy be still at Paris, and, as he says, an occasional visiter of yours. In November last he wrote to me a well-meaning letter, stating, for some reasons of his own, his belief that a reunion might be effected between Lady B. and myself. To this I answered as usual ; and he sent me a second letter, repeating his notions, which letter I have never answered, having had a thou- sand other things to think of. He now writes as if he believed that he had offended me by touching on the topic ; and I wish you to as- sure him that I am not at all so, — but, on the contrary, obliged by his good-nature. At the same time acquaint him the thing is impossible. You know this, as well as I, — and there let it end. " I believe that I showed you his epistle in autumn last. He asks me if 1 have heard of my ' laureate' at Paris,* — somebody who has written ' a most sanguinary Epttre' against me ; but whether in French, or Dutch, or on what score, I know not, and he do n't say, — except that (for my satisfaction) he says it is the best thing in the fellow's volume. If there is any thing of the kind that I ought to know, you will doubtless tell me. I suppose it to be something of the usual sort ; — he says, he do n't remember the author's name. " I wrote to you some ten days ago, and expect an answer at your leisure. " The separation business still continues, and all the word are im- plicated, including priests and cardinals. The public opinion is furious against him, because he ought to have cut the matter short at first, and not waited twelve months to begin. He has been trying at * M. Lamarliue. P2 NOTICES OF THE (a. 6. R evidence, but can gel none sufficient} for what would make fifty di- vorces in England won't do here— there must bo the most decided proofs. • • •• it is the first cause of the kind attempted in Ravenna for these two hundred years ; for, though they often separate, they assign a different motive. ' You know that the continental incontinent are more delicate than the English, and don't like proclaiming their coronation in a court, even when nobody doubts it. "All her relations are furious against him. The father has chal- lenged him— a superfluous valour, for he don't fight, though suspected of two assassinations— one of the famous Monzoni of Forli. Warn- ing was given me not to take such Long rides in the Pine Forest with- out being on my guard; so I take my stiletto and a pair of pistols in my pocket during my daily rides. "1 won't stir from this place till the matter is settled one way or the other. She is as femininely firm as possible; and the opinion is so much against him, that the advocates decline to undertake hiscause, because they say that he is either a fool or a rogue— fool, if he did nol discover the liaison till now; and rogue, if he did know it, and waited, for some bad end, to divulge it. In short, there has been nothing like it since the days of Guido di Polenta's family, in these parts. "If the man has me taken off, like Polonius, 'say he made a good end'— for a melodrame. The principal security is, that he has not the courage to spend twenty scudi — the average price of a clean-handed bravo— otherwise there is no want of opportunity, for I ride about the woods every evening, with one servant, and sometimes an acquaint- ance, who latterly looks a little queer in solitary bits of bushes. 11 (Jood-by. — Write to yours ever, &c." LETTER CCCLXXVII TK> MR. Ml'KKAV. " Ravenna, .lunc 7th, 1630. "Kudosed is .something which will interest you, to wit, the opinion of the greatest man of Germany— perhaps of Europe — upon one of the ,l men of your advertisements (all 'famous hands.' as Jacob Ton- son used to say of his ragamuffins) — in short, a critique of Goethe's upon Manfred. There is the original, an English translation, and an Italia ie ; keep them all in your archives, for the opinions of such a man as Goethe, whether favourable or not, are always interesting and this is more SO, as favourable. HisFotUfl never read, for 1 do n't know German ; but Matthew Monk Lewis, in 1816, at Coligny, trans- lated most of it to me vivd voce, and I was naturally much struck with u ; but it was the Steinbach and the Jungjrau, and something else, much more than FaustUS, that made me write Manfred. The first -r,ue, however, aicl that of Faustus, are very similar. Acknowledge this letter. " Yours ever. " P.S. 1 have received Ivmihnc }—good>. Pray send me some tootli- powder and tincture of myrrh, by fVaite, &c. Ricciardetto should have been translated literally, or not at all. As to puffing WhisUecrafi, it won't do. 1 'II tell you why some da) orother. Cornwall 's a poet, but spoiled by the detestable schools of the day. Mrs. Hemans is a a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 329 poet also, but too stiltified and apostrophic, — and quite wrong. Men died calmly before the Christian era, and since, without Christianity: witness the Romans, and, lately, Thistlewood, Sandt, and Lovel — men who ought to have been weighed down with their crimes, even had they be- lieved. A death-bed is a matter of nerves and constitution, and not of religion. Voltaire was frightened, Frederick of Prussia not : Chris- tians the same, according to their strength rather than their creed. What does H * * H * * mean by his stanza 1 which is octave got drunk or gone mad. He ought to have his ears boxed with Thor's hammer for rhyming so fantastically." The following is the article from Goethe's " Kunst und Alterthum," enclosed in this letter. The grave confidence with which the venera- ble critic traces the fancies of his brother poet to real persons and events, making no difficulty even of a double murder at Florence to furnish grounds for his theory, affords an amusing instance of the dis- position so prevalent throughout Europe, to picture Byron as a man of marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as his poetry. To these ex- aggerated, or wholly false, notions of him, the numerous fictions palmed upon the world of his romantic tours and wonderful adven- tures, in places he never saw, and with persons that never existed,* have, no doubt, considerably contributed ; and the consequence is, so utterly out of truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long current upon the continent, that it may be questioned whether the real "flesh and blood" hero of these pages,— the social, practical-minded, and, with all his faults and eccentricities, English Lord Byron, — may not, to the over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers, appear but an ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic personage. " GOETHE ON MANFRED. [1820.] " Byron's tragedy, Manfred, was to me a wonderful phenomenon, and one that closely touched me. This singular intellectual poet has taken my Faustus to himself, and extracted from it the strongest nou-. rishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of the im- pelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them remains the same ; and it is particularly on this account that I cannot enough admire his genius. The whole is in this way so completely formed anew, that it would be an interesting task for the critic to point out not only the alterations he has made, but their degree of resemblance with, or dissimilarity to, the original : in the course of which I cannot deny that the gloomy heat of an unbounded and exuberant despair becomes at last oppressive to us. Yet is the dissatisfaction we feel always connected with esteem and admiration. * Of this kind are the accounts, filled with all sorts of circumstantial won- ders, of his residence in the island of Mytilene ; — his voyages to Sicily, — to Ithaca, with the Countess Guiccioli, &c. &c. But the most absurd, perhaps, of all these fabrications, are the stories told by Pouqueville, of the poet's religious conferences in the cell of Father Paul, at Athens ; and the still more unconscionable fiction in which Rizo has indulged, in giving the details of a pretended theatrical scene, got up (according to this poetical historian) be- tween Lord Byron and the Archbishop of Arta, at the tomb of Botzaris, in Missolonghi. 230 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1820. " Wo find thus in this tragedy tho quintessence of the most asto- nishing talent horn to be its own tormentor. The character of Lord I i\ ron's life and poetry hardly permits a just and equitable appreciation. 1 [e has often enough confessed what it is that torments him. lie has re- peatedly portrayed it; and scarcely an\ one feels compassion fortius intolerable suffering, over which he is ever laboriously ruminating. There are, properly speaking, two females whose phantoms for ever haunt him, and which) in this piece also, perform principal parts — one under the name of Astarte, the other without form or actual pre- sence, and merely a voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former, the following is related. When a bold and en- terprising young man, he won the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour, and murdered his wife ; but the mur- derer was the same night found dead in the street, and there was do one on'whom any suspicion could be attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and these spirits haunted him all his life after. " This romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems. As, for instance, when turning his sad contemplations inwards, he applies to himself the fatal history of the king of Sparta. It is as follows : — Pausanias, a Lacedaemonian gene- ral, acquires glory by the important victory at Plateea, but afterward forfeits the confidence of his countrymen through his arrogance, ob- stinacy, and secret intrigues with the enemies of his country. This man draws upon himself the heavy guilt of innocent blood, which at- tends him to his end; for, while commanding the fleet of the allied Creeks, in the Black Sea, he is inflamed with a violent passion for a Byzantine maiden. After long resistance, he at length obtains her from her parents, and she is to be delivered up to him at night. She modestly desires the servant to put out the lamp, and, while groping her way in the dark, she overturns it. Pausanias is awakened from his sleep, apprehensive of an attack from murderers — he seizes his sword, and destroys his mistress. The horrid sight never leaves him. Her shade pursues him unceasingly, and he implores for aid in vain from the gods and the exorcising priests. " That poet must have a Lacerated heart who selects such a seen.' from antiquity, appropriates it to himself, and burthens his tragic image with it. The following soliloquy, which is overladen with gloom and a weariness of life, is, by this remark, rendered intelligible. We recommend it as an exercise to all friends of declamation. 1 lam- let's soliloquy appears improved upon here."* LETTER CCCLXXVIII. TO MR. MOORE. " Ravenna, June 9th, 1820. " Galignani has just, sent me the Paris edition of your works (which T wrote to order), and I am glad to see my old friends with a French face. I have been skimming and dipping, in and over them, like a swallow, and as pleased as one. It is the first time that I had Been the Melodies without music; and, I do n't know how, but I can't read * The critic here subjoins the soliloquy from Manfred, beginning " We are the fools of time and terror," in which the allusion to Pausanias occurs. a, d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 231 in a music-book — the crotchets confound the words in my head, though I recollect them perfectly when sung. Music assists my memory through the ear, not through the eye ; I mean, that her quavers perplex ine upon paper, but they are a helpAvhen heard. And thus I was glad to see the words without their borrowed robes ; — to my mind they look none the worse for their nudity. " The biographer has made a botch of your life — calling your father ' a venerable old gentleman,' and prattling of ' Addison,' and ' dowager countesses.' If that damned fellow was to write my life, I would cer- tainly take his. And then, at the Dublin diimer, you have ' made a speech' (do you recollect, at Douglas K.'s, ' Sir, he made me a speech V) too complimentary to the ' living poets,' and somewhat redolent of universal praise. / am but too well off in it, but * * * * # * # # " You have not sent me any poetical or personal news of yourself. Why do n't you complete an Italian Tour of the Fudges 1 I have just been turning over Little, which I knew by heart in 1803, being then in my fifteenth summer. Heigho ! I believe all the mischief I have ever done, or sung, has been owing to that confounded book of yours. " In my last I told you of a cargo of ' Poeshie,' which I had sent to M. at his own impatient desire; — and, now he has got it, he do n't like it, and demurs. Perhaps he is right. I have no great opinion of any of my last shipment, except a translation from Pulci, which is word for word, and verse for verse. " I am in the Third Act of a Tragedy ; but whether it will be finished or not, I know not : I have, at this present, too many passions of my own on hand to do justice to those of the dead. Besides the vexations mentioned in my last, I have incurred a quarrel with the Pope's cara- biniers, or gens-d'armerie, who have petitioned the Cardinal against my liveries, as resembling too nearly their own lousy uniform. They particularly object to the epaulettes, which all the world with us have upon gala days. My liveries are of the colours conforming to my arms, and have been the family hue since the year 1066. " I have sent a tranchant reply, as you may suppose ; and have given to understand that, if any soldados of that respectable corps insult my servants, I will do likewise by their gallant commanders ; and I have directed my ragamuffins, six in number, who are tolerably savage, to defend themselves, in case of aggression ; and, on holydays and gaudy days, 1 shall arm the whole set, including myself, in case of accidents or treachery. I used to play pretty well at the broadsword, once upon a time, at Angelo's ; but I should like the pistol, our national buccaneer weapon, better, though I am out of practice at present. However, I can ' wink and hold out mine iron/ It makes me think (the whole thing does) of Romeo and Juliet — ' now, Gregory, remem- ber thy smashing blow.' " All these feuds, however, with the Cavalier for his wife, and the troopers for my liveries, are very tiresome to a quiet man, who does his best to please all the world, and longs for fellowship and good-will. Pray write. " I am yours, &c." 232 NOTICES OP THE (a. d. 1820. LETTER CCCLXXIX. TO MR. MOUKi;. " Ravenna, July 13th, 1820. " To remove or increase your Irish anxiety about my being ' in a wisp*** I answer your letter forthwith ; premising that, as I am a ' Hill of the wisp,' I may chance to Hit out of it. But, first, a word on the Memoir; — I have no objection, nay, ] would rather that one correct copy was taken and deposited in honourable hands, in case of accidents happening to the original; for you know that 1 have noun, ;md have never even re-read, nor, indeed, read at all what is then 1 written; I only know that 1 wrote it with the fullest intention to be ' faithful and true' in my narrative, but not impartial — no, by the Lord! I can't pretend to be that, while I feel. But I wish to give every body concerned the opportunity to contradict or correct me. " 1 have no objection to any proper person seeing what is there written, — seeing it was written, like every thing else, for the purpose of being read, however much many writings may fail in arriving at that object. " With regard to • the wisp,' the Pope has pronounced their separa- tion. The decree came yesterday from Babylon, — it was she and her friends who demanded it, on the grounds of her husband's (the noble Count Cavalier's) extraordinary usage. He opposed it with all his might, because of the alimony, which has been assigned, with all her goods, chattels, carriage, &c. to be restored by him. In Italy they can't divorce. He insisted on her giving me up, and he would for- give every thing, — even the adultery which he swears that lie can prove by ' famous witnesses.' But, in this country, the very courts hold such proofs in abhorrence, the Italians being as much more delicate in public than the English, as they are more passionate in private. " The friends and relatives, who are numerous and powerful, reply to him — ' You yourself are either fool or knave, — fool, if you did not see the consequences of the approximation of these two young per- sons, — knave, if you connive at it. Take your choice, — but do n't break out (after twelve months of the closest intimacy, under your own eves and positive sanction) with a scandal, which can only make you ridiculous and her unhappy.' "He swore that bethought our intercourse was purely amicable, and that / was more partial to him than to her, till melancholy testi- mony proved the contrary. To this they answer, that ' Will of this wisp' was not an unknown person, and that ' clamosa Kama' had not proclaimed the purity of my morals; — that her brother, a year ago, wrote from Rome to warn him, that his wife would infallibly be led astray by this ignis fatuus, unless he took proper measures, all of which he neglected to take, &c. &c. " Now, he says, that he encouraged my return to Ravenna, to see 1 in (juanti pieili di acqua stamo,' and he has found enough to drown him in. In short, ' Ce ne fut pas le tout ; sa femine se plaignit — "roces — La parent6 se joint en excuse et dit * An Irish phrase for being in a scrape. a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYROX. 233 Que du Docteur venoit tout le mauvais menage ; Que cet homme etoit fou, que sa femme etoit sage. On fit casser le manage.' It is but to let the women alone, in the way of conflict, for they are sure to win against the field. She returns to her father's house, and I can only see her under great restrictions — such is the custom of the country. The relations behaved very well ; — I offered any settlement, but they refused to accept it, and swear she sha 1 n't live with G. (as he has tried to prove her faithless), but that he shall maintain her ; and, in fact, a judgment to this effect came yesterday. I am, of course, in an awkward situation enough. " I have heard no more of the carabiniers who protested against my liveries. They are not popular, those same soldiers, and, in a small row, the other night, one was slain, another wounded, and divers put to flight, by some of the Romagnuole youth, who are dexterous, and somewhat liberal of the knife. The perpetrators are not dis- covered, but I hope and believe that none of my ragamuffins were in it, though they are somewhat savage, and secretly armed, like most of the inhabitants. It is their way, and saves sometimes a good deal of litigation. " There is a revolution at Naples. If so, it will probably leave a card at Ravenna in its way to Lombardy. " Your publishers seem to have used you like mine. M. has shuf- fled, and almost insinuated that my last productions are dull. Dull, sir ! — damme, dull ! I believe he is right. He begs for the comple- tion of my tragedy on Marino Faliero, none of which is yet gone to England. The fifth act is nearly completed, but it is dreadfully long — 10 sheets of long paper, 4 pages each — about 150 when printed; but ' so full of pastime and prodigality' that I think it will do. " Pray send and publish your Pome upon me ; and do n't be afraid of praising me too highly. I shall pocket my blushes. " ' Not actionable !' — Chantre oVenfer .'* — by * * that 's ' a speech,' and I won't put up with it. A pretty title to give a man for doubting if there be any such place ! " So my Gail is gone — and Miss Mahtmy won't take money. I am very glad of it — I like to be generous free of expense. But beg her not to translate me. " Oh, pray tell Galignani that I shall send him a screed of doctrine if he do n't be more punctual. Somebody regularly detains two, and sometimes four, of his messengers by the way. Do, pray, entreat him to be more precise. News are worth money in this remote king- dom of the Ostrogoths. " Pray, reply. I should like much to share some of your Cham- pagne and La Fitte, but I am too Italian for Paris in general. Make Murray send my letter to you — it is full of epigrams. " Yours, &c." In the separation that had now taken place between Count Guiccioli and his wife, it was one of the conditions that the lady should, in future, reside under the paternal roof : — in consequence of which, Madame Guiccioli, on the 16th of July, left Ravenna and retired to a villa belonging to Count Gamba, about fifteen miles distant from that * The title given him by M. Lamartine, in one of his Poems. 03i NOTICES or THE [a.d. i city. Here Lord Byron occasionally visited her — about once or twice, perhaps, in the month —passing the resl of his tunc in perfecl Boli- in,[r. To a mind like his, whose world was within itself, such a mode <>i" life could have been neither new nor unwelcome; but to the woman, young and admired, whose acquaintance with the world and its pleasures had but just begun, this change was, it must be confessed, most sudden and trying. Counl GuiccioE was rich, and, as a youne wife, she had gained absolute power over him. she was proud, and his station placed lur among the highest in Ravenna. They had talked of travelling to Maples, Florence, Pans,— and every luxury, in short, that wealth could command was at her disposal. All this she now voluntarily and det< rmmedly sacrificed for Byron. Her Bpendid home abandoned — her relations all openl] al war with l„. r — her kind lather hut tolerating, from fondness, whal he could not approve — she was now, upon a pittance of 200i. a year, living apart from the world, her sole occupation the task of educating herself for her illustrious lover, and her .sole reward the few brief glimpses of him which their now restricted intercourse allowed. Of the man who could inspire and keep alive so devoted a feeling, it maybe pro- nounced with confidence that he could not have been such as, in the freaks of his own wayward humour, he represented himself; while, on the lady's side, the whole history of her attachment goes to prove how completely an Italian woman, whether by nature or from her social position, is led to invert the usual eourse of such frailties among our- selves, and, weak in resisting the first impulses of passion, to reserve the whole strength of her character for a display of constancy and devotedness afterward. LETTER CCCLXXX. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, July 17th, 1820. "I have received some books, and Quarterlies, and Edinburghs, tor all which 1 am grateful ; they contain all 1 know of England, except by Galignani's newspaper. " The Tragedy is completed, but now comes the task of copy ami correction. It is very long (42 sheets of long paper, of four pages each), and 1 believe must make more than 140 or 160 pages, besides many historical extracts as notes, which 1 mean to append. History is closely followed. Dr. Moore's account is in some respects false, and in all foolish and flippant. None of the chronicles (and 1 have consulted Sanuto, Sandi, Navagero, and an anonymous Siege of Zara, besides the histories of Laugier, J>aru, Sismondi, &C.) state, or even bint, thai he begged his life; they merely say that he did not deny the conspiracy. He was one of their great men,— commander at the siege of Zara,— heat sii,noi) Hungarians, killing 8000, and al the same time kept the town he was besieging in order,— took Capo d'lstria*— was ambassador at Genoa, Rome, and finally Doge, where he fell for treason, in attempt - to alter the government, by what Sanuto calls a judgment on Inm lor, many years before (when 1'odcsta and ( 'aptain of Treviso), having knocked down B bishop, who was sluggish in carrying the host at a procession. He 'saddles him,' as Thwatkum did Square, 'with a judgmenl ;' but he does not mention whether be had been punished at a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 235 the time for what Avould appear very strange, even now, and must have been still more so in an age of papal power and glory. Sanuto says, that Heaven took away his senses for this buffet, and induced him to conspire. ' Pero fu permesso che il Faliero perdette 1' intel- letto,' &c. " I do not know what your parlour-boarders will think of the Drama I have founded upon this extraordinary event. The only similar one in history is the story of Agis, King of Sparta, a prince with the com- mons against the aristocracy, and losing his life therefor. But it shall be sent when copied. " I should be glad to know why your Quartering- Reviewers, at the close of ' the Fall of Jerusalem,' accuse me of Manicheism ? a com- pliment to which the sweetener of ' one of the mightiest spirits' by no means reconciles me. The Poem they review is veiy noble ; but could they not do justice to the writer without converting him into my religious antidote 1 I am not a Manichean, nor an Any-chean. I should like to know what harm my ' poeshies' have done 1 I can't tell what people mean by making me a hobgoblin." ****** LETTER CCCLXXXI. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, August 31st, 1820. "I have 'put my soul' into the tragedy (as you if it) ; but you know that there are d — d souls as well as tragedies. Recollect that it is not a political play, though it may look like it : it is strictly historical. Read the history and judge. " Ada's picture is her mother's. I am glad of it — the mother made a good daughter. Send me Gilford's opinion, and never mind the Archbishop. I can neither send you away, nor give you a hundred pistoles, nor a better taste : I send you a tragedy, and you asked for 4 facetious epistles ;' a little like your predecessor, who advised Dr, Prideaux to ' put some more humour into his Life of Mahomet.' " Bankes is a wonderful fellow. There is hardly one of my school or college contemporaries that has not turned out more or less cele- brated. Peel, Palmerstone, Bankes, Hobhouse, Tavistock, Bob Mills, Douglas Kinnaird, &c. &c. have all talked and been talked about. * * * * * * " We are here going to fight a little next month, if the Huns do n't cross the Po, and probably if they do. I can't say more now. If any thing happens, you have matter for a posthumous work in MS. ; so pray be civil. Depend upon it, there will be savage work, if once they begin here. The French courage proceeds from vanity, the German from phlegm, the Turkish from fanaticism and opium, the Spanish from pride, the English from coolness, the Dutch from obstinacy, the Russian from insensibility, but the Italian from anger; so you '11 see that they will spare nothing." gft NOTICES OF Till: [a. d. 1820 LETTER CCCLXXXII. TO Mil. MOORE. " Ravenna, August 31st, 1820. a D — n your • mezzo cammin M — you should say ' the prime of life,' a much more consolatory phrase. Besides, it is not correct. I was born in 1788, and consequently am but thirty-two. You arc mistaken on another point. The ' Sequin Box' never came into requisition, nor is it likely to do so. It were In tier that it had, for then a man is not bound, you know. As to reform, I did reform — what would you have 1 ■ Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.' I verily believe that nor you, nor any man of poetical temperament, can avoid a strong passion of sonic kind. It is the poetry of life. What should 1 have known or written, had I been a quiet, mercantile politician, or a lord in waiting ? A man must travel and turmoil, or there is no existence. Resides, I only meant to be a Cavalier Servcnte, and had no idea it would turn out a romance, in the Anglo fashion. "However, I suspect I know a thing or two of Italy — more than Lady Morgan has picked up in her posting. What do Englishmen know of Italians beyond their museums and saloons — and some hack • •. en pauarU ? Now, I have lived in the heart of their houses, in parts of Italy freshest and least influenced by strangers, — have seen and be- come (pan magnajui) a portion of their hopes, and fears, and passions, and am almost inoculated into a family. This is to see men and things as they are. " Sou say that I called you ' quiet'f — I do n't recollect anything of the sort. On the contrary, you are always in scrapes. "What think you of the Queen? I hear Mr. Hoby says, ' that it makes him weep to see her, she reminds him so much of .lane Shore.' " Mr. Hoby the bootmaker's heart is quite sore, For seeing the Queen makes him think of Jane Shore ; And, in fact, * * * * * Pray excuse this ribaldry. What is your Poem about? Write and tell me all about it and you. " Yours, &c. " P.S. Did you write the lively quiz on Peter Bell 1 It has wit enough to he yours, and almost too much to be any body else's now going. It was" in Galignani the other day or week." * 1 had congratulated him upon arriving at what Danto calls the " mezzo cainiiiin" of life, the age of tliirty-thrco. 1 1 bad mistaken the concluding words ofhis letter of the 9th of June. 'a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 237 LETTER CCCLXXXIII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, September 7th, 1820. " In correcting the proofs you must refer to the manuscript, because there are in it various readings. Pray attend to this, and choose what Gifford thinks best. Let me hear what he thinks of the whole. " You speak of Lady * *'s illness : she is not of those who die : — the amiable only do; and those whose death would do good live. Whenever she is pleased to return, it may be presumed she will take her ' divining rod' along with her : it may be of use to her at home, as well as to the ' rich man' of the Evangelists. " Pray do not let the papers paragraph me back to England. They may say what they please, any loathsome abuse but that. Contra- dict it. " My last letters will have taught you to expect an explosion here : it was primed and loaded, but they hesitated to fire the train. One of the cities shirked from the league. I cannot write more at large for a thousand reasons. Our 'puir hill folk' offered to strike, and raise the first banner, but Bologna paused ; and now 't is autumn, and the season half over. ' O Jerusalem ! Jerusalem !' The Huns are on the Po ; but if once they pass it on their way to Naples, all Italy will be behind them. The dogs — the wolves — may they perish like the host of Sen- nacherib ! If you want to publish the Prophecy of Dante, you never will have a better time." LETTER CCCLXXXIV. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, Sept. 11th, 1820. " Here is another historical note for you. I want to be as near truth as the drama can be. " Last post I sent you a note fierce as Faliero himself,* in answer to a trashy tourist, who pretends that he could have been introduced to me. Let me have a proof of it, that I may cut its lava into some shape. " What Gifford says is very consolatory (of the First Act). English, sterling genuine English, is a desideratum among you, and I am glad that I have got so much left ; though Heaven knows how I retain it r lhear none but from my valet, and his is Nottinghamshire; and I see none but in your new publications, and theirs is no language at all, but jargon. Even your * * * * is terribly stilted and affected, with ' very, very'' so soft and pamby. " Oh! if ever I do come among you again, I will give you such a ' Baviad and Maeviad !' not as good as the old, but even better merited. There never was such a set as your ragamuffins (I mean not yours * The angry note against English travellers appended to this tragedy, in consequence of an assertion made by some recent tourist that he (or, as it afterwards turned out, she) " had repeatedly declined an introduction to Lord Byron while in Italy." 238 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1820. only, but every body's). What with the Cockneys, and the Lakers, and thefollowera of-Scott, and Moore, and Pyron, yon arc in the very Uttermost decline and degradation of literature. I can't think of it without all the remorse of a murderer. I wish that Johnson were alive again to crush them !" "6" LETTER CCCLXXXV. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, Sept. 14th, 1820. " What ! not a line 1 Well, have it in your own way. ' I wish you would inform Perry that his stupid paragraph is the cause of all my newspapers being stopped in Paris. The fools believe me in your infernal country, and have not sent on their gazettes, so (hat I know nothing of your beastly trial of the Queen. " 1 cannot avail myself of Mr. Gifford's remarks, because I have received none, except on the first act. " Yours, &c. " P.S. Do, pray, beg the editors of papers to say any thing black- guard they please ; but not to put me among their arrivals. They do mc more mischief by such nonsense than all their abuse can do.' LETTER CCCLXXXVI. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, Sept. 21st, 1820. " So you are at your old tricks again. This is the second packet I have received unaccompanied by a single line of good, bad, or in- different It is strange that you have never forwarded any farther ob- servations of Gifford's. How am I to alter or amend, if I hear no farther ? or does tins Bilence mean that it is well enough as it is, or too bad to he repaired 1 if the last, why do you not say so at once, instead of plaj nig pretty, while you know that soon or late you must out with the truth. " Yours, &c. "P.S. My sister tells me that you sent to her to inquire where I was, believing in my arrival, 4 driving n curricle,' 1 he. &c. into Palace- yard. Do you think me a coxcomb or a madman, to be capable of such an exhibition ! My sister knew me better, and told you, that could not lie me. You might as well have thought mc entering on 'a pale horse,' like Death m the Revelations." . A. D. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 239 LETTER CCCLXXXVII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, Sept. 23d, 1820. " Get from Mr. Hobhouse, and send me a proof (with the Latin) of my Hints from Horace • it has now the nonum premature in annum complete for its production, being written at Athens in 1811. I have a notion that, with some omissions of names and passages, it will do ; and I could put my late observations/or Pope among the notes, with the date of 1820, and so on. As far as versification goes, it is good ; and on looking back to what 1 wrote about that period, I am astonished to see how little I have trained on. I wrote better then than now; but that comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times. If I can trim it for present publication, what with the other things you have of mine, you will have a volume or two of variety at least 5 for there will be all measures, styles, and topics, whether good or no. I am anxious to hear what Gifford thinks of the tragedy ; pray let me know. I really do not know what to think myself. " If the Germans pass the Po, they will be treated to a mass out of the Cardinal de Retz's Breviary. * * 's a fool, and could not under- stand this : Frere will. It is as pretty a conceit as you would wish to see on a summer's day. "Nobody here believes a word of the evidence against the Queen. The very mob cry shame against their countrymen, and say, that for half the money spent upon the trial, any testimony whatever ma)' be brought out of Italy. This you may rely upon as fact. I told you as much before. As to what travellers report, what are travellers ? Now I have lived among the Italians — not Florenced, and Romed, and gal- leried, and conversationed it for a few months, and then home again; but been of their families, and friendships, and feuds, and loves, and councils, and correspondence, in a part of Italy least known to foreigners, — and have been among them of all classes, from the Conte to the Contadine ; and you may be sure of what I say to you. " Yours, &c " LETTER CCCLXXXVIII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, September 28th, 1820. " I thought that I had told you long ago, that it never was intended nor written with any view to the stage. 1 have said so in the preface too. It is too long and too regular for your stage, the persons too few, and the unity too much observed. It is more like a play of Alfi- eri's than of your stage (I say this humbly in speaking of that great man) ; but there is poetry, and it is equal to Manfred, though I know not what esteem is held of Manfred. " I have now been nearly as long out of England as I Avas there daring the time I saw you frequently. I came home July 14th, 1811, and left again April 25th, 1816: so that Sept. 28th, 1820, brings me within a very few months of the same duration of time of my stay and my absence. In course, I can know nothing of the public taste and feelings, but from what I glean from letters, &c. Both seem to be as bad as possible. 940 NOTICES OF THE f A . d. 1820. " I thought Jlnaslasius excellent : did I not say so ? Matthcws's Diary most excellent ; it, and Forsyth, and parts of Hobhouse, arc ail we have of truth or sense upon Italy. The letter to Julia very good in- deed. I do not despise ******; but if she knit blue-stockings instead of wearing them, it would be better. You are taken in by that false, stilted, trashy style, which is a mixture of all the styles of the day, which are all bombastic (I do n't except my own — no one has done more through negligence to coirupt the language) ; but it is neither English nor poetry. 'Time will show. "1 am sorry Gifford has made no farther remarks beyond the first Act : does he think all the English equally sterling as he thought the first ? You did right to send the proofs : I was a fool ; but I do really detest the sight of proofs : it is an absurdity ; but comes from laziness. " You can steal the two Juans into the world quietly, tagged to the others. The play as you will — the Dante too; but the Pulci I am proud of: it is superb ; you have no such translation. It is the best thing I ever did in my life. I wrote the play from beginning to end, and not a single scene without interruption, and being obliged to break off in the middle ; for I had my hands full, and my head, too, just then; so it can be no great shakes — I mean the play ; and the head too, if you like. "P.S. Politics here still savage and uncertain. However, we are all in our ' bandaliers' to join the ' Highlanders if they cross the Forth,' i. e. to crush the Austrians if they pass the Po. The rascals ! — and thai dog L 1, to say their subjects are happy ! If ever 1 come back, I '11 work some of these ministers. " Sept. 29th. " I open my letter to say that on reading more of the four volumes on Italy, where the author says 'declined an introduction,' I perceive (horresco referens) it is written by a WOMAN ! ! ! In that case you must suppress my note and answer, and all I have said about the book and the writer. I never dreamed of it until now, in my extreme wrath at that precious note. I can only say that I am sorry that a lady should say any thing of the kind. What I would have said to one of the other sex you know already. Her book too (as a s/iebook) is not a bad one ; but she evidently don't know the Italians, or rather don't like them, and forgets the causes of their misery and profligacy [Mai- thews and Forsyth are your men for the truth and tact), and has gone over Italy in company always a bad plan : you must be alone with people to know them well. Ask her, who was the ' descendant of' Lady M. II'. Montague,'' and by whom 1 ? by Algarotti] " I suspect that in Marino Faliero, you and yours won't like the po- litics winch are perilous to you in these times: but. recollect that it is not a political play, and that I was obliged to put into the mouths of the characters the sentiments upon which they acted. I hate all things written like Pizarro, to represent France, England, and so forth. Ml 1 have done is meant to be purely Venetian, even to the very prophecy of its present state. " Your \ngles in general know little of the Italians, who detest them for their numbers and their Genoa treachery. Besides, the English travellers have not been composed of the best company. How could they? — out of 100,000, how many gentlemen were there, or honest men ? "Mitchell's Aristophanes is excellent. Send me the reW of it. a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 241 " These fools will force me to write a book about Italy myself, to give them ' the loud lie.' They prate about assassination ; what is it but the origin of duelling — and ' a wild justice,'' as Lord Bacon calls it ? It is the fount of the modern point of honour in what the laws can't or won't reach. Every man is liable to it more or less, according to cir- cumstances or place. For instance, I am living here exposed to it daily, for I have happened to make a powerful and unprincipled man my enemy ; — and I never sleep the worse for it, or ride in less soli- tary places, because precaution is useless, and one thinks of it as of a disease which may or may not strike. It is true that there are those here, who, if he did, would ' live to think on "t ;' but that would not. awake my bones : I should be sorry if it would, were they once at rest." LETTER CCCLXXXIX. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, Sbre 6?, 1820. " You will have now received all the Acts, corrected, of the Marino Faliero. What you say of the ' bet of 100 guineas' made by some one who says that he saw me last week reminds me of what happened in 1810; you can easily ascertain the fact, and it is an odd one. " In the latter end of 1811, 1 met one evening at. the Alfred my old school and form-fellow (for we were within two of each other, he the higher, though both very near the top of our remove) Peel, the Irish secretary. He told me that, in 1810, he met me, as he thought, in St. James-street, but we passed without speaking. He mentioned this, and it was denied as impossible ; I being then in Turkey. A day or two afterward, he pointed out to his brother a person on the opposite side of the way: — ' There,' said he, ' is the man whom I took for By- ron.' His brother instantly, answered ' Why, it is Byron, and no one else.' But this is not all : — I was seen by somebody to write down my name among the inquirers after the king's health, then attacked by insanity. Now, at this very period, as nearly as I could make out, I was ill of a strong fever at Patras, caught in the marshes near Olympia, from the malaria. If I had died there, this would have been a new ghost story for you. You can easily make out the accuracy of this from Peel himself, who told it in detail. I suppose you will be of the opinion of Lucretius, who (denies the- immortality of the soul, but) asserts that from the ' flying off of the surfaces of bodies, these sur- faces or cases, like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it, so that the shapes and shadows of both the dead and living are frequently beheld.' " But if they are, are their coats and waistcoats also seen 1 I do not disbelieve that we may be two by some unconscious process, to a certain sign, but which of these two I happen at present to be, I leave you to decide. I only hope that C other me behaves like a gemman. " I wish you would get Peel asked how far I am accurate in my re- collection of what he told me ; for I do n't like to say such things without authority. " I am not sure that I was not spoken with ; but this also you can ascertain. I have written to you such letters that I stop. " Yours, &c. Vol. IT.— Q 242 NOTH ES UF THE [a. d. i • P.S. Lajsi year (in June, 1819) I met at Count Mosti's, at Fer- rara, an Italian, who asked me 'if I knew Lord Byron V I told him no (no one knows himself, you know). ' Then,' says he, 'I do; I met him at Naples the other day.' I pulled out my eard and asked him if that was the way he spelled his name: he answered, yes. I suspect that it was a blackguard navy surgeon, who attended a young travelling madam about, and passed himself for a lord at the post- houses. He was a vulgar dog — quite of the cock-pit order — and a precious representative I must have had of him, if it was even so; but I don't know. He passed himself off as a gentleman, and squired about a Countess * * (of this place), then at Venice, an ugly, battered woman, of bad morals even for Italy." LETTER CfCCXC. lit MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, Sbrc 8?, 1820. '• FoitJolo'a letter is exactly the thing wanted ; firstly, because he is fi man of genius ; and, next, because he is an Italian, and therefore the best judge of Italics. Besides, ' He ?s more an antique Roman than a Dane ;' that is, he is more of the ancient Greek than of the modern ... ... Though ' somewhat,' as Dugald Dalgetty says, ' too wild and sa/vage' (like 'Ronald of the Mist'), 't is a wonderful man, and my friends Hobhouse and Rose both swear by him; and they are good judges of men and of Italian humanity. ' Here are in all two worthy voices gain'd :' Gifford says it is good 'sterling genuine English,' and Foscolo s^s that the characters are right Venetian. Shakspeare and Otway had a million of advantages over me, besides the incalculable one of being dead from one to two centuries, and having been both born black- guards (which are such attractions to the gentle living reader); let me then preserve the only one which I could possibly have — that of having been at Venice, and entered more into the local spirit of it. I claim no more. •• I know what Foscolo means about Calendared spitting at Ber- i; that's national — the objection, I mean. The Italians and French, with those 'flags of abomination, 1 their pocket-handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else — in your face almost, and therefore object to it on the stage as too Jii miliar. But we who spit nowhere — but in a man's lace when we grow savage — are not likely to feel this. Remember Massinger, and Kean's Sir Giles Overreach — ' Lord! thus I spit at thee and at thy counsel!' Besides, < Salendaro does not spit in Bertram's face; he spits at him, as 1 have seen the Mussulmans do upon the ground when they are in a rage. Again, he does not in fact despise Bertram, though he affects 11 do, when antrry with one we think our inferior. He is K. b. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 243 angry at not being allowed to die in his own way (although not afraid of death) ; and recollect that he suspected and hatred Bertram from the first. Israel Bertuccio, on the other hand, is a cooler and more concentrated fellow: he acts upon j^rinciple and impulse; Calendar© upon impulse and example. "So there's argument for you. "The Doge repeats; — true, bui it is from engrossing passion, and because he sees different persons, and is always obliged to recur to the cause uppermost in his mind. His speeches are long ; — true, but I wrote for the closet, and on the French and Italian model rather than yours, which I think not very highly of, for all your old dramatists, who are long enough, too, God knows : — look into any of them. " I return you Foscolo's letter, because it alludes also to his private affairs. I am sorry to see such a man in straits, because I know what they are, or what they were. I never met but three men who would have held out a finger to me : one was yourself, the other William Bankes, and the other a nobleman long ago dead : but of these the first was the only one who offered it while I really wanted it ; the second from good-will — but I was not in need of Bankes's aid, and would not have accepted it if I had (though I love and esteem him) ; — and the third — — — — — — — .* " So you see that I have seen some strange things in my time. As for jour own offer, it was in 1815, when I was in actual uncertainty of five pounds. I rejected it ; but I have not forgotten it, although you probably have. "P.S. Foscolo's Ricciardo was lent, with the leaves uncut, to some Italians, now in villeggiatura, so that I have had no opportunity of hearing their decision, or of reading it. They seized on it as Fos- colo's, on account of the beauty of the paper and printing, directly. If I find it takes, I wdl reprint it here. The Italians think as highly of Foscolo as they can of any man, divided and miserable as they are, and with neither leisure at present to read, nor head nor heart to judge of any thing but extracts from French newspapers and the Lu- gano Gazette. " We are all looking at one another, like wolves on their prey in pursuit, only waiting for the first falling on to do unutterable things. They are a great world in chaos, or angels in hell, which you please ; but out of chaos came paradise, and out of hell — I do n't know what; but the Devil went in there, and he was a fine fellow once, you know. "You need never favour me with any periodical publication, except the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and an occasional Blackwood; or now and then a Monthly Review : for the rest I do not feel curiosity enough to look beyond their covers. " To be sure I took in the Editor of the British finely. He fell precisely into the glaring trap laid for him. It was inconceivable how he could be so absurd as to imagine us serious with him. " Recollect, that if you put my name to ' Don Juarf in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian right of my daughter in chancery, on the plea of its containing the parody; — such are the perils of a foolish jest. I was not aware of ttiis at the time, but yon will find it correct, I believe ; and you may be sure that the Noels * The paragraph is left thus imperfect in the original, Q 2 J44 .NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 182U. ■■. ould not Lei it .slip. Now I prefer my child to a poem at any time, and so should you, as having half a dozen. •' Let me know your notions. •• II' vou turn over the earlier pages of the Huntingdon peerage Btory, you will see how common a name Ada was in the early Planta- I ... met days. I found it in my own pedigree in the reign of John and I Eenry, and gave it to my daughter. It was also the name of Char- lemagne's sister. It is in an early chapter of Genesis, as the name of the wife of Lamech; and I suppose Ada is the feminine of Adam It is short, ancient, vocalic, and had been in my family for which . ason 1 gavi il to my daughter." r LETTER CCCXCI. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, 8 bre 12<\ 1,820. '•By laud and sea carriage a considerable quantity of books have arrived ; and I am obliged and grateful : but ' medio de fonte leporum, surgit amari illiquid,' &c. &c; which, being interpreted, means, ' I 'm thankful for your books, dear Murray ; But why not send Scott's Monaster?/? the oidy book in four living volumes I would give a baioccolo to see — 'bating the rest of the same author, and an occasional Edinburgh and Quarterly, as brief chroniclers of the times. Instead of this, here are Johnny Keats's * * poetry, and three novels, by God knows whom, except that there is Peg * * *'s name to one of them — a spinster whom I thought we had sent back to her spinning. Crayon is very good ; Hogg's Tales rough, but racy, and welcome. " Books of travels are expensive, and I do n't want them, having travelled already ; besides, they lie. Thank the author of ' the Pro- fligate' for his (or her) present. Pray send me no more poetry but what is ran: and decidedly good. There is such a trash of Keats and the like upon my tables that I am ashamed to look at them. I say nothing against your parsons, your S * * s, and your C * * s — it is all very fine — but pray dispense me from the pleasure. Instead of poetry, if you will favour me with a few soda-powders, I shall be delighted: but all prose ('bating travels and novels not by Scott) is welcome, especially Scott's Tales of My Landlord, and so on. " In the notes to Marino Faliero, it may be as well to say that ' Beninlende" 1 was not really of the Ten, but merely Grand Chancellor, a separate office (although important) ; it was an arbitrary altera- tion of mine. The Doges too were all buried in St. .Murk's before Faliero. ft is singular that when his predecessor, Andrea Dandolo, died, the 7 hi made a law that all the 'future Doges should be buried with their families, in their own churches, — one would think by a kind of presentiment. So that all that is said of his ancestral Doges, as buried at St. John's and Paul's, is altered from the fact, they being in St. Murk's. Make a note of this, and put Editor as the subscription to it. " As 1 make such pretensions to accuracy, I should not like to be twitted even with BUch trifle? on thai score. Of the plav thev may l.D. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 245 say what they please, but not so of my costume and dram, pers., they having been real existences. " I omitted Foscolo in my list of living Venetian ■worthies, in the notes, considering him as an Italian in general, and not a mere pro- vincial like the rest; and as an Italian I have spoken of him in the preface to canto 4th of Childe Harold. " The French translation of us ! ! ! oime ! oime .' — and the German ; but I do n't understand the latter, and his long dissertation at the end about the Fausts. Excuse haste. Of politics it is not safe to speak, but nothing is decided as yet. " I am in a very fierce humour at not having Scott's Monastery. — You are too liberal in quantity, and somewhat careless of the quality, of your missives. All the Quarterlies (four in number) I had had before from you, and two of the Edinburgh ; but no matter, we shall have new ones by-and-by. No more Keats, I entreat : — flay him jdive ; if some of you do n't, I must skin him myself. There is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the manikin. " I do n't feel inclined to care farther about ' Don Juan.' What do you think a very pretty Italian lady said to me the other day ? She had read it in the French, and paid me some compliments, with due drawbacks, upon it. I answered that what she said was true, but that. I suspected it would live longer than Childe Harold. — ' M, buf (said she) 'I would rather have the fame of Childe Harold for three years than an immortality of Don Juan /' The truth is that it is too true, and the women hate many things which strip off the tinsel of sentiment ; and they are right, as it would rob them of their weapons. I never knew a woman who did not hate Be Grammonfs Memoirs for the same reason : even Lady * * used to abuse them. " Rose's work I never received. It was seized at Venice. Such is the liberality of the Huns, with their two hundred thousand men, that they dare not let such a volume as his circulate." LETTER CCCXCH. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, S bl 'e 16°, 1820. " The Abbot has just arrived ; many thanks ; as also for the Mo- nastery — when you send it ! ! ! " The Abbot will have a more than ordinary interest for me, for an ancestor of mine by the mother's side, Sir J. Gordon of Gight, the handsomest of his day, died on a scaffold at Aberdeen for his loyalty to Mary, of whom he was an imputed paramour as well as her relation. His fate was much commented on in the Chronicles of the times. If I mistake not, he had something to do with her escape from Locli Leven, or with her captivity there. But this you will know better than I. " I recollect Loch Leven as it were but yesterday. I saw it in my way to England, in 1798, being then ten years of age. My mother, who was as haughty as Lucifer with her descent from the Stuarts, and her right line from the old Gordons, not the Seyton Gordons, as she disdainfully termed the ducal branch, told me the story, always reminding me how superior her Gordons were to the southern Byrons, — notwithstanding our Norman, and always masculine descent, which UG NOTU ES OF THE [a. d. 182 , .1 into a female, as mj mother's Gordons had done in her own person. •• l have written to you so often lately that the brevity of this will in' welcome. "Yours, &<• • LETTER in Mill. TO Mil. MURRAY. ■• Ravenna, 8 l,re 17°, 1820. • Enclosed is the Dedication <>!' Marino Faliero i«> tloethe. Query, — is his title Huron or nut? 1 think yes. hit me know your opi- nion, and so forth. " P.S. Let me know what Mr. Ilobhouse and you have decided about the two prose letters and their publication. "1 enclose you an Italian abstract of the German translator of Manfred's Appendix, in which yon will perceive quoted what Goethe says of the whole body of English poetry (and not of me in partienlar). On this the Dedication is founded, as you will perceive, though I had thought of it before, for 1 look upon him as a great man." The very singular Dedication transmitted with this letter has never before been published, nor, as far as I can learn, ever reached the hands of the illustrious German. It is written in the poet's most whimsical and mocking mood ; and the unmeasured severity poured Out in it upon the two favourite objects of Ins wrath and ridicule com- pels me to deprive the reader of some of its most amusing passages. "DEDICATION TO BAKON GOETHE, &c. &c. &c. " SIR, "In the Appendix to an English work lately translated into Ger- man and published at Leipsic, a judgmenl of yours upon English poetry is quoted as follows : 'That in English poetry, great genius, universal power, a feeling of profundity, with sufficient tenderness and force, are to lie found; hut that altogether these do not constitute 2}oets," &C &c. "1 regret to see a great man falling into a great mistake. This opinion of yours only proves that the ' Dictionary often thousand living English authors' has not been translated into German. You will havi read, in your friend Schlegel's version, the dialogue in Macbeth — ' There are ten thousand ! Macbeth. Qeese, villain'? Answer. Authors, But.' Now, of these 'ten thousand authors,' there are actually nineteen hundred and eighty-seven poets, all alive at tins moment, whatevei their works may be, as their booksellers well know ; and among these there are several who possess a I'.ir greater reputation than nine, although considerably less than yours. Jt is owing to this a. d. 1820.1 LIFE Oi- LORD BY RO.V 24' neglect on the part of your German translators that you are not aware of the works of * * * * * # # " There is also another, named * * * ********** # # * * * # " I mention these poets by way of sample to enlighten you. They form but two bricks of our Babel (Windsor bricks, by-the-way), but may serve for a specimen of the building. "It is, moreover, asserted that 'the predominant character of the whole body of the present English poetry is a disgust and contempt for life.' But I rather suspect that, by one single work of prose, you yourself have excited a greater contempt for life than all the English volumes of poesy that ever were written. Madame de Stacl says, that 'Werther has occasioned more suicides than the most beautiful woman ;' and I really believe that he has put more individuals out of this world than Napoleon himself, — except in the way of his profes- sion. Perhaps, illustrious sir, the acrimonious judgment passed by a celebrated northern journal upon you in particular, and the Germans in general, has rather indisposed you towards English poetry as well as criticism. But you must not regard our critics, who are at bottom good-natured fellows, considering their two professions, — taking up the law in court, and laying it down out of it. No one can more lament their hasty and unfair judgment, in your particular, than I do ; and I so expressed myself to your friend Schlegel, in 1816, at Copet. " In behalf of my ' ten thousand' living brethren, and of myself, I have thus far taken notice of an opinion expressed with regard to 'English poetry' in general, and which merited notice, because it was YOURS. " My principal object in addressing you was to testify my sincere respect and admiration of a man, who, for half a century, has led the literature of a great nation, and will go down to posterity as the first literary character of his age. " You have been fortunate, sir, not only in the writings which have illustrated your name, but in the name itself, as being sufficiently musical for the articulation of posterity. In this you have the advan- tage of some of your countrymen, whose names Mould perhaps be immortal also — if any body could pronounce them. " It may, perhaps, be supposed, by this apparent tone of levity, that I am wanting in intentional respect towards you ; but this will be a mistake : I am always flippant in prose. Considering you, as I really and warmly do, in common with all your own, and with most other nations, to be by far the first literary character which has existed in Europe since the death of Voltaire, I felt, and feel, desirous to inscribe to you the following work, — not as being either a tragedy or a poem (for I cannot pronounce upon its pretensions to be either one or the other, or both, or neither), but as a mark of esteem and admiration from a foreigner to the man who has been hailed in Germany ' the great Goethe.' " I have the honour to be, " with the truest respect, " your most obedient " and verv humble servant, " Byron, t- NOTICES OF ^THE |a. d. i>j«v " Ravenna, 8 bre 14°, L820. •• P.S. I perceive that in Germany, as well as in Italy, there is a neal Btruggle about what they call 'Classical? and 'Romantic? — terms which were not subject's of classification in England, at least when I left u tour or five years ago. Some of the English scribblers, it is true, abused Pope and Swift, but the reason was that they themselves did nOt know how to write either prose or verse ; but nobody thought them worth making a sect of. Perhaps there may be something of the kind sprung up lately, but I have not heard much about it, and it would be such bad taste that I shall be very sorry to believe it." LETTER CCCXCIV. TO MR. MOOBB. " Ravenna, October 17th, 1 - •• You owe me two letters — pay them. 1 want to know what you are -about. The summer is over, and you will be back to Paris. Apro- pos of Paris, it was not Sophia Gail, but Sophia Gay— the English word Gay — who was my correspondent.* Can you tell who she is, as you did of the defunct * *? " Have you gone on with your Poem 1 ? I have received the French of mine. Only think of being traduced into a foreign language in such an abominable travesty ! it is useless to rail, but one can't help it. 44 Have you got my Memoir copied ? I have begun a continuation. Shall 1 send it you, as far as it is gone? 44 1 can't say any thing to you about Italy, for the Government here look upon me with a suspicious eye, as I am well informed. Pretty fellows 1— as if I, a solitary stranger, could do any mischief. It is because I am fond of rifle and pistol shooting, 1 believe ; for they took the alarm at the quantity of carti ulges I consumed,— the wiseacres ! 44 You do n't deserve a long letter— nor a letter at all— fqr your silence. You have got a new Bourbon, it seems, whom they have christened 4 Dieu-donne 5'— perhaps the honour of the present may be disputed. Did you write the good Inns on , the Laker? •• The queen has made a pretty theme for the journals. Was there ever such evidence published 1 Why it is worse than 4 Little's Poems' or 1 Don Juan.' If you do n't write soon, 1 will 4 make you a speech.' "Yours, &C." LETTER CCCXC\. TO Mil. MURRAY. 44 Ravenna, &™ 25, 1820. Pray forward the enclosed to Lady Byron. It is on business. 44 In thanking you for the Abbot, 1 made four grand mistakes. Sir 1 had mistaken the name of the lady he inquired after, and reported her i 1 him as dead. But, on tho receipt of the above letter, I discovered that his ( urrespondent was Madame Sophie Gay, mother of the celebrated poetess and beauty. Mademoiselle Delphine Gay. a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 243 John Gordon was not of Gight, but of Bogagicht, and a son of Hunt- ley's. He suffered not for his loyalty, but in an insurrection. He had nothing to do with Loch Leven, having been dead some tune at the period of the Queen's confinement : and, fourthly, 1 am not sure that he was the Queen's paramour or no, for Robertson does not allude to this, though Walter Scott does, in the list he gives of her admirers (as unfortunate) at the close of ' the Abbot.' " I must have made all these mistakes in recollecting my mother's account of the matter, although she was more accurate than 1 am, being precise upon points of genealogy, like all the anstocratical Scotch. She had a long list of ancestors, like Sir Lucius O'Trigger's, most of whom are to be found in the old Scotch Chronicles, Spalding, &e. in arms and doing mischief. 1 remember well passing Loch Leven, as well as the Queen's Ferry: we were on our way to England in 1798. " Yours. "You had better not publish Blackwood and the Roberts' prose, except what regards Pope ; — you have let the time slip by." The Pamphlet in answer to Blackwood's Magazine, here mentioned, was occasioned by an article in that work entitled " Remarks on Don Juan," and, though put to press by Mr. Murray, was never published. The writer in the Magazine having, in reference to certain passages in Don Juan, taken occasion to pass some severe strictures on the author's matrimonial conduct, Lord Byron, in his reply, enters at some length into that painful subject ; and the following extracts from his defence— if defence it can be called, when' there lias never yet been any definite charge, — will be perused with strong interest. "My learned brother proceeds to observe, that 'it is in vain for Lord B. to attempt in any way to justify his own behaviour in that affair ; and now that he has so openly and audaciously invited inquiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should not be plainly told so by the voice of his countrymen.' How far the ' openness' of an anonymous poem, and the ' audacity' of an imaginary character, which the writer supposes to be meant for Lady B., may be deemed to merit this formidable denunciation from their ' most sweet voices,' I neither know nor care ; but when he tells me that I cannot ' in any way justify my own behaviour in that affair,' I acquiesce, because no man can '■justify' himself until he knows of what he is accused ; and I have never had — and, God knows, my whole desire has ever been to obtain it — any specific charge, in a tangible shape, submitted to me by the adversary, nor by others, unless the atrocities of public rumour and the mysterious silence of the lady's legal advisers may be deemed such.* But is not the writer content with what has been already said and done 1 Has not ' the general voice of his countrymen' long ago pronounced upon the subject — sentence without trial, and condemna- tion without a charge 1 Have I not been exiled by ostracism, except that the shells which proscribed me were anonymous 1 Is the writer ignorant of the public opinion and the public conduct upon that occa- sion? If he is, I am not: the public will forget both long before I shall cease to remember either. * While these sheets are passing through the press, a printed statement has been transmitted to me by Lady Noel Byron, which the reader will find inserted in the Appendix to this volume. \<>ri< ES OF THE [a. ii. i- " The man who is exiled by :i faction has the consolation of think- ing thai he is a martyr; he is upheld bj hopi and the dignity of ins cause, real or imaginary: he who withdraws from the pressure of debt may indulge in the though! thai time and prudence will retrieve his circumstances : he who is condemned by the law has a term to his banisl mt, oj a dream of it.s abbreviation; or, ii may lie, the knowledge or the beliel of Borne injustice ol the law, or of its admi- nistration in his own particular: bul he who is outlawed bj general opinion, without the interventi f hostile politics, illegal judgment, or embarrassed circumstance s, whether hi be innocent or guilty, must undergo all the bitterness of exile, without hope, without pride, without alleviation. This case was mine. Upon what grounds the public founded their opinion, I am noi aware ; but it was general, and it was decisive. Of me or of mine thi ■> knew little, except that 1 had written what is called poetry, was a nobleman, had married, became a father, and was involved in differences with my wife and her rela- tives, no one knew why, because the persons complaining refused to state their grievances. The fashionable world was divided into par- ties, mine consisting of a very small minority : the reasonable world was naturally on the stronger side, which happened to be the lady's, as was most proper and polite. The press u as a< live and scurrilous ; and such was the rage of the day, that the unfortunate publication of two copies of verses, rather complimentary than otherwise to the subjects of both, was tortured into a species of crime, or constructive petty treason. I was accused of every monstrous vice, by public rumour and private rancour: my name, which had been a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for William the Norman, was tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered. and muttered, and murmured was true, I was unfit for England ; if false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew : but this was not enough. In other countries, in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by the blue depth of the lakes, I was pursued and breathed upon by the same blight. I crossed the mountains, but it was the same; so I went a little farther, and settled myself by the wa\ es of the Adriatic, like the stag at hay. who betakes him to the waters. "If 1 may judge by the statements id" the few friends who gathered round me. the outcry of the period to which I allude was beyond all precedent, all parallel, even in those cases where political motives have sharpened slander and doubled enmity . I was advised not to go to tlie theatres, lest I should he hissed, nor to my duty in parliament. lest I should he insulted by the way ; even on the day of my departure, my most intimate friend told me afterward that he was under appre- hensions of violence from the people who might he assembled at the door of the carriage. I low cm r, I was not deterred by these counsels from seeing Kean m his best characters, nor from voting according i" my principles; and, with regard to the third and last apprehensions of my friend-, I could not share m them, not being made acquainted with their extent till some tune after 1 hail crossed the channel. Even if 1 had been so, I am not of ;i nature to he much affected by men's anger, though I may feel hurl bj their aversion. Against all individual outrage,! could protect or redress myself; and against that of a crowd. I should probably have been enabled to defend myself, with the assist- ance of others, as has been done on similar occasions. "I retired from the country, perceiving that I was the object of . lend obloqu] j 1 did not indeed imagine, like .Jean Jacques Roussc- a. D. 1620.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 251 that all mankind was in a conspiracy against me, though I had per- haps as good grounds for such a chimera as ever he had : but I per- ceived that I had to a great extent become personally obnoxious in England, perhaps through my own fault, but the fact was indisputable ; the public in general would hardly have been so much excited against a more popular character, without at least an accusation or a charge of some kind actually expressed or substantiated, for I can hardly conceive that the common and every-day occurrence of a separation between man and wife could in itself produce so great a ferment. I shall say nothing of the usual complaints of ' being prejudged,' ' con- demned unheard,' 'unfairness,' 'partiality,' and so forth, the usual changes rung by parties who have had, or are to have, a trial ; but I was a little surprised to find myself condemned without being favoured with the act of accusation, and to perceive in the absence of this por- tentous charge or charges, whatever it or they were to be, that every possible or impossible crime was rumoured to supply its place, and taken for granted. This could only occur in the case of a person very much disliked, and I knew no remedy, having already used to their extent whatever little powers I might possess of pleasing in society. I had no party in fashion, though I was afterward told that there was one — but it was not of my formation, nor did I then know of its existence — none in literature; and in politics I had voted with the Whigs, with precisely that importance which a Whig vote pos- sesses in these Tory days, and with such personal acquaintance with the leaders in both houses as the society in which I lived sanctioned, but without claim or expectation of any thing like friendship from any- one, except a few young men of my own age and standing, and a few others more advanced in life, which last it had been my fortune to serve in circumstances of difficulty. This was, in fact, to stand alone : and I recollect, some time after, Madame de Stael said to ine in Switzerland, ' You should not have warred with the world — it will not do — it is too strong always for any individual: I myself once tried it in early life, but it will not do.' I perfectly acquiesce in the truth of this remark ; but the world had done me the honour to begin the war ; and, assuredly, if peace is only to be obtained by courting and paying tribute to it, I am not qualified to obtain its countenance, I thought, in the words of Campbell, ' Then wed thee to an exiled lot, And if the world hath loved thee not, Its absence may be borne.' " I recollect, however, that having been much hurt by Romilly's conduct (he, having a general retainer for me, had acted as adviser to the adversary, alleging, on being reminded of his retainer, that he had forgotten it, as his clerk had so many), I observed that some of those who were now eagerly laying the axe to my roof-tree, might see their own shaken, and feel a portion of what they had inflicted. — His fell, and crushed him. " I have heard of, and believe, that there are human beings so con- stituted as to be insensible to injuries ; but I believe that the best mode to avoid taking vengeance is to get out of the way of temptation. I hope that I may never have the opportunity, for I am not quite sure that I could resist it, having derived from my mother something of the 'perfervidum ingenium Scoterum? I have not sought, and shall not NOTICES OF Till. [ A . . i£ seek it, and perhaps it may never come in my path. I do not in this allude tit the party, who might be right or wrong; but to many who made her cause the pretext of their own bitterness. She, indeed, must have long avenged me in her own feelings, for whatever her reasons may have been (and she never adduced them to me at least), she probably neither Contemplated nor conceived to what she became the means of conducting the father of her child, and the husband of her choice. "So much for 'the general voice of his countrymen:' I will now speak of some in particular. "In the beginning of the year 1817, an article appeared in the Quarterly Review, written, I believe, by Walter Scott, doing great honour to him, and no disgrace to me, though both poetically and per- sonally more than sufficiently favourable to the work and the author of whom it treated. It was written at a time when a selfish man would not, and a timid one dared not, have said a word in favour of either; it was written by one to whom temporary public opinion had elevated me to the rank of a rival — a proud distinction, and unmerited ; but which has not prevented me from feeling as a friend, nor him from more than corresponding to that sentiment. The article in question was written upon the Third Canto of Childe Harold, and after many observations, which it would as ill become me to repeat as to forget, concluded with ' a hope that I might yet return to England.' How this expression was received in England itself 1 am not acquainted, but it gave great offence at Rome to the respectable ten or twenty thousand English travellers then and there assembled. I did not visit Home till some time alter, so tliat I had no opportunity of knowing the fad ; but I was informed, long afterward, that the greatest indignation had been manifested in the enlightened Anglo-circle of that year, which happened to comprise within it — amid a considerable leaven of Wel- beck-street and Devonshire-place, broken loose upon their travels — several really well-horn and well-bred families, who did not the less participate in the feeling of the hour. ' Why should he return to Eng- land V was the general exclamation — I answer why? It is a question 1 have occasionally asked my self, and 1 never yet could give it a satis- factory reply. I had then no thoughts of returning, and if I have any now, they are of business, and not of pleasure. Amid the ties thai have been dashed to pieces, there are links yet entire, though the chain itself be broken. There are duties and connexions which may one day require my presence — and I am a father. I have still some friends whom I wish to meet again, and, it may be, an enemy. These things, and those minuter details id' business, which lime accumulates during absence, m every man's affairs and property, may, and probably will, recall me to England; but I shall return with the same feelings with which I left it, in respect to itself, though altered with regard to individuals, as I have been more or less informed of their conduct since my departure ; for it was only a considerable time after it that I was made acquainted with the real facts and full extent of some of their proceedings and Language. My friends, like other friends, from conciliatory motives, withheld from me much that they could, and somethings which they should have unfolded; however, that which is deferred is not lost — but it has been no fault of mine that it has been deferred at all. " I have alluded to what is said to have passed at Rome merely to show that the sentiment which 1 have described was not confined to the a. d. 1820. J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 253 English in England, and as forming part of my answer to the re- proach cast upon what has been called my ' selfish exile,' and my ' vo- luntary exile.' ' Voluntary' it has been ; for who would dwell among a people entertaining strong hostility against him ? How far it has been ' selfish' has been already explained." The following passages from the same unpublished pamphlet will be found, in a literary point of view, not less curious. " And here I wish to say a few words on the present state, of English poetry. That this is the age of the decline of English poetry will be doubted by few who have calmly considered the subject. That there are men of genius among the present poets makes little against the fact, because it has been well said, that ' next to him who forms the taste of his country, the greatest genius is he who corrupts it.' No one has ever denied genius to Marino, who corrupted not merely the taste of Italy, but that of all Em pe for nearly a century. The great cause of the present deplorable state of English poetry is to be attri- buted to that absurd and systematic depreciation of Pope, in which, for the last few years there has been a kind of epidemical concurrence. Men of the most opposite opinions have united upon this topic. Warton and Churchill began it, having borrowed the hint probably from the heroes of the Dunciad, and their own internal conviction that their proper reputation can be as nothing till the most perfect and harmonious of poets — he who, having no fault, has had reason made his reproach — was reduced to what they conceived to be his level; but even they dared not degrade him below Dryden. Goldsmith, and Rogers, and Campbell, his most successful disciples ; and Hayley, who, however feeble, has left one poem ' that will not be willingly let die' (the Triumphs of Temper), kept up the reputation of that pure and perfect style : and Crabbe, the first of living poets, has almost equalled the master. Then came Darwin, who was put down by a single poem in the Antijacobin : and the Cruscans, from Merry to Jerningham, who were annihilated (if Nothing can be said to be anni- hilated) by Gifford, the last of the wholesome English satirists. " These three personages, S * *, W * *, and C * *, had all of them a very natural antipathy to Pope, and I respect them for it, as the only original feeling or principle which they have contrived to preserve. But they have been joined in it by those who have joined them in no- thing else : by the Edinburgh Reviewers, by the whole heterogeneous mass of living English poets, excepting Crabbe, Rogers, Gifford, and Campbell, who, both by precept and practice, have proved their adhe- rence ; and by me, who have shamefully deviated in practice, but have ever loved and honoured Pope's poetry with my whole soul, and hope to do so till my dying day. I would rather see all I have ever written lining the same trunk in which I actually read the eleventh book of a modern Epic poem at Malta in 1811 (I opened it to take out a change after the paroxysm of a tertian, in the absence of my servant, and found it lined with the name of the maker, Eyre, Cockspur-street, and with the Epic poetry alluded to), than sacrifice what I firmly believe in as the Christianity of English poetry, the poetry of Pope. # # # # * " Nevertheless, I will not go so far as * * in his postscript, who pre- tends that no great poet ever had immediate fame ; which, being inter- NOTICES OP Tin u. 1830 preted, moans that * ' is not quite so much read by his contemporai is might be desirable. Tins assertion is as false as it. is foolish. Ho- mer's glory depended upon his present popularity: he recited,— and without the Btrongesl impression of the moment, who would have ten tin Iliad by heart, and given n to tradition ? Ennius, Terence, Plautqs, Lucretius, Horace, Virgil, <£schylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Sappho, Anacreon, Theocritus, all the greal poets of antiquity, were the delight of their contemporaries.* The very existence of a poi t. previous to the invention of printing, depended upon his present popu- larity; and how often has u impaired his future fame! Hardly ever. History informs us, thai the best have come down to us. The reason is evident; the most popular found the greatest number of transcribers for their MSS., and thai the taste of their contemporaries was corrupt can hardly be avouched by the moderns, the mightiest of whom have but rarely approached them. Dante. Petrarch, AliostO, and Tasso were all the darlings of the contemporary reader. Dante's Poem was celebrated long before his death; at d, not long after it, states nego- tiated for Ins ashes, and disputed for the sites of the composition of the Diviria Commedia. Petrarch was crowned in the Capitol. Ari- osto was permitted to pass free by the public robber who bad read the Orlando Furioso. I would not recommend Mr. ■ * to try the same experiment with his Smugglers. Tasso, notwithstanding the criti- cisms of the Cruseanti, would have been crowned in the Capitol, but for his death. " It is easy to prove the immediate popularity of the chief poets of the only modern nation m Europe that has a poetical language, the Italian. In our own, Shakspeare, Spenser, Jonson, Waller, Dryden, Congreve, Pope, Young, Shenstone, Thomson, Johnson, Goldsmith, Gray, were all as popular in their lives as since. Gray's Elegy pleased instantly, and eternally. His Odes did not, nor yet do they please like his Elegy. .Milton's politics kept him down; but the Epigram Of Dryden, and the very sale of his work, in proportion to the less reading time of its publication, prove him to have been honoured by Ins contemporaries, [will venture to assert, that the sale of the Para- dise Lost was greater in the first four years after its publication than that of 'the Excursion' in the same number, with the difference of nearly a century and a half between them of time, and of thousands in pomt of genera] readers. * # * ' # * "It may be asked, why, having this opinion of the present state of poetry in England, and having had it long, as my friends and others well know— possessing, or having possessed too, as a writer, the * As far as regards the pods of ancient times, this assertion is, perhaps, right; though, if there be any truth in what /Khan and Seneca have left on record, of the obscurity, during their lifetime, of such men as Socrates and Epicurus, it would seem to prove that, among the ancients, contemporary fame was a far more rare reward of literary or philosophical eminence than among us moderns. When ihe "Clouds'' of Aristophanes was exhibited before the assembled deputies of the towns of Attica, these personages, us, were unanimously of opinion, that the character of an un- known person, called Socrates, was uninteresting upon the stage; ami 9< neea has given the substance of an authentic letter of Epicurus, in which thai philosopher declares that nothing hurt him bo much, in the midst oi^ all his happine i, as to think thai Greece, — " ilia nobilis Grsscia," — so far from ■ him, bad scarcely even heard of Ids existence. — Epist. 79 m». ISao.J LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 255 ear of the public for the time being — I have not adopted a different plan in my own compositions, and endeavoured to correct rather than encourage the taste of the day. To this I would answer, that it is easier to perceive the wrong than to pursue the right, and that I have never contemplated the prospect ' of filling (with Peter Bell, see its Preface) permanently a station in the literature of the country.' Those who know me best, know this, and that 1 have been considerably astonished at the temporary success of my works, having riattere>i no person and no party, and expressea opinions which are not those of the general reader Could I have anticipated the degree of attention which has been accorded, assuredly I would have studied more to deserve it. But I have lived in far countries abroad, or in the agitating world at home, which was not favourable to study or reflection ; so that almost all I have written has been mere passion, — passion, it is true, of differ- ent kinds, but always passion; for in me (if it be not an Irishism to say so) my indifference was a kind of passion, the result of experience, and not the philosophy of nature. Writing grows a habit, like a wo- man's gallantry : there are women who have had no intrigue, but few who have had but one only ; so there are millions of men who have never written a book, but few who have written only one. And thus, having written once, I wrote on ; encouraged no doubt by the success of the moment, yet by no means anticipating its duration, and, I will venture to say, scarcely even wishing it. But then I did other things besides write, which by no means contributed either to improve my writings or my prosperity. # # ' * * # # " I have thus expressed publicly upon the poetry of the day the opinion I have long entertained and expressed of it to all who have asked it, and to some who would rather not have heard it ; as I told Moore not very long ago, ' we are all wrong except Rogers, Crabbe, and Campbell.'* Without being old in years, I am old in days, and do not feel the adequate spirit within me to attempt a work which should show what 1 think right in poetry, and must content myself Avith having denounced what is wrong. There are, I trust, younger spirits rising up in England, who, escaping the contagion which has swept away poetry from our literature, will recall it to their country, such as it once was and may still be. " In the mean time, the best sign of amendment will be repentance, and new and frequent editions of Pope and Dryden. " There will be found as comfortable metaphysics, and ten times more poetry in the ' Essay on Man,' than in the ' Excursion.' If you * 1 certainly ventured to differ from the judgment of my noble friend, no less in his attempts to depreciate that peculiar walk of the art in which he himself so grandly trod, than in the inconsistency of which 1 thought him guilty, in condemning all those who stood up for particular " schools" of poetry , and yet, at the same time, maintaining so exclusive a theory of the art himself. How little, however, he attended to * ither the grounds or degrees of my dis- sent from him, will appear by the following wholesale report of my opinion, in his " Detached Thoughts :" " One of my notions different from those of my contemporaries is, that the present is not a high age of English poetry. There are more poets (soi-disant) than ever there were, and proportionally less poetry. " This thesis I have maintained for some years, but, strange to say, it meeteth not with favour from my brethren of the shell. Even Moore shakes his head, and firmly believes that it is the grand age of British poesy." NOTICES OF THE [ A . u. 1- nii foi passion, where is it to be found stronger than in the epistle from Eloisa to Vhelard, or in Palamon and Vreite ! Do jrou wish for invention, imagination, sublimity, character! Beek them in the Rape of tlr Lock, the Fables of Dryden, the Ode on Sainl Cecilia's Day, and Absalom mid Achitophel: you will discover in these two pints only, all for which you must ransack innumerable metres, ami God only knows how many writers of the day, without finding a tittle of the same qualities, — with the addition, too, of wit, of which the latter have none. I have not, however, forgotten Thomas Brown the younger, nor the Pudge Family, nor Whistlecrafl ; but that is not wit — it is humour. I will say nothing of the harmony of Pope and Dry- den in comparison, for there is nol a living poet (exeepl Rogers, Gilford, Campbell, and Crabbe) who can write an heroic couplet. The fact is, thai the exquisite beauty of their versification has withdrawn the public attention from their other excellences, as the vulgar eve will vest more upon the splendour of the uniform than the quality of the troops. It is this very harmony, particularly in Pope, which has raised the vulgar and atrocious cant against him: — because his versi- fication is perfect, it is assumed that it is Ins only perfection ; because his truths are so clear, it is asserted that he has no invention; and because he is always intelligible, it is taken for granted that he has no genius. We are sneeringly told that he is the 'Poet of Reason.' a< if this was a reason for his being no poet. Taking passage for passage, I will undertake to cite more lines teeming with imagination from Pope than from any tmo living poets, be they who they may. To take an instance at random from a species of composition not very favourable to imagination — Satire: set down the character of Sporus, with all the wonderful play of fancy which is scattered over it, and place by its side an equal number of verses, from any two existing poets, of the same power and the same variety — where will you rind them ' " I merely mention one instance of many in reply to the injui done to the memory of him who harmonized our poetical language. The attorneys 1 clerks, and other self-educated genii, found it easier to distort themselves to the new models than to toil afh r the Symmetry of him who had enchanted their fathers. They were besides simtti n by being told thai the new school were to revive the Language i Queen Elizabeth, the true English; as every body in the reign of Queen Amu: wrote no better than French, by a species of literary treason. "Blank verse, which, unless in (lie drama, no one except Milton ever wrote who could rhyme, became the order of the day, — or else such rhyme as looked still blanker than the verse without it. 1 am •ware that Johnson has said, after some hesitation, that he could •prevail upon himself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer.' The opinions of that truly great man, whom it is also the present fashion to decry, will ever be received by me with that deference which thin will restore to him from all ; but, with all humility, I am not persuaded thai the Paradise l.ost would not have been more nobly conveyed to posterity, no1 perhaps in heroic couplets, although even they could sus- tain the subject if well balanced, but in the stanza of Spenser, or of ' Tasso, or in the Terza rima of Dante, which the [towers of Miltoi could easily have grafted on our language. The seasons of Thomson ould have been better in rhyme, although still inferior to his Castle I Indolence; and Mr. Southey's .loan of Arc po worse, although i i up - \ months instead of weeks in the composition. a. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. §® I recommend also to the lovers of lyrics the perusal of the present laureate's odes by the side of Dryden's on Saint Cecilia, but let him be sure to read first those of Mr. Southey. " To the heaven born genii and inspired young scriveners of the day much of this will appear paradox; it will appear so even to the higher order of our critics : but it was a truism twenty years ago, and it will be a re-acknowledged truth in ten more. In the mean time, I will conclude with two quotations, both intended for some of my old classical friends who have still enough of Cambridge about them to think themselves honoured by having had John Dryden as a prede- cessor in their college, and to recollect that their earliest English poet- ical pleasures were drawn from the 'little nightingale' of Twickenham. " The first is from the notes to the Poem of the ' Friends,'* pages 181, 182. " It is only within the last twenty or thirty years that those notable discoveries in criticism have been made which have taught our recent versifiers to undervalue this energetic, melodious, and moral poet. The consequences of this want of due esteem for a writer whom the good sense of our predecessors had raised to his proper station have been numerous and deghading enough. This is not the place to enter into the subject, even as far as it affects our poetical numbers alone, and there is matter of more importance that requires present reflection.' " The second is from the volume of a young person learning to write poetry, and beginning by teaching the art. Hear him :f 'But ye were dead To things ye knew not of— were closely wed To musty laws lined out with wretched rule And compass vile ; so that ye taught a school J Of dolls to smooth, inlay, and chip, and Jit, Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit, Their verses tallied. Easy was the task : A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask Of poesy. Ill-fated, impious race, That blasphemed the bright lyrist to his face, And did not know it ; no, they went about Holding a poor decrepit standard out Written by Lord Byron's early friend, the Rev. Francis Hodgson. t The strange verses that follow are from a poem by Keats. — In a manu- script note on this passage of the pamphlet, dated Nov. 12, 1821, Lord By- ron says, " Mr. Keats died at Rome about a year after this was written, of a decline produced by his having burst a blood-vessel on reading the article on his ' Endymion' in the Quarterly Review. I have read the article before and since ; and although it is bitter, I do not think that a man should permit him- self to be killed by it. But a young man little dreams what he must inevi- tably encounter in the course of a life ambitious of public notice. My indig- nation at Mr. Keats's depreciation of Pope has hardly permitted me to do justice to his own genius, which, malgre all the fantastic fopperies of his style, was undoubtedly of great promise. His fragment of' Hyperion' seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as iEschylus. He is a loss to our literature ; and the more so, as he himself, before his death, is said to have been persuaded that he had not taken the right line, and was reforn> ing his style upon the more classical models of the language," * " It was at least, a grammar ' school.' " Vor,. JI.—R 258 NOTH ES OF THE [a. d. 182u Mark'd with most flimsy mottoes, and in large The name of one Boileauf • \ Little before the manner of Pope is termed • \ si-ism* Nurtured by foppery and barbarism, Made great Apollo blush for this his land.' •• 1 thought '■foppery'' was a consequence of refinement ; but n'imvorte. " The above will suffice to show the notions entertained by the new performers on the English lyre of him who made it most tunable, and the great improvements of their own variazioni. "The writer of this is a tadpole of the Lakes, a young disciple of the six or seven new schools, in which he has learned to write such lines and such sentiments as the above. He says, • easy was the task' of imitating Pope, or it may be of equalling him, I presume. I recom- mend him to try before he is so positive on the subject, and then com- pare what he will have then written and what he has nozv written with the humblest and earliest compositions of Pope, produced in years still more youthful than those of Mr. K. when he invented his new 'Essay on Criticism,' entitled 'Sleep and Poetry' (an ominous title), from whence the above canons are taken. Pope's was written at nineteen, and published at twenty-two. " Such are the triumphs of the new schools, and such their scholars. The disciples of Pope were Johnson, Goldsmith, Rogers, Campbell, Crabbe, Gifford, Matthias, Hayley, and the author of the Paradise of Coquettes; to whom may be added Richards, Heber, Wrangham, Bland, Hodgson, Merivale, and others who have not had their full fame, because ' the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,' and because there is a fortune in fame as in all other things. Now of all the new schools — 1 say all. for, ' like Legion, they are many' — has there appeared a single scholar who has not made his master ashamed of him? unless it be * *, who has imitated every body, and occasionally surpassed his models. Scott found peculiar favour and imitation among the fair sex : tin re was Miss Holford.and Miss Mitford, and Miss Francis; but with the greatest respect be it spoken, none of his imitators did much honour to the original except Hogg, the. Bttrick Bhepherd, until the appearance of -The Bridal of Triermain,' and 'Harold the Dauntless,' which in the opinion of some equalled if not surpassed him; and lo ! after three or four years they turned out to be the master's own compositions. Have Southey, or <'olcndge, or Wordsworth made a follower of renown? Wilson never did well till be set up for himself in the 'City of the Plague.' Has Moore, or any other living writer of reputation, had a tolerable imitator, or rath) r disciple ! Now it is remarkable that almost all the followers of Pope, whom I have named, have produced beautiful and Standard works, and it was not the number of his imitators who finally hurt his fain,", but the despair of imitation, and the ease of not imitating him sufficiently. Tins and the same reason which induced the Athenian burgher to vote for the banishment of Aristidcs, 'be- cause be was t.icd of always hearing him called the Just,' have pro- 's., - :i lied : ' i ' ." authoj A. d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. -259 duced the temporary exile of Pope from the state of literature. But the term of his ostracism will expire, and the sooner the better, not for him, but for those who banished him, and for the coming gene- ration, who ' Will blush to find their fathers were his foes.' " LETTER CCCXC\ I. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, 9bre 4, 18-20. " 1 have received from Mr. Galignani the enclosed letters, dupli- cates, and receipts, which will explain themselves.* As the poems are your property by purchase, right, and justice, all matters of publi- cation, &c. &c. are for you to decide upon. I know not how far my compliance with Mr. Galignani' s request might be legal, and I doubt that it would not be honest. In case you choose to arrange with him, I enclose the permits to you, and in so doing I wash my hands of the business altogether. I sign them merely to enable you to exert the power you justly possess more properly. I will have no- thing to do with it farther, except, in my answer to Mr. Galignani, to state that the letters, &c. &c. are sent to you, and the causes thereof. " If you can check these foreign pirates, do ; if not, put the per- missive papers in the fire. I can have no view nor object whatever, but to secure to you your property. "Y T ours, &c. "P.S. I have read part of the Quarterly just arrived; Mr. Bowles shall be answered : — he is not quite correct in his statement about English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. They support Pope, I see, in the Quarterly ; let them continue to do so : it is a sin, and a shame, and a damnation to think that Pope ! ! should require it — but he does. Those miserable mountebanks of the day, the poets, disgrace them- selves and deny God in running down Pope, the most faultless of poets, and almost of men. LETTER CCCXCVII. TO MR. MOORE. " Ravenna,"N"ovember 5th, 1820. " Thanks for your letter, which hath come somewhat costively, — but better late than never. Of it anon. Mr. Galignani, of the Press, hath, it seems, been supplanted and sub-pirated by another Parisian publisher, who has audaciously printed an edition of L. B.'s Works, at the ultra-liberal price of 10 francs, and (as Galignani piteously ob- * Mr. Galignani had applied to Lord Byron with the view of procuring from him such legal right over those works of his lordship of which he had hitherto been the sole publisher in France, as would enable him to prevent others, in future, from usurping the same privilege. R 2 joo NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1880. serves) 8 francs only for booksellers ! ' horresco referens.' Think of a man's whole works producing so little ! " (Jalignani sends me, post haste, a permission for him, from me, to publish, &c. &c, winch permit I have signed and sent to Mr. Murray, of Albemarle-street. Will you explain to G. tluit I have no right to dispose of Murray's works without his leave? and therefore I must refer him to M. to get the permit out of his claws— no easy matter, I suspect. I have written to G. to Bay as much; but a word of mouth from a 'great brother author 9 would convince him that I could not honestly have complied with his wish, though I might legally. What I could do I have done, viz. signed the warrant and sent it to Murray. Let the dogs divide the carcass, if it is killed to their liking. " I am glad of your epigram. It is odd that we should both let our wits run away with our sentiments; for I am sure that we are both Queen's men at bottom. But there is no resisting a clinch — it is so clever! Apropos of that — we have 'a diphthong' also in this part of the world — not a Greek, but a Spanish one — do you understand me ? — which is about to blow up the whole alphabet. It was first pro- nounced at Naples, and is spreading; — but we are nearer the Barba- rians ; who are in great force on the Po, and will pass it, with the first legitimate pretext. " There will be the devil to pay, and there is no saying who will or who will not be set down in his bill. If ' honour should come un- looked for' to any of your acquaintance, make a Melody of it, that his ghost, like poor Yorick's, may have the satisfaction of being plaintively pitied — or still more nobly commemorated, like • Oh breathe not his name.' In case you should not think him worth it, here is a Chant for you instead — " When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home, Let him combat for that of his neighbours ; Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome, And get knock'd on the head for his labours. 11 To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan, And is always as nobly requited ; Then battle for freedom wherever you can, And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted. " So you have gotten the letter of ' Epigrams' — I am glad of it. You will not be so, for I shall send you more. Here is one I wrote for the endorsement of 'the Deed of Separation' in 1816; but the lawyers objected to it, as superfluous. It was written as we were getting up the signing and sealing. * * has the original. "Endorsement to tlte Deed of Separation, in the April of 181G. " A year ago you swore, fond she ! ' To love, to honour,' and so forth : Such was the vow you pledged to me, And here's exactly what 7 t is worth. I or the anniversary of January ~, 18-21, I have a small gratcfui i ipation, which, in case of accident, I add — a.d. 1820.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 261 " To Penelope, January 2d, 1821 . " This day, of all our days, lias done The worst for me and you : — 'Tis just six years since we were one. And Jive since we were two. " Pray, excuse all this nonsense ; for I must talk nonsense just now, for fear of wandering to more serious topics, which, in the present state of things, is not safe by a foreign post. " I told you, in my last, that I had been going on with the « Me- moirs,' and have got as far as twelve more sheets. But I suspect they will be interrupted. In that case I will send them on by post, though I feel remorse at making a friend pay so much for postage, for we can't frank here beyond the frontier. " I shall be glad to hear of the event of the Queen's concern. As to the ultimate effect, the most inevitable one to you and me (if they and we live so long) will be that the Miss Moores and Miss Byrons will present us with a great variety of grandchildren by different fathers. " Pray, where did you get hold of Goethe's Florentine husband- killing story? upon such matters, in general, I may say, with Beau Clincher, in reply to Errand's wife — " « Oh the villain, he hath murdered my poor Timothy ! " ' Clincher. Damn your Timothy !— I tell you, woman, your hus- band has murdered me — he has carried away my fine jubilee clothes.' " So Bowles has been telling a story, too ('t is in the Quarterly), about the woods of ' Madeira,' and so forth. I shall be at Bowles again, if he is not quiet. He misstates, or mistakes, in a point or two. The paper is finished, and so is the letter. "Yours, &c."' LETTER CCCXCVIIT. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, 9 b « 90, 1S20. " The talent you approve of is an amiable one, and might prove a ' national service,' but unfortunately I must be angry with a man before I draw his real portrait ; and I can't deal in 'generals? so that I trust never to have provocation enough to make a Gallery. If ' the parson" had not by many little dirty sneaking traits provoked it, I should have been silent, though I had observed him. Here follows an alteration : put — " Devil, with such delight in damning, That if at the resurrection Unto him the free election Of his future could be given, 'T would be rather Hell than Heaven ; that is to say, if these two new lines do not too much lengthen out and weaken the amiability of the original thought and expression. You have a discretionary power about showing. I should think that NOTK THK [a.d. l~ Croker would not disrelish a sight of these light little humorous tiling, and may be indulged now and then. " \\ by, I do like one or two vices, to be sun ; but I can back a horse •■tiiil lire a pistol -without thinking "i" blinking' like Major Sturgeon; l have feu at times for t\\<> months together on sheer biscuit and water (without metaphor) ; I can get over seventy or eighty miles a day riding post, and twimfiot at a stretch, as at Venice, in 1818, or at least I COtUd do, and have dune it ONCE. "I know Henry Matthews; he is the image, to the very voice, of his brother Charles, only darker— Ins cough his m particular. The first time 1 ever met him v\ as m Scrope Davies's rooms after his bro- ther's death, and I marly dropped, thinking that it was his ghost. I have also dined with him in his rooms at King's College. Hobhouse once purposed a similar Memoir; but I am afraid the Letters of Charles's correspondence with me (which are at Whitton with my other papers) would hardly do for the public ; for our lives were not over strict, and our letters somewhat lax upon most subjects.* * * " Last week I sent you a correspondence with Galignani, and some documents on your property. You have now, I think, an opportunity of checking, or at least limiting, those French republications. You may let all your authors publish what they please against me and mine. A publisher is not, and cannot be, responsible for all the works that issue from his printer's. "The ' White Lady of Avenel,' is not quite so good as a real well authenticated ('Donna Bianca') White Lady of Colalto, or spectre in the Marca Trivigiana, who has been repeatedly seen. There is a man (a huntsman) now alive who saw her also. Hoppner could tell you all about her, and so can Rose, perhaps. 1 myself have no doubt of the fact, historical and spectral. f She always appeared on particular occasions, before the deaths of the family, &c. &C. 1 heard Madame Benzoni say, that she knew a gentleman who had seen her cross his room at Colalto Castle. Hoppner saw and spoke with the huntsman, who met her at the chase, and never hunted afterward. She was a girl attendant, who, one day dressing the hair of a Countess Colalto, was seen by her mistress to smile upon her husband in the glass. The < 'onntess had her shut up in the wall of the castle, like Constance de Beverly. Ever after, she haunted them and all tin; Colaltos. She is described as ven beautiful and fair. It is well authenticated." LETTER CCCXC1X. TO MR. IIURRAI . " Ravenna, 9bre 18°, 1820. " The death of Waite is a shock to the — teeth, as well as to the feelings of all who knew him. Cood God, he and Blake\ both gone ! * Here follow some details respecting his friend Charles S. Matthews which have already been given in the fust volume of this work. r The ghost-story, in which he hero professes such serious belief, forms the subject "I" <>ii<- of Mr. Rogers's beautiful Italian sketches. — Seo " Italy," p. 43, edit. 1H30. \ A celebrated hair-dressrr a. u. 18-20.} LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 263 I left them both in the most robust health, and littie thought of the national loss in so short a time as five years. They were both as much superior to Wellington in rational greatness, as he who preserves the hair and the teeth is preferable to ' the bloody blustering warrior 1 who gains a name by breaking heads and knocking out grinders. Who succeeds him ? Where is tooth-powder, mild, and yet effica- cious — where is tincture — where are clearing-rooJs and brushes now to be obtained ? Pray obtain what information you can upon these ' Twsculan questions.' My jaws ache to think on't. Poor fellows ! I anticipated seeing both again; and yet they are gone to that place where both teeth and hair last longer than they do in this life. 1 have seen a thousand graves opened, and always perceived, that whatever was gone, the teeth and hair remain with those who had died with them. Is not this odd ] They go the very first things in youth, and yet last the longest in the dust, if people will but die to preserve them ! It is a queer life, and a queer death, that of mortals. " I knew that Waite had married, but little thought that the other decease was so soon to overtake him. Then he was such a delight, such a coxcomb, such a jewel of a man ! There is a tailor at Bologna so like him ! and also at the top of his profession. Do not neglect this commission. Who or what can replace him? What says the public ? " I remand you the Preface. Do n't forget that the Italian extract from the chronicle must be translated. With regard to what you say of retouching the Juans and the Hints, it is all very well ; but I cant Jurbish. I am like the tiger (in poesy), if I miss the first spring I go growling back to my jungle. There is no second : I can't correct ; I can't, and I won't. Nobody ever succeeds in it, great or small. Tasso remade the whole of his Jerusalem ; but who ever reads that version ? all the world goes to the first. Pope added to ' The Rape of the Lock,' but did not reduce it. You must take my things as they happen to be. If they are not likely to suit, reduce their estimate accordingly. I would rather give them away than hack and hew them. I do n't say that you are not right ; I merely repeat that I cannot better them. I must ' either make a spoon or spoil a horn ;' and there 's an end. " Yours. " P.S. Of the praises of that little * * * Keats, I shall observe, as Johnson did when Sheridan the actor got a pension, ' What ! has he got a pension ? Then it is time that I should give up mine P Nobody could be prouder of the praise of the Edinburgh than I was, or more alive to their censure, as I showed in English Bards and Scotch Re- viewers. At present, all the men they have ever praised are degraded by that insane article. W T hy do n't they review and praise ' Solo- mon's Guide to Health V it is better sense and as much poetry as Johnny Keats. " Bowies must be bowled down. 'T is a sad match at cricket if he can get any notches at Pope's expense. If he once get into 'Lord's ground' (to continue the pun, because it is foolish), I think I could beat him in one innings. You did not know, perhaps, that I was once {not metaphorically, but really) a good cricketer, particularly in batting, and I played in the Harrow match against the Etonians in 1805, gain- ing more notches (as one o,f our chosen eleven) than any, except Lord Ipswich and Brookman, on our side." NOTICES OF Till i.». i LETTER CV< i TO MR. MURRAY". " Ravenna, 9bre 23°, 1830. "The ' Hints,' Hobhouse says, will require a good deal of slashing to suit the times, which will be a work of tunc, for I don't feel at all laborious just now. Whatever effect they arc to have would perhaps be greater in a separate form, and thej also must have my name to them. Now, it you publish them m the samr volume with Don Juan, they identify Don Juan as mine, Which I do n't think worth a chancery suit about my daughter's guardianship, as in your present code a face- tious poem is sufficient to take away a man's right over his family. "Oi the state of things here it would be difficult and not very pru- dent to speak at large, the Huns opening all letters. I wonder if they can read them when they have opened them; if so, they may see, in lliy MOST LEGIBLE HAND, THAT I THINK THEM DAMNED SCOUNDRELS and barbarians, and their emperor a fooi., and themselves more fools than he; all which they may send to Vienna for any thing 1 care. They have got themselves masters of the Papal police, and are bullying away: but some day or other they will pay for all : it may not be very soon, because these unhappy Italians have no consistency among themselves; but 1 suppose that Providence will get tired of them at last. ••••*• ii Yours, &c.'' LETTER CCCCL TO MR. MOORE. " Ravenna, Dec. 9th, 1820. " Besides this letter, you will receive three packets, containing, m all, 18 more sheets of Memoranda, which, 1 fear, will cost you more m postage than they will ever produce by being printed in the next century. Instead of waiting so long, if you could make any thing of them now in the way of reversion (that is, after my death), I should be very glad, — as, with all due regard to your progeny, I prefer you to your grandchildren. Would not Longman or Murray advance you a certain sum now, pledging themselves not to have them published till after my decease, think youl — and what say youl " Over these latter sheets I would leave you a discretionary power; because they contain, perhaps, a thing or two which is too sincere for the public. If 1 consent to your disposing of the reversion now, where would be the harm ! Tastes maj change. I would, in your case, make my essay to dispose of them, not publish, now ; and if you (as is most likely) survive me, add whal you please from your own knowledge, and. movt all, contradict any thing, if I have, mis-stated; for my first object is the truth, even at my own expense. • I have some knowledge of -your countryman, Muley Moloch, the ttrer. He wrote to me several letters npon Christianity, to convert nic ; and, it" I had not been a Christian already, 1 should probably have been now, in consequence. 1 thought there was something of ju D. 1820. j LIFE OF LORD BYRON. iti6 wild talent in him, mixed with a due leaven of absurdity, — as there must be in all talent let loose upon the world without a martingale. " The ministers seem still to persecute the Queen ***** * * * but they won't go out, the sons of b — es. Damn reform — 1 want a place— what say you I You must applaud the honesty of the declaration, whatever you may think of the intention. " I have quantities of paper in England, original and translated — tragedy, &c. &c, and am now copying out a Fifth Canto of Don Juan, 149 stanzas. So that there will be near three thin Albemarle, or two thick volumes of ali sorts of my Muses. I mean to plunge thick, too, into the contest upon Pope, and to lay about me like a dragon till ' make manure of * * * for the top of Parnassus. " Those rogues are right — we do laugh at V others — eh 1 — do n't we ?* You shall see — you shall see what things I'll say, 'an it pleases Pro- vidence to leave us leisure. But in these parts they are all going to war; and there is to be liberty, and a row, and a constitution — when they can get them. But I won't talk politics — it is low. Let us talk of the Queen, and her bath, and her bottle — that's the only motley now-a-days. " If there are any acquaintances of mine, salute them. The priests here are trying to persecute me, — but no matter. " Yours. &c." LETTER CCCCII. TO MR. MOORE. " Ravenna, Dec. 9th, 1820. " I open my letter to tell you a fact, which will show the state of this country better than I can. The commandant of the troops is now lying dead in my house. He was shot at a little past eight o'clock, about two hundred paces from my door. I was putting on my great- coat to visit Madame la Contessa G., when I heard the shot. On coming into the hall, I found all my servants on the balcony, exclaim- ing that a man was murdered. I immediately ran down, calling on Tita (the bravest of them) to follow me. The rest wanted to hinder us from going, as it is the custom for every body here, it seems, to run away from ' the stricken deer.' " However, down we ran, and found him lying on his back, almost, if not quite, dead, with five wounds, one in the heart, two in the stomach, one in the finger, and the other in the arm. Some soldiers cocked their guns, and wanted to hinder me from passing. However, we passed, and I found Diego, the adjutant, crying over him like a child — a surgeon, who said nothing of his profession — a priest, sobbing a frightened prayer — and the commandant, all this time, on his back, on the hard, cold pavement, without light or assistance, or any thing around him but confusion and dismay. " As nobody could, or would, do any thing but howl and pray, and as no one would stir a finger to move him, for fear of consequences, I * He here alludes to a humorous article, of which I had told him, in Blackwood's Magazine, where the poets of the day were all grouped toge- ther in a variety of fantastic shapes, with " Lord Byron and little Moore laughing behind, a* if they would split," at the rest of the fraternity. IS UTILES OF THE La- u. l- lost my patience — made my servant and a couple of the mob take up the body — sent off two soldiers to the guard — despatched Diego to the Cardinal with the news, and had the commandant carried up stairs into my own quarter. But it was too late, he was gone — not at all disfigured — bled inwardly — not above an ounce or two came out. " I had him partly stripped — made tin- Burgeon examine him, and examined him myself. He had been shut by cut balls, or slugs. I felt one of the sinus, which had t, r o:.< through him, all but the skin. Every body conjectures wh\ he was killed, hut no one knows how. The irun was found close bj him — an old una, hall hied down. "He only Baid, * Dio!' and ' Gesu !' two or three times, and ap- peared to have Buffered little. Poor fellow! he was a brave officer, but had made himself much disliked by tin people. I knew him per- sonally, and had met him often at conversazioni and elsewhere. My house is full of sohhers, dragoons, doctors, priests, and all kinds of persons, — though 1 have now cleared it, ami (lapped sentinels at the doors. To-morrow the body is to be moved. The town is in the greatest confusion, as you may suppose. "You are to know that, if I had not had the body moved, they would have left him there till morning in the street, for fear of con- sequences. I would not choose to let even a dog die in such a maimer, without succour; — and, as for conseouences, I care for none in a duty. " Yours, &c. " P.S. The lieutenant on duty by the body is smoking his pipe with great composure. — A queer people this." LETTER CCCCIII. TO MR. MOORK. " Ravenna, December 25th, 1820. "You will or ought to have received the packet and letters which I remitted to your address a fortnight ago (or it may he more days), and I shall be glad of an answer, as, in these times and places, packets per post are in some risk of not reaching their destination. " I have been thinking of a project for you and me, in case we both get to London again, which (if a Neapolitan war don't Buscitate) may be calculated as possible for one of us about the spring of 1821. I presume that you, too, will be back by that time, or never; hut on that you will give me some index. The project, then, is for you and me to set up jointly a newspaper— nothing more nor less — weekly, or so, with some improvement or modifications upon the plan of the present scoundrels, who degrade that department, — but a newspaper, which we will edit in due form, and, nevertheless, with some attention. " There must always be in it a piece of poesy from one or other of us two, leaving room, however, for such dilettanti rhymers as may be deemed worthy of appearing in the same column; but this must be a sinequ&non; and also as much prose as v\ e can compass. We will take an ! high passions eomes a people. " Clock strikes — gouiy out to make love. Somewhat perilous, but not disagreeable. Memorandum — a new screen put up to-day. It is rather antique, but will do with a little repair. " Thaw continues — hopeful that riding may be practicable to-inor- row. Sent the papers to All' — grand events coming. "II o' the clock and nine minutes. Visited La Contessa G. Nata G. G. Found her beginning my letter of answer to the thanks of Alessio del Pinto of Koine for assisting his brother the late Command- ant in his last moments, as 1 had begged her to pen my reply for the purer Italian, I being an ultra-montane, little skilled in the set phrase of Tuscany. Cut short the letter — finish it another day. Talked of Italy, patriotism, Allien, Madame Albany, and other branches of learn- ing. Also Sallust's Conspiracy of Catiline, and the war of Jugurtha. At 9 came in her brother, II Conte Pietro — at 10, her father, Conte Ruggiero. I'i!k. .! of various modes of warfare — of the Hungarian and High- land model ol broadsword exercise, in both whereof 1 was once a A. d. 1821.] LIFE OF LOUD BYRON. 275 moderate * master of fence.' Settled that the R. will break out on the 7th or 8th of March, in which appointment I should trust, had it not been settled that it was to have broken out in October, 1820. But those Bolognese shirked the Romagnuoles. " ' It is all one to Ranger.' One must not be particular, but take re- bellion when it lies in the way. Came home — read the ' Ten Thou- sand' again, and will go io bed. "Mem. — Ordered Fletcher (at four o'clock this afternoon) to copy out 7 or 8 apophthegms of Bacon, in which 1 have detected such blun- ders as a schoolboy might detect, rather than commit. Such are the sages ! What must they be, when such as I can stumble on their mis- takes or mistatements ? I will go to bed, for I find that I grow cynicaL "January 6th, 1821. " Mist — thaw — slop — rain. No Stirling out on horseback. Read Spence's Anecdotes. Pope a fine fellow — always thought him so. Corrected blunders in nine apophthegms of Bacon — all historical—and read Mitford's Greece. Wrote an epigram. Turned to a passage in Guinguene — ditto, in Lord Holland's Lope de Vega. Wrote a note on Don Juan. "At eight went out to visit. Heard a little music — like music. Talked with Count Pietro G. of the Italian comedian Vestris, who is now at Rome — have seen him often act in Venice — a good actor — very. Somewhat of a mannerist ; but excellent in broad comedy, as well as in the sentimental pathetic. He has made me frequently laugh and cry, neither of which is now a very easy matter— at least, for a player to produce in me. " Thought of the state of women under the ancient Greeks — con- venient enough. Present state, a remnant of the barbarism of the chivalry and feudal ages — artificial and unnatural. They ought to mind home— and be well fed and clothed — but not mixed in society. Well educated, too, in religion — but to read neither poetry nor politics — nothing but books of piety and cookery. Music — drawing — dancing — also a little gardening and ploughing now and then. I have seen them mending the roads in Epirus with good success. Why not, as well as hay-making and milking ? " " Came home, and read Mitford again, and played with my mastiff — gave him his supper. Made another reading to the epigram, but the turn the same. To-night at the theatre, there being a prince on his throne in the last scene of the comedy, — the audience laughed, and asked him for a Constitution. This shows the state of the public mind here, as well as the assassinations. It won't do. There must be a uni- versal republic, — and there ought to be. ■ "The crow is lame of a leg — wonder how it happened — some fool trod upon his toe, I suppose. The falcon pretty brisk — the cats large and noisy — the monkeys I have not looked to since the cold weather, as they suffer by being brought up. Horses must be gay — get a ride as soon as weather serves. Deused muggy still — an Italian winter is a sad thing, but all the other seasons are charming. " What is the reason that I have been, all my lifetime, more or less ennuyt ? and that, if any thing, I am rather less so now than I was at twenty, as far as my recollection serves 1 I do not know how to an- swer this, but presume that it is constitutional, — as well as the waking in low spirits,which I have invariably done for many years. Temper- S2 NOTICES "I i ill ia.ij. 18! ancc and exercise, which 1 have practised :it times, and for a long urn*' together vigorously and violently, made little or no difference. Violenl passions did; — when under their immediate influence — it is Odd, but — 1 was in agitated, but not in depressed spirits. "A dose of salts has the effect of a temporary inebriation, like light champaign, upon me. But wine and spirits make me sullen and sa- ■\ajre to ferocity — silent, however, and retiring, and not quarrelsome, if not spoken to. Swimming also raises my spirits,— but in general they are low, and get daily lower. That is nopaesa ; for 1 do not think I am so much ennutit' as 1 \v ;i^ at nineteen. The proof is, that then I must game, or drink, or be in motion of some kind, or 1 was misera- ble. At present. 1 can mope inquietness; and like being alone bet- ter than any company — except the lady's whom l serve. But I feel a something, which makes me think that, if 1 ever reach near to old age, like Swift, ' I shall die at top' first. Only I do not dread idiotisni or madness so much as he did. On the contrary, I think some quieter stages of both must be preferable to much of what men think the pos- session of their senses. "January 7th, 1821, Sunday. " Still rain— mist — snow — drizzle — and all the incalculable com- binations of a climate, where heat and cold struggle for mastery. Read Spcnce, and turned over Roscoe, to find a passage I have not found. Read the 1th vol. of W. Scott's second series of 'Tales of my Landlord.' Dined. Read the Lugano Gazette. Read — 1 forget what. At 8 went to conversazione. Found there the Countess Gel- trude, Betti V. and her husband, and others. Pretty black-eyed wo- man that — only twenty-two — same age as Teresa, who is prettier, though. " The Count Pictro G. took me aside to say that the Patriots have had notice from Forli (twenty miles off) that to-night the government and its party mean to strike a strokt — that the Cardinal here has had orders to make several arrests immediately, and that, in consequence, the Liberals are arming, and have posted patroles in the streets, to sound the alarm and give notice to fight for it. " Ite asked me ' what should be done 1 ?' — I answered, 'fight for it, rather than be taken in detail ;' and offered, if any of them are in imme- diate apprehension of arrest, to receive them in my house (which is defensible), and to defend them, with my servants and themselves (we have arms ami ammunition), as long as we can,— or to try to get them away under cloud of night. On going home, 1 offered him the pistols whnh I had about me — but he refused, but said he would come off to me in case of accidents. " It wants half an hour of midnight, and rains ; — as Oibbet says, 'a line night for their enterprise — dark as hell, and blows like the devil.' If the row do n't happen new, it must soon. 1 thought that their system of shooting people would soon produce a reaction — and now it seem-- coming. I will do what 1 can in the way of combat, though a little out of exercise. The cause is a good one. •' 'fumed over and over half a score of books for the passage in question, and can't find it. Kxpeet to hear the drum and the mus- ketry momently (for they swear to resist, and are right) — but I hear nothing, as yet, save the plash of the rain and the gusts of the wind at intervals. Do n't like to go to bed, because 1 hate to be waked, and would rather sit up for the row, if there is to be one. a.d. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON 277 "Mended the fire — have got the arms — and a book or two, which I shall turn over. 1 know little of their numbers, but think the Carbo- nari strong enough to beat the troops, even here. With twenty men this house might be defended for twenty-four hours against any force to be brought against it, now in this place, for the same time; and, in such a time, the country would have notice, and would rise, — if ever they will rise, of which there is some doubt. In the mean time, I may as well read as do any thing else, being alone. " January 8th, 1821, Monday. " Rose, and found Count P. G. in my apartments. Sent away the servant. Told me that, according to the best information, the Go- vernment had not issued orders for the arrests apprehended ; that the attack in Forli had not taken place (as expected) by the Sanfedisti — the opponents of the Carbonari or Liberals — and that, as yet, they are still in apprehension only. Asked me for some arms of a better sort, which I gave him. Settled that, in case of a row, the Liberals were to assemble here (with me), and that he had given the word to Vincenzo G. and others of the Chiefs for that purpose. He himself and father are going to the chase in the forest ; but V. G. is to come to me, and an express to be sent off to him, P. G., if any thing occurs. Con- certed operations. They are to seize — but no matter. " I advised them to attack in detail, and in different parties, in dif- ferent places (though at the same time), so as to divide the attention of the troops, who, though few, yet being disciplined, would beat any body of people (not trained) in a regular fight — unless dispersed in small parties, and distracted with different assaults. Offered to let fhem assemble here, if they choose. It is a strongish post — narrow street, commanded from within — and tenable walls. * * * " Dined. Tried on a new coat.^Letter to Murray, with corrections of Bacon's Apophthegms and an epigram — the latter not for publica- tion. At eight went to Teresa, Countess G. * * * * aliis' than I intended. 1 speak, of course, if the times will allow me leisure. That if will hardly be a peacemaker. "January 14th, 1821. " Turned over Seneca's tragedies. Wrote the opening lines of the intended tragedy <>f Sardanapalus. Rude out some miles into the forest. Misty and rainy. Returned — dined — wrote some more of my tragedy. " Read Diodorus Sieulus — turned over Seneca, and some other books. Wrote some more of the tragedy. Took a glass of grog. \fter having ridden hard in rainy weather, and scribbled, and scrib- bled again, the spirits (at least mine) need a little exhilaration, and 1 do n't like laudanum now as I used to do. So I have mixed a glass of strong waters and single waters, which I shall now proceed to empty. Therefore and thereunto I conclude this day's diary. "The effect of all wines and spirits upon me is, however, strange. It settles, but it makes me gloomy — gloomy at the very moment of their effect, and not gay hardly ever. But it composes for a time, though sullenly. "January 15th, 1821. " Weather fine. Received visit. Rode out into the forest— fired pistols. Returned home — dined — dipped into a volume of Mitford's Greece — wrote part of a scene of ' Sardanapalus.' Went out — heard some music — heard some politics. More ministers from the other Italian powers gone to Congress. War seems certain — in that case, it will be a savage one. Talked over various important matters with one of the initiated. At ten and half returned home. " I have just thought of something odd. In the year 1814, Moore ('the poet," /xir excellence, and he deserves it) and 1 were going to- gether, in the same carriage, to dine with Karl Grey, the Capo Politico of the remaining Wings. Murray, the magnificent (the illustrious publisher of that name), had just sent me a Java gazette — I know not why or wherefore. Pulling it out, by way of curiosity, we found it to contain a dispute (the said .lava gazette) on Moore's merits and mine. I think, if 1 had been there, that I could have saved them the trouble of disputing on the subject. But, there is fame for you at six-and-twenty ! Alexander had conquered India at the same age; but I doubt if he was disputed about, or his conquests compared with those of Indian Bacchus, at Java. "It was great fame to be named with Moore; greater to be com- pared with bun ; greatest — pleasure, a\ least — to be with him; and, surely, an odd coincidence, that we should be dining together while they were quarrelling about us beyond the equinoctial line. " Well, the same evening, I met Lawrence, the painter, and heard one of Lord Grey's daughters (a fine, tall, spirit-looking girl, with much of the patrician, thorough-bred look of her father, which I dote upon) play on the harp, so modestly and ingenuously, that she looked viv*u . Well, I would rather have had my talk with Lawrence (who J a. d. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 283 talked delightfully) and heard the girl, than have had all the fame of Moore and me put together. " The only pleasure of fame is that it paves the way to pleasure ; and the more intellectual our pleasure, the better for the pleasure and for us too. It was, however, agreeable to have heard our tame before dinner, and a girl's harp after. "January 16th, 1821. " Read — rode — fired pistols — returned — dined — wrote — visited — heard music — talked nonsense — and went home. " Wrote part of a Tragedy— advance in Act 1st with ' all deliberate speed.' Bought a blanket. The weather is still muggy as a London May — mist, mizzle, the air replete with Scotticisms, which, though fine in the descriptions of Ossian, are somewhat tiresome, in real, prosaic perspective. Politics still mysterious. " January 17th, 1821. " Rode i' the forest — fired pistols — dined. Arrived a packet of books from England and Lonibardy — English, Italian, French, and Latin. Read till eight — went out. "January 18th, 1821. " To-day, the post arriving late, did not ride. Read letters — only two gazettes, instead of twelve now due. Made Lega write to that negligent Galignani, and added a postscript. Dined. " At eight proposed to go out. Lega came in with a letter about a bill unpaid at Venice, which 1 thought paid months ago. I flew into a paroxysm of rage, which almost made me faint. 1 have not been well ever since. I deserve it for being such a fool — but it was pro- voking — a set of scoundrels ! It is, however, but five-and-twenty pounds. " January 19th, 1821. "Rode. Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself, though Shakspeare says otherwise. At least, 1 am so much inure accustomed to meet with ingratitude than the north wind, that i thought the latter the sharper of the two. I had met with both in the course of the twenty-four hours, so could judge. " Thought of a plan of education for my daughter Allegra, who ought to begin soon with her studies. Wrote a letter — afterward a postscript. Rather in low spirits — certainly hippish— liver touched — will take a dose of salts. " I have been reading the Life, by himself and daughter, of Mr. R. L. Edgeworth, the father of the Miss Edgeworth. It is altogether a great name. In 1813, 1 recollect to have met them in the fashionable world of London (of which I then formed an item, a fraction, the seg- ment of a circle, the unit of a million, the nothing of something) in the assemblies of the hour, and at a breakfast of Sir Humphry and Lady Davy's, to which I was invited for the nonce. I had been the lion of 1812; Miss Edgeworth and Madame de Staehwith 'the Cossack,' towards the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the succeeding year. " I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty — no, nor forty-eight even. I had seen poor Fitzpatrick not very long before — a man of pleasure, wit, eloquence, all things. He tottered — but still talked like a gentleman, though feebly. Edge- worth bounced about, and talked loud and long; but he seemed neither weaklv n<>r decrenit, and hardlv old. *64 NOTICES OF THE [ A . D . 18-21. M He begat) by telling ' that he had given Dr. Parr a dressing, who had taken him for an Irish bog-trotter,' &c. &c. Now I, who know Dr. Parr, and who know {not by experience — for I never should have presumed so far as to contend with luin — but by hearing him -urith others, and of others) that it is not so easy a matter to 'dress him,' thought Mr. Edgeworth an assertor of what was not true. He could not have stood before Parr an instant. For the rest, he seemed intelligent, ve- hement, vivacious, and full of life. He bids fair for a hundred years. " He was not much admired in London, and I remember a ' ryghte, inerrie' and conceited jest which was rife among the gallants of the day, — viz. a paper had been presented for the recall ofMrs.Siddonsto the stage (she having lately taken have, to the loss of ages, — for nothing ever was, or can be, like her)* to which all men had been called to sub- scribe. Whereupon, Thomas Moore, of profane and poetical memory. did propose that a similar paper should be subscribed and r?VcK//iscribed 'fur the recall of Mr. Edgeworth to Ireland." " The fact was — every body cared more about her. She was a nice little unassuming ' Jeannie Deaus'-looking bodie,' as we Scotch say — and, if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as herself. One would never have guessed she could write her name: whereas her father talked, not as if he could write nothing else, but as if nothing else was worth writing. " As for Mrs. Edgeworth, I forget — except that I think she was the youngest of the party. Altogether, they were an excellent cage of the kind ; and succeeded for two months, till the landing of Madame dc Stael. " To turn from them to their works, I admire them ; but they excite no feeling, and they leave no love — except for some Irish steward or postillion. However, the impression of intellect and prudence is pro- found — and may be useful. "January 20th, 1821. " Rode — fired pistols. Read from Grimm's Correspondence. Dined — went out — heard music — returned— wrote a letter to the Lord Chamberlain to request him to prevent the theatres from representing the Doge, which the Italian papers say that they are going to act. This is pretty work — what ! without asking my consent, and even in opposition to it ! "January 21st, 1821. "Fine, (dear, frosty day — that is to say, an Italian frost, for their winters hardly tret beyond snow ; for which reason nobody knows how to skate (or skait) — a Dutch and English accomplishment. Rode out, as usual, and fired pistols. Good shooting — broke four common, and rather small, buttles, in four shots, at fourteen paces, with a com- mon pair of pistols and indifferent powder. Almost as good wafer ing or shooting — considering the difference of powder and pistols — as when, in 1809, 1810, lHll, 1812, 1813, 1811, it was my luck to split walking-sticks, wafers, half-crowns, shillings, and even the eye of a walking-stick, at twelve paces, with a single bullet — and all by ryr and calculation ; for my hand is not steady, and apt to change with the very weather. To the prowess which I here note, Joe Manton and * In this, I ratlin think he was misinformed ; — whatever merit there may bo in the i<;t', I have not, as far as I can recollect, the slightest claim to it. A. V. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. JJ85 others can bear testimony ;— for the former taught, and the latter has seen me do, these feats. "Dined — visited — came home — read. Remarked on an anecdote in Grimm's Correspondence, which says that ' Regnard et la plupart des poetes comiques etaient gens bilieux et meiancoliques ; et que M. de Voltaire, qui est tres gai, n'a jamais fait que des tragedies— et que la comedie gaie est le seul genre ou il n'ait point reussi. C'est que celui qui rit et celui qui fait rire sont deux hommes fort differens.'— Vol. vi. " At this moment I feel as bilious as the best comic writer of them all (even as Regnard himself, the next to Moliere, who has written some of the best comedies in any language, and who is supposed to have committed suicide), and am not In spirits to continue my pro- posed tragedy of Sardanapalus, which 1 have, for some days, ceased to compose. " To-morrow is my birthday — that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, midnight, i. e. in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty and three years of age ! ! ! — and I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived so long, and to so little purpose. " It is three minutes past twelve.—' 'T is the middle of night by the castle clock,' and I am now thirty-three ! ' Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume, Labuntur anni ; — ' but 1 do n't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might have done. " Through life's road, so dim and dirty, I have dragg'd to three-and-thirty. What have these years left to me 1 Nothing— except thirtv- three. " January 22d, 1821. 1821. Here lies, interred in the Eternity of the Past, from whence there is no Resurrection for the Days — whatever there may be for the Dust — the Thirty-third Year of an ill-spent Life, Which, after a lingering disease of many months, sunk into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, a. d. Leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its Existence. NOTICES OF THE la. d. lb^i "January 23d, 1821. " Fine day. Head — rode — fired pistols, and returned. Dined — read Went out at eighth-made the usual visit. Heard of nothing but war, — 'the cry is still, The) come. 1 The far', seem to have no plan— nothing fixed among themselves, how, when, or what to do. In that case, they will make nothing of this project, bo often postponed, and never put in action. " < !ame home, and gave some necessary orders, in ease of circum- stances requiring .1 change of place. 1 shall act according to what may seem proper, when I hear decidedly what the Barbarians mean to do. At present, they are building a bridge of boats over the Po, which looks ver\ warlike. A few days will probably show. I think of retiring towards \m-ona, nearer the northern frontier; that is to say, il Teres, 1 and her father are obliged to retire, which is most likely, as all the family are Liberals. If not, I shall stay. Hut mv movements will depend upon the lady's wishes, for myself, it is much the same. " I am somewhat puzzled what to do with my little daughter, and my effects, which are of some quantity and value, — and neither of them do in the seat of war where 1 think of going. But there is an elderly lady who will take* charge of her, and T. says that the Marchese C. will undertake to hold the chattels in safe keeping. Half the city are getting their affairs in inarching trim. A pretty < larnival ! The blackguards might as well have waited till Lent. "January 24th, 1821. " Returned — met some masques in the Corso — ' Vive la bagatelle !' — the Germans are on the Po, the Barbarians at the gate, and their masters 111 council at Leybach (or whatever the eructation of the sound may syllable into a human pronunciation), and lo ! they dance and sing, and make merry, ' for to morrow they may die.' Who can say that the Arlequins are not right? Like the Lady Baussiere, and my old friend Burton — I • rode on.' " Dined — (damn this pen !) — beef tough — there is no beef in Italy- worth a curse ; unless a man could cat an old ox with the hide on, Kinged in the sun. u The principal persons in the events which may occur in a few days are gone out on a shooting party. If it were like a ' highland hunting,' a pretext of the chase for a grand reunion of counsellors and chiefs, it would be all ver\ well. But it is nothing more or less than a real snivelling, popping, small-shot, water-hen waste of powder, ammuni- tion, and shot, for their own special amusement : — a rare set of fel- lows for ' a man to risk his neck with,' as ' Mariana! Wells' says in the Black Dwarf. " If the} gather. — 4 whilk is to be doubted,' — they will not muster a thousand men. The reason of this is, that the populace are not inte- rested,— only the higher and middle orders. 1 wish that the peasantry were: they are a fine savage race of two-legged leopards. But the Bolognese won't — the Romagnuolea can't without them. Or, if they try — what then? They will try, and man can do no mor< — and, if he would but try his utmost, much might be done. The Dutch, for instance, against the Spaniards — then, the tyrants of Europe — since, the slaves — and, lately, the freedmen. "The year 1820 was not a fortunate one for the individual me, whatever it may be for the nations. I lost a lawsuit, after two deci- - in mv favour. The project of lending money on an Irish mort- / .. u. 1S21.] LIFE OF LOUD BYROV 2bT gage was finally rejected by my wife's trustee after a year's hope and trouble. The Rochdale lawsuit had endured fifteen years, and always prospered till I married ; since which, every thing has gone wrong — with me, at least.' " In the same year, 1820, the Countess T. G. nata G a . G'., in despite of all I said and did to prevent it, would separate from her husband, 11 Cavalier Commendatore G'., &c. &c. &c, and all on the account of ' P. P. clerk of this parish.' The other little petty vexations of the year — overturns in carriages — the murder of people before one's door, and dying in one's beds — the cramp in swimming — colics — indigestions and bilious attacks, &c. &c. &c. — * Many small articles make up a sum, And hey ho for Caleb Quotem, oh !' " January 25th, 1821. "Received a letter from Lord S. O. state secretary of the Seven Islands — a fine fellow — clever — dished hi England five years ago, and came abroad to retrench and to renew. He wrote from Ancona, in his way back to Corfu, on some matters of our own. He is son of the late Duke of L. by a second marriage. He wants me to go to Corfu. Why not ? — perhaps I may, next spring "Answered Murray's letter — read — lounged. Scrawled this addi- tional page of life's log-book. One day more is over, of it and of me ; — but 'which is best, life or death, the gods only know,' as Socrates said to his judges, on the breaking up of the tribunal. Two thousand years since that sage's declaration of ignorance have not enlightened us more upon this important point; for, according to the Christian dis- pensation, no one can know whether he is sure of salvation — even the most righteous — since a single slip of faith may throw him on his back, like a skaiter, while gliding smoothly to his paradise. Now, therefore, whatever the certainty of faith in the facts may be, the cer- tainty of the individual as to his happiness or misery is no greater than it was under Jupiter. " It has been said that the immortality of the soul is a * grand peut- etre' — but still it is a grand one. Every body clings to it — the stu- pidest, and dullest, and wickedest of human bipeds is still persuaded that he is immortal. " January 26th, 1821. " Fine day — a few mares' tails portending change, but the sky clear, upon the whole. Rode — fired pistols — good shooting. Coming back, met an old man. Charity — purchased a shilling's worth of salvation. If that was to be bought, I have given more to my fellow-creatures in' this life — sometimes for vice, but, if not more often, at least more con- siderably, for virtue — than I now possess. I never in my life gave a mistress so much as I have sometimes given a poor man in honest dis- tress ; — but, no matter. The scoundrels who have all along perse- cuted me (with the help of * * who has crowned theft efforts) will triumph ; — and, when justice is done to me, it will be when this hand that writes is as cold as the hearts which have stung me. " Returning, on the bridge near the mill, met an old woman. I asked her age — she said, ' Tre crociJ' I asked my groom (though my- self a decent Italian) what the devil her three crosses meant. He said, ninety years, and that she had five years more to boot!! I 9N NOTICES OF THE [A.U.IIU. repeated the same three times, not to mistake — ninety-five years ! ! ! — and she was yet rather active — heard my question, for she answered it — saw me, for she advanced towards me ; and did not appear at all decrepit, though certainly touched with years. Told her to come to- morrow, and will examine her myself. I love phenomena. If she it ninety-five years old, she must recollect the Cardinal Alberoni, who was legate here. " On dismounting, found Lieutenant E. just arrived from Faenza. Invited him to dine with me to-morrow. Did not invite him for to-day, because there was a small tin-but (Friday, fast regularly and reli- giously), which I wanted to eat all myself. Ate it. •* Went out — found T. as usual — music. The gentlemen, who make revolutions, and are gone on a shooting, are not yet returned. They do n't return till Sunday — that is to say, they have been out for five days, buffooning, while the interests of a whole country are at stake, and even they themselves compromised. " It is a difficult part to play among such a set of assassins and blockheads — but, when the scum is skimmed off, or has boiled over, good may come of it. If this country could but be freed, what would be too great for the accomplishment of that desire 1 for the extinction of that Sigh of Ages 1 Let us hope. They have hoped these thou- sand years. The very revolvement of the chances may bring it — it is upon the dice. " If the Neapolitans have but a single Massaniello among them, they will beat the bloody butchers of the crown and sabre. Holland, in worse circumstances, beat the Spains and Philips; America beat the English ; Greece beat Xerxes ; and France beat Europe, till she took a tyrant ; South America beats her old vultures out of their nest; and, if these men are but firm in themselves, there is nothing to shake them from without. '• January 28th, 1821. " Lugano Gazette did not come. Letters from Venice. It appears that the Austrian brutes have seized my three or four pounds of Eng- lish powder. The scoundrels ! — I hope to pay them in ball for that powder. Rode out till twilight. " Pondered the subjects of four tragedies to be written (life and circumstances permitting), to wit, Sardanapalus, already begun ; Cam. a metaphysical subject, something in the style of Manfred, but in five acts, perhaps, with the chorus ; Francesca of Rimini, in five acts ; and I am not sure that I would not try Tiberius. I think that I could ex- tract a something, of my tragic, at least, out of the gloomy seques- tration and old age of the tyrant — and even out of his sojourn at Caprea — by softening the details, and exhibiting the despair which must have led to those very vicious pleasures. For none but a power- ful and gloomy mind overthrown would have had recourse to such solitary horrors, — being also, at the same time, old, and the master of the world. " Memoranda. "What is Poetry? — The feeling of a Former world and Future. " ThouglU Second. "Why, at the very height of desire and human pleasure, — worldly, social, amorous, ambitious, or even avaricious, — does there mingle a A. D. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 289 certain sense of doubt and sorrow— a fear of what is to come — a doubt' of what is — a retrospect to the past, leading to a prognostication of the future. (The best of Prophets of the Future is the Fast.) Why is this ? or these ? — 1 know not, except that on a pinnacle we are most susceptible of giddiness, and that we never fear falling except from a precipice— the higher, the more awful, and the more sublime ; and, therefore, I am not sure that fear is not a pleasurable sensation ; at least, Hope is ; and what Hope is there without a deep leaven of Fear ? and what sensation is so delightful as Hope ? and, if it were not for Hope, where would the Future be ? — in hell. It is useless to eay where the Present is, for most of us know ; and as for the Past, what pre- dominates in memory 1—Hope baffled. Ergo, in all human affairs, it is Hope— Hope— Hope. I allow sixteen minutes, though I never counted them, to any given or supposed possession. From whatever place we commence, we know where it. all must end. And yet, what good is there in knowing it ? It does not make men better or wiser. During the greatest horrors of the greatest plagues (Athens and Florence, for example — see Thucydides and Machiavelli), men were more cruel and profligate than ever. It is all a mystery. I feel most things, but I know nothing, except — — — — " Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in ifie. tragedy of Cain : — " Were Death an evil, would / let thee live ? Fool ! live as I live — as thy father lives, And thy son's sons shall live for evermore. " Past midnight. One o' the eiocx. * I have been reading W. F. S * * (brother to the other of the name) till now, and I can make out. nothing. He evidently shows a great power of words, but there is nothing to be taken hold of. He is like Hazlitt, in English, who talks pimples — a red and white corruption rising up (in little imitation of mountains upon maps), but containing nothing, and discharging nothing, except their own humours. " I dislike him the worse (that is, S * *), because he always seems upon the verge of meaning ; and, lo, he goes down like sunset, or melts like n rainbow, leaving a rather rich confusion, — to which, however, the above comparisons do too much honour. " Continuing to read Mr. F. S * *. He is not such a fool as I took him for, that is to say, when he speaks of the North. But still he speaks of things. all over the world with a kind of authority that a phi- losopher would disdain, and a man of common sense, feeling, and knowledge of his own ignorance, would be ashamed of. The man is evidently wanting to make an impression, like his brother,— or like George in the Vicar of Wakefield, who found out that all the good things had been said already on the right side, and therefore 'dressed up some paradoxes' upon the wrong side — ingenious, but false, as he * Thus marked, with impatient strokes of the pen, by himself in the original Vol. II — T sol i« ES OF i HE [a. d. i bimsell says— to which 'the learned world said nothing, nothin .ill, sir.' The ' learned world, howevei tun thing to brothers S * " •■ ft is high time i" Hunk <>i something i Ise. What they say of the antiquities of the North is tx "January 89th, 1831. "Yesterday the woman of ninety-five yens of age was with mi She said her eldest son (if now alive) would have been seventy. Sh< is thin — short, but active— hears, and sees, ami talks incessantly. Several teeth left — all in the lower jaw, and Bingle from teeth. She is very deeply wrinkled, and lias a sort of scattered gray heard ovei her chin, at least as long as my mustachios. Her head, in fact, n sembles the drawing in crayons of Pope the poet's mother, which is in some editions of his works. " 1 forgot to ask her if she remembered Alberoni (legate here), but will ask her next time. Gave her a louis — ordered her a new suit ol clothes, and put her upon a weekly pension. Till now, she had worked at gathering wood and pine-nuts in the forest, — pretty work at ninety-five years old ! she had a dozen children, of whom som< are alive. Her name is Maria Montanari. "Met a company of the sect (a kind of Liberal Club) called the ' Americani' in the forest, all armed, and singing, with all their might, in Romagnoole — ' Sem tutti soldat' per laliberta' ('we are all soldiei for liberty'). They cheered me as 1 passed — I returned their salute, and rode on. This may show the spirit of Italy al present. "My to-day's journal consists of what I omitted yesterday. To- day was much as usual. Have rather a better opinion of the writings of the Schlegels than 1 had I'oui-and-twcnty hours ago; and will amend it still farther, if possible. "They say that the Pied montese have at length risen — ca irai " Read S • •. of Dante he says thai ' at no tune has the great and most national of all Italian poets ever been much the faV0Ulit( oi his countrymen.' 'Tis false! Therehavebeen more editors and com mentaton (and imitators, ultimately) of Dante than of all their po put together. Not a favourite! Why, they talk Dante — write Danti —and think and dream Dante at tins moment (1821) to un excess, which would be ridiculous, but that he deserves it. "In the same style this German talks of gondolas on the Arno — u precious fellow to dare to speak of ltah ! -He says also that Dante's chief defect is a want, in a word, oi gentle feelings. ' Swift — ' dying at top.' l confess I do not contemplate this with so much honor a.- he apparently did tin some years before n happened. ButSwifl had hardly begun life at the vi rj period (thirty- three) when 1 feel quite an old sort ot feel. "Oh! there is an organ playing in tic street— a waltz, too! I must leave off to listen. They are playing a waltz, which 1 hav« beard tin thousand times at thi balls in London, between 1812 and 1815. Music is a Strang'' thing * * In this little incident of th< music ii thuB touching bo sud- denly upon Hi" nerve "t memory, and i ailing away his mind from ita dark bodings to a recollection of peai and icenes thi happiest, perhaps, ©f his whole life, there is something thai appi ai to me pe< uliarly affecting. a. d. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 293 " February 5th, 1821. " At last, ' the kiln 's m a low. The Germans are ordered to march, and Italy is, for the ten thousandth time, to become a field of battle. Last night the news came. " This afternoon, Count P. G. came to me to consult upon divers matters. We rode out together. They have sent off to the C. for orders. To-morrow the decision ought to arrive, and then something will be done. Returned— dined — read — went out — talked over matters. Made a purchase of some arms for the new enrolled Americani, who are all on tiptoe to march. Gave orders for some harness and port- manteaus necessary for the horses. " Read some of Bowles's dispute about Pope, with all the replies and rejoinders. Perceive that my name has been lugged into the con- troversy, but have not time to state what I know of the subject. On some ' piping day of peace' it is probable that I may resume it. "February 9th, 1821. " Before dinner wrote a little ; also, before I rode out, Count P. G. called upon me, to let me know the result of the meeting of the C>. at F. and at B. * * returned late last night. Every thing was com- bined under the idea that the Barbarians would pass the Po on the 15th inst. Instead of this, from some previous information or other- wise, they have hastened their march and actually passed two days ago ; so that all that can be done at present in Romagna is, to stand on the alert and wait for the advance of the Neapolitans. Every thing was ready, and the Neapolitans had sent on their own instruc- tions and intentions, all calculated for the tenth and eleventh, on which days a general rising was to take place, under the supposition that the Barbarians could not advance before the 15th. " As it is, they have but fifty or sixty thousand troops, a number with which they might as well attempt to conquer the world as secure Italy in its present state. The artillery marches last, and alone, and there is an idea of an attempt to cut part, of them off. All this will much depend upon the first steps of the Neapolitans. Here, the pub- lic spirit is excellent, provided it be kept up. This will be seen by the event. " It is probable that Italy will be delivered from the Barbarians if the Neapolitans will but stand firm, and are united among themselves. Here they appear so "February 10th, 1821. " Day passed as usual — nothing new. Barbarians still in march — not well equipped, and, of course, not well received on their route. There is some talk of a commotion at Paris. " Rode out between four and six — finished my letter to Murray on Bowles's pamphlets — added postscript. Passed the evening a6 usual — out till eleven — and subsequently at home. "February 11th, 1821. " Wrote — had a copy taken of an extract from Petrarch's Letters, with reference to the conspiracy of the Doge, M. Faliero, containing the poet's opinon of the matter. Heard a heavy firing of cannon to- wards Comaeehio— the Barbarians rejoicing for their principal pig's birthday, which is to-inorrow — or Saint day — I forget which. Re- ceived a ticket for the first ball to-morrow. Shall not go to the first, but intend going to the second, as also to the Veglioni. KM NOTICES OF Till. | A . i.. 1 '• Fl i.i H u\ L3th i- 'i "To-day 1 ad i little in Louie B.*s Hollande, but have written nothing since the completion of the letter on the Pope controversy Politics are quite misty for the present. The Barbarians still upon their march. It is not easy to divine what the Italians will now do. " Was elected yesterday ' Socio' oJ the < larnival ball society. This is the fifth carnival that I have passed. In the lour former, I racketed Hgood deal. In the present,! have been us sober as Lady Grace herself. "February 11th, 1821. "Much as usual. Wrote, before riding out, part of a scene ol 'Sardanapalus. 1 The first act marly finished. The rest of the da} and evening as before— partly without, in conversazione — parti] home. " Heard the particulars of the late fray at Uussi, a town not fai from tins. It is exactly the fact ol Romeo and Giuhetta -not Rom£o as the Barbarian writes it. Two families of Contadini (peasants) arc at feud. At a ball, the younger part of the families forget then quarrels, and dance together An old man of one of them enters, and reproves the young men for dancing with the females of the opposite family. The male relatives id' the latter resent ibis. Both par!n neb home, and arm themselves. They meet directly, by moonlighl m the public way, and right it out. Three are killed on the spot, and i\ wounded, most of them dangerously,— pretty well for two fami lies, me thinks — and all fact,o( the last week. Another assassination has taken place at (Vseinia, — mall about forty in Romagna within these Last three months. These people retain much of the middle ages. "February 15th, 1821. " Last night finished the first act of Sardanapalus. To-night or to-morrow, I ought to answer letters. "February 16th, 1831 " Last night II Confr I'. (J. sent a man with a bag full of bayonets, fonie muskets, and some hundreds of cartridges to in\ bouse, without apprizing me, though I had seen him not hall an hour before. About tcai days ago, when there was to be a rising here, the Liberals and my brethren < M . asked me to purchase some arms for a certain fewol our ragamuffins. I did so immediati ly, and ordered ammunition, &c and they were armed accordingly. Well the rising is prevented bj the Barbarians marching ;i week sooner than appointed ; and an .•, is issued, ami m force, bv the Government, ' thai all persons having arms concealed, &C . 1891 " February 19th, 1821. " Came home solus — very high wind lightning— moonshine — soli- tary stragglers muffled in cloaks — women in mask — white houses — clouds hurrying over the sky, like spilt milk blown out of the pail — altogether very poetical, it is still blowing hard— the tiles flying-, and the house rocking — ram splashing — lightning Hashing — quite a fine Swiss Alpine evening, and the sea roaring in the distance. " Visited — conversazione. All the women frightened by the squall : they won't go to the masquerade because it lightens — the pious reason ! " Still blowing away. A. has scut me BOme news to-day. The wai approaches nearer and nearer. much about the state of things between Cain and Abel. There is, in fact, no law or government at all; and it is wonderful how well things go on without them. Excepting a few occasional murders (every body killing whom soever he pleases, and being killed, in turn, by a friend, or relative, oi the defunct), there is as quiet a society and as merry a Carnival as can be met with in a tour through Europe. There is nothing -like habit m these things. " I shall remain here till May or June, and, unless 'honour comes unlooked-for, 1 we may perhaps meet, in France or England, within the year. " Yours, &c. " Of course, I cannot explain to you existing circumstances, as they open all letters. " Will you set me right about your cursed ' Champs ESI —are they 'eV or*ees' for the adjective 1 I know nothing of French, being all Italian. Though 1 can read and understand French, 1 never attempt to speak it; lot I hate it. From the serond part of the Meni" cut what you please." • The folio win ;e from the letter ol mine, to which the above \ an answer, will best explain what follows •. - "With respect to the newspa- per, it is mill enough thut Lord * * + * and myself hod been (about a week or two before [received your letter) speculating upon jour assistance in a plan somewhat similar, but more literary and less regularly periodical in its appearance. Lord * •, as you will see by hi:- volume ol Essays, ifit reaches you, has a vory sly, dry, and pithy w ,iy of putting sound truths, upon po- litics and manners, anil whatever Bcheme wo adopt, be will be a very useful and active ally in it, us be baa a pleasure iii m riting quite inconceivable to a poor hock ecnbelike me, v\le> olwaj feel, about my art. as the French hus- band did when he found a man making lovi to In- (the Frenchman's) wife — 'Commont, Monsieur, Bans y I trt obligi ." Wbon 1 say ibis, however, I mean it only of the executive part of writing , for the imagining', the shad' nig out of the future work is, 1 own. a il's-paradise," a. d. 1821.] LIFF, OF LORD BYRON. 301 LETTER CCCCV, TO Mil. MURRAY. " Ravenna, January 1th, 1821. " I just see, by the papers of Galignani, that there is a new tragedy of great expectation by Barry Cornwall. Of what I have read of his works, I liked the Dramatic Sketches, but thought his Sicilian story and Marcian Colonna, in rhyme, quite spoiled, by 1 know not what affectation of Wordsworth, and Moore, and myself, — all mixed up into a kind of chaos. I think him very likely to produce a good tragedy, if he keep to a natural style, and not play tricks to form harlequinades for an audience. As he (Barry Cornwall is not his true name) was a schoolfellow of mine, I take more than common interest in his suc- cess, and shall be glad to hear of it speedily. If I had been aware that he was in that line, I should have spoken of him in the preface to Marino Faliero. He will do a world's wonder if he produce a great tragedy. I am, however, persuaded, that (his is not to be done by following the old dramatists, — who are full of gross faults, pardoned only for the beauty of their language, — but by writing naturally and regularly, and producing regular tragedies, like the Greeks ; but not in imitation, — merely the outline of their conduct, adapted to our own times and circumstances, and of course no chorus. " You will laugh, and say, ' Why do n't you do so V I have, you see, tried a sketch in Marino Faliero ; but many people think my talent ' essentially undramatic,'' and I am not at all clear that they are not right. If Marino Faliero do n't fall — in the perusal — I shall, per- haps, try again (but not for the stage) ; and as I think that love is not the principal passion for tragedy (and yet most of ours turn upon it), you will not find me a popular writer. Unless it is love, furious, cri- minal, and hapless, it ought not to make a tragic subject. When it is melting and maudlin, it does, but it ought not to do ; it is then for the gallery and second-price boxes. " If you want to have a notion of what I am trying, take up a trans- lation of any of the Greek tragedians. If I said the original, it would be an impudent presumption of mine; but the translations are so infe- rior to the originals that I think I may risk it. Then judge of the ' simplicity of plot,' &c, and do not judge me by your old mad dra- matists, which is like drinking usquebaugh and then proving a foun- tain. Yet, after all, I suppose that you do not mean that spirits is a nobler element than a clear spring bubbling in the sun ] and this I take to be the difference between the Greeks and those turbid mounte- banks — always excepting Ben Jonson, who was a scholar and a clas- sic. Or, take up a translation of Alfieri, and try the interest, &c. of these my new attempts in the old line, by him in English ; and then tell me fairly your opinion. But do n't measure me by your own old or new tailors' yards. Nothing so easy as intricate confusion of plot and rant. Mrs. Centlivre, in comedy, has ten times the bustle of Gon- greve ; but are they to be compared 1 and yet she drove Congreve from the theatre." NOTICES OF THE I . .. | LETTER CCCC\ I TO MB. MURRAY. " Ravenna, January L9th, 1821. '•\ours of tlio 20th ultimo hath arrived. I must really and seri- ously request that you Mill beg of Messrs. Hams or Elliston to let the Doge alone: it is not an acting play; it will not serve their pur- pose; it will destroy yours (the sale); and it will distress me. It is not courteous, it is hardly even gentlemanly, to persist in this appro- priation of a man's writings to their mountebanks. " I have already sent you by last post a short protest' to the pnl (against this proceeding;; in case that tlt< y persist, which I trust that they will not, you must then publish it in the newspaixjrs. I shall not let them off with that only, if they go on; but make a longer appeal on that gubject, and state what I think the injustice! of then mode ol behaviour. It is hard that T should have all the'buffoons in Britain to deal with — pirates who will publish, and players who ivili act — when there are thousands of worthy men who can neither get bookseller nor manager for love nor money. " You never answered me a word about Galignam. If you mean to use the two documents, do ; if not, burn them. I do not choose to leave them in any one's [>osscssion ; suppose some one found them without the letters, what would they think ? why, that / had been doing the ojywsitc of what I have done, to wit, referred the whole thing to you — an act of civility, at least, which required saying, • 1 have received your biter.' I thought that you might have some hold upon those publica- tions by this means ; to vie it can be no interest one way or the other-1 "The third canto of Don Juan is 'dull,' but you must really put up with it: if the first two and the two following are tolerable, what do you expect? particularly as I neither dispute with you on it as a mat- ter of criticism or as a matter of business. " Besides, what am I to understand? you, and Douglas Kinnaird, and others, write tome, that the first two published cantos are among the best that I ever wrote, and are reckoned so; Augusta writes that they are thought l execrttble 1 (bitter word that for an author — eh, Murray?) as a composition even, and thai she had heard so much against them that she would never read them, and never has. lie that as it may, I can't alter; that is not my forte. If you publish the three new ones without ostentation, thej may perhaps Buccecd. H Pray publish the Dante and the Pvlci (the Prophecy of Dame, I * To tin; letter winch enclosed this protest, and which has been omitted to .ivoid repetitions, he bad subjoined a (M^a^e from Sponce'e Anecdotes (\>. 197 of Singer's i dition), where roj peaking of himself, ''1 had taken such blroiig resolutions again i an) thing of that kind, from seeing how much ■ y body that > foi th< Btage was obliged to subject themselves ( the players and the town. '■ Spence's Anecdotes, p. 9 In tin- Bame paragraph, Pope is made io .sny, " After 1 had got acquaint U with tho town, I resolved nevoi to write any thing for the Btage, though i ted by many of my friends to do so, and particularly Bettei ton." 1 No farther Ht.-|> was ovei taken in this affair ; and thi dot omenta, which of no Hsu whatever, are, I i» lit ve, till u Mr. Murray'* possession. a. d. 1821.] LIFE. OF LORD BYRON. 303 mean). I look upon the Pulci as m\ grand performance.* The remainder of the 'flints,' where be ti...y ! Now, bring them all out about the .same time, otherwise ' the variety' you wot of will be less obvious. "I am in bad humour: — some obstructions in business with those plaguy trustees, who object to an advantageous loan which I was to furnish to a nobleman on mortgage, because his property is in Ireland, have shown me how a man is treated in his-absence. Oh, if I do come back, I will make some of those who little dream of it spin, — or they or I shall go down." ****** LETTER CCCCV1I. TO MR. MURRAY. "January 20th. lb»L i aid not think to have troubled you with the plague ami postage of a double teller this time, but 1 have just read in an Italian paper, ! That Lord Byron has a tragedy coming out,' &c. &c. &c., and that the Courier and Morning Chronicle, &c. &c. are pulling one another to pieces about him, &c. " Now I do reiterate and desire, that every thing may be done to prevent it from coming out on any theatre, for which it never was designed, and on which (in the present state of the stage of London) it could never succeed. 1 have sent you my appeal by last post, which you must publish in case of need ; and I require you even in your own name (if my honour is dear to you) to declare that such representation would be contrary to my wish and to my jud%nent. If you do not wish to drive me mad altogether, you will hit upon some way to prevent this. " Yours, &c. " P.S. I cannot conceive how Harris or Elhston should be so insane as to think of acting Marino Faliero ; they might as well act the Pro- metheus of jEschylus. I speak of course humbly, and with the great- est sense of the distance of time and merit between the two perform- ances ; but merely to show the absurdity of the attempt. " The Italian paper speaks of a ' party against it :' to be sure there would be a party. Can you imagine, that after having never flattered man, nor beast, nor opinion, nor politics, there would not be a party against a man, who is also a popular writer — at least a successful ? Why, all parties would be a party against." * Theself-wUl of Lord Byron was in no point more conspicuous than in the determination with which he thus porsistcd in giving the preference to one or two works of his own which, in the eyes of all other persons, were most decided failures. Of this class wa6 the translation from Pulci, so fre- quently mentioned by him, whicli appeared afterward in the Liberal, and which, though thus rescuod from the fate of remaining unpublished, must for ever, I fear, submit to the doom of being unread. NOTICES <>r THE [a a i LETTER CCC< v in TO Mil. MURRAY "Ravenna, January 20th, 1821 "II Harris or Elliston persist, after the remonstrance which I desired you and Mr. Kinnaird to make on my behalf, and which I hbpi will be sufficient — bul if, 1 say, they do persist, then I pray you to present in person the enclosed Letter to the Lord Chamberlain: 1 have said in person, because Otherwise 1 shall have neither answer nor know- ledge that it has reached its address, owing to' thr insolence of office. " 1 wish you would speak to Lord Holland, and to all my friends and yours, to interest themselves in preventing this cursed attempt at representation* "God help me ! at this distance, I am treated like a corpse or a fool by the few people that I thought I could rely upon ; and 1 was a tool to think any better of them than of the rest of mankind. * l'ray write. " Yours, &c. " P.S. I have nothing more at heart (that is, in literature) than to prevent this drama from going upon the stage: in short, rather than permit it, it must be suppressed altogether, and n\\\y forty copies struck off privately for presents to my friends. What cursed fools those speculating buffoons must be not to see that it is unfit for their fair — or their booth !" LETTER CCCGIX 10 MB. MOORK. "Ravenna, January 32d, 1821. " Pray get well. 1 do not like your complaint. So, let me have a line to say you arn tip and doing again. To-day I am X'l years of age. 'Through life's road,' fee. &c* "Have you heard that tin ■ Brazil re 1 Company' have, or mean to present an address at Brandenbuieh-house, ' in armour,' and with all possible variety and splendoui ol brazen apparel 1 •• The Brazil rs, il se< mi . an pr< paring to | An address, and present it themselves all in brass — \ superfluous pageant — for, b) the Lord Hairy, J hey '11 fiii'l when tin y 'i«- going much mon than they carry. There 'a an Ode lor you, i^ it not ' — worth) "Of ' * * \ tlu grand metaquizzical pot I A man of vast merit, though few pi ople know it ; * Already gjven in hib Journul. A. 0. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 305 The perusal of whom (as I told you at Mcstri) I owe, in great part, to my passion for pastry. " Mcstri and Fusina are the ' trajects, or common ferries,' to Venice ; but it was from Fusina that you and I embarked, though ' the wicked necessity of rhyming' has made me press Mestri into the voyage. " So, you have had a book dedicated to you ? lam glad of it, and shall be very happy to see the volume. " I am in a peck of troubles about a tragedy of mine, which is fit only for the (*****) closet, and which it seems that the managers, assuming a right over published poetry, are determined to enact, whether I will or no, with their own alterations by Mr. Dibdin, I pre- sume. I have written to Murray, to the Lord Chamberlain, and to others, to interfere and preserve me from such an exhibition. I want neither the impertinence of their hisses nor the insolence of their ap- plause. I write only for the reader, and care for nothing but the silent approbation of those who close one's book with good-humour and quiet contentment. " Now if you would also write to our friend Perry, to beg of him to mediate with Harris and Elliston to forbear this intent, you will greatly oblige me. The play is quite unfit for the stage, as a single glance will show them, and, I hope, has shown them ; and, if it were ever so fit, I will never have any thing to do willingly with the theatres. " Yours ever, in haste, &c." LETTER CCCCX. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, January 27th, 1821. " I differ from you about the Dante, which I think should be pub- lished with the tragedy. But do as you please : you must be the best judge of your own craft. I agree with you about the title. The play may be good or bad, but I flatter myself that it is original as a pic- ture of that kind of passion, which to my mind is so natural, that I am convinced that I should have done precisely what the Doge did on those provocations. " I am glad of Foscolo's approbation. " Excuse haste. I believe I mentioned to you that 1 forget what it was ; but no matter. " Thanks for your compliments of the year. I hope that it will be pleasanter than the last. I speak with reference to England only, as fat as regards myself, where I had every kind of disappointment — lost an important lawsuit — and the trustees of Lady Byron refusing to allow of an advantageous loan to be made from my property to Lord Blessington, &c. &c, by way of closing the four seasons. These, and a hundred other such things, made a year of bitter business forme in England. Luckily, things were a little pleasanter for me here, else I should have taken the liberty of Hannibal's ring. " Pray thank Gifford for all his goodnesses. The winter is as cold here as Parry's polarities. I must now take a canter in the forest ; my horses are waiting. " Yours ever and truly." Vol. n.— U 306 NOTICES OF TIIC [a. d. 1821. LETTER CCCCXI. TO MB. HURRAH • " Ravenna, February Crl, 189 1 . " Your letter of excuses baa arrived, [receive the Letter, but do not admit the excuses, except In courles] ; as when a man treads on your toes and begs your pardon the pardon is granted, but the joint aches, especially if there be a corn upon it. However, I shall scold you presently. "In the last speech of the Doge, there occurs (I think, from me- mory) the phrase — 'And Thou who makest and unmakest suns :' change this to — ' And Thou whokindlest and who quenchest suns ;' that is to say, if the verse runs equally well, and Mr. GifTord thinks the expression improved. Pray have the bountj to attend to this. You are grown quite a minister . Mind if some of these days you are not thrown out. ' will not be always a Tory, though Johnson - the first Whig wae th< D< i il. "You have I can a .1 oik fromMr. Galignani's (somewhat tardily acknowledged) correspondence: this is, that an English author may dispose of his exclusive copyrighl in France, — a fact of some conse- quence (in time of peace) in the case of a popular writer. Now I will tell you what you shall do, and take no advantage of you, though you were scurvy enougb never to acknowledge my letter for three months. Offer Galignani the refusal of the copyrighl in Prance; if he refui appoint anj I kseller in F you please, and 1 will sign any as- signment > ou please, and it shall nevt r cost j ou a sou on my account. " Recollect that I w ill have nothing to do with it, except as far as it may secure the copj right to yourself. I w ill have no bargain but w ith the English booksi I:, rs, and I desire no interest out of that country. "Now, that's fair and open, and a little handsomer than your dodging silence, to see what won',.: of it. you are an excellent fellow, nno caro Moray, but there is still a little leaven of Fleet-street about you now ami then — a crum of the old loaf. You have no right to act Buspiciousl) with me, Tor l have given you no reason. 1 shall always be frank with you; as, for instance, whenever you talk with the votaries of Apollo antlnn. . it .-I Id be in guineas, not pounds — to poets, as w rysicians, and bidders at auctions. " I shall say no more at this presi nt, Bave that I am '• Yours, &c. " P.S. If you venture, as yon say, to Ravenna this year, I will exercise the nics of hospitality while you live, and bury you hand- si l> (though not in holy ground), if you get 'shol or slashed in a creagh or splore,' which are rather frequent here of late among the native parties. But perhaps yourvisit maj be anticipated; I may probably come to your countrj ; in winch case write to her ladyship the duplicate of the epistle the k i •. i lt Of France wrote to Prince John." a. d. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 307 LETTER CCCCXII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, February 16th, 18-21. " In the month of March will arrive from Barcelona Signor Curiam, engaged for the Opera. He is an acquaintance of mine, and a gentle-- manly young man, high in his profession. I must request your per- sonal kindness and patronage in his favour. Pray introduce him to such of the theatrical people, editors of papers, and others, as may be useful to him in his profession, publicly and privately. " The fifth is so far from being the last of Don Juan, that it is hardly the beginning. I meant to take him the tour of Europe, with a proper mixture of siege, battle, and adventure, and to make him finish as Anacharsis Cloots, in the French Revolution. To how many cantos this may extend, I know not, nor whether (even if I live) I shall com- plete it; but this was my notion. I meant to have made him a cava- lier servente in Italy, and a cause for a divorce in England, and a sentimental ' Werther-faced man' in Germany, so as to show the dif- ferent ridicules of the society in each of those countries, and to have displayed him gradually gate and blase" as he grew older, as is natural. But I had not quite fixed whether to make him end in hell, or in an unhappy marriage, not. knowing which would be the severest : the Spanish tradition says hell ; but it is probably only an allegory of the other state. You are now in possession of my notions on the subject. "You say the Doge will not be popular : did I ever write for popu- larity? I defy you to show a work of mine (except a tale or two) of a popular style or complexion. It appears to me that there is room for a different style of the drama; neither a servile following of the old drama, which is a grossly erroneous one, nor yet too French, like those who succeeded the older writers. It appears to me that good English, and a severer approach to the rules, might combine some- thing not dishonourable to our literature. I have also attempted to make a play without love ; and there are neither rings, nor mistakes, nor starts, nor outrageous ranting villains, nor melodramein it. All this will prevent its popularity, but does not persuade me that it is therefore faulty. Whatever faults it has will arise from deficiency in the conduct, rather than in the conception, which is simple and severe. " So you epigraimnatize upon my epigram ? I will pay you for that, mind if I do n't, some day. I never let any one off in the long run (who first begins). Remember * ; *, and see if I do n't do you as good a turn. You unnatural publisher! what! quiz your own authors ] yoir are a paper cannibal ! " In the letter on Bowles (which I sent by Tuesday's post), after the words ' attempts had been made' (alluding to the republication of ' English Bards'), add the words, 'in Ireland;' for I believe that Eng- lish pirates did hot begin their attempts till after I had left England the second time. Pray attend to this. Let me know what you and your synod think on Bowles. " I did not think the second seal so bad ; surely it is far better than the Saracen's head with which you have sealed your last letter; the larger, in profile, was surely much better than that. 308 rTICES OF THE f k. d. 1821. -So Foscol you a seal cut better in Italy'! he means a throat — thai isthe only thing the] terously. The Arts — all bul Canova's, and Morghen's, and (1 don't mean poetry) — aiv as Low as need be: look al the seal which I gave to William I okes, and own it. How came George Bankes to quote 'English Bards' in the House of Commons 1 Ml the world keep flinging that poem in my I". ■•■■ " Belzoni is a grand traveller, and his English is very prettily broken. "As for news, the I ians arc marching on Naples, and if they lose a single battle, all I ill be up. It will be like the Spanish row, if they ha\ i .atom. " ' Letters opened ?' — to be sure they are, and that 's the reason why I always put in my opinion of the German Austrian scoundrels. There is not an Italian who loathes them more than I do; and what- ever I could do to scour Italy and the earth of their infamous oppres- sion would be done cow amore. " Yours, &c." LETTER CCCCXIII. TO MR. MURRAY. " Ravenna, February 21st, 18-21. " In the forty-fourth page, volume first, of Turner's Travels (which you lately sent me), it is stated that ' Lord Byron, when he expressed Buch confidence of its practicability, seems to have forgotten that ndcr swam both ways, with and against the tide; whereas he (Lord Byron) only performed the easiest part of the task by swim- ming with it from Europe to Asia.' 1 certainly could not have for- gotten, what is known to every schoolboy, that Leander crossed in the night, and returned towa morning. Myobject was, to ascer- tain that the Hellespont could be crossed at all by Bwimming, and in this Mr. Ekenhead and >■ self both ded, the one in an hour and ten minutes, and the other in one hour and five minutes. The tide was not in our favour ; on the contrary, the great difficulty was to bear up asainst the current, which, so far from helping us into the towards the Archipelago. Neither Mr. Ekenhead, myself, nor. I will venture to add. any person on board the frigate, from Captain BathUTSt downwards, had any notion of a dif- nce of the current on the Asiatic side, of which Mr. Turner speaks. I never beard of h till this moment, or i would have taken the other course. Lieutenant Ekenhead's sole motive, and mine also, for set- ting out from the European Bid hal the little cape above Scstos was a more proiiim and the frigate, which lay below, close under (lie Asiatic formed a better point of view for us to swim towards ; a,;.', in fact, we landed immediately below it. "Mr.Turner thrown into the stream on this part of the European i t arrive at the Asiatic shore ' Tins is far from being the case, thai it must arrive in the Archipelago, if left to th.' current, although a strong wind in the Asiatic direction might 1 • such Turn ■ from the Asiatic side, and • Mti.i i: • ,in which he did not advance a a. d. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 309 hundred yards, he gave it up from complete exhaustion.' This is very possible, and might have occurred to him just as readily on the European side. He should have set out a couple of miles higher, and could then have come out below the European castle. I particularly stated, and Mr. Hobhouse has done so also, that we were obliged to make the real passage of one mile extend to between three and four, owing to the force of the stream. I can assure Mr. Turner, that his success would have given me great pleasure, as it would have added one more instance to the proofs of the probability. It is not quite fair in him to infer, that because he failed, Leander could not succeed. There are still four instances on record : a Neapolitan, a young Jew, Mr. Ekenhead, and myself ; the two last done in the presence of hun- dreds of English witnesses. " With regard to the difference of the current I perceived none ; it is favourable to the swimmer on neither side, but maybe stemmed by plunging into the sea, a considerable way above the opposite point of the coast which the swimmer wishes to make, but still bearing up against it ; it is strong, but if you calculate well, you may reach land. My own experience and that of others bids me pronounce the passage of Leander perfectly practicable. Any young man, in good and tole- rable skill in swimming, might succeed in it from either side. I was three hours in swimming across the Tagus, which' is much more hazardous, being two hours longer than the Hellespont. Of what may be done in swimming, I will mention one more instance. In 1818, the Chevalier Mengaldo (a gentleman of Bassano), a good swimmer, wished to swim with my friend Mr. Alexander Scott and myself. As he seemed particularly anxious on the subject, we indulged him. We all three started from the island of the Lido and swam to Venice. At the entrance of the Grand Canal, Scott and I were a good way ahead, and we saw no more of our foreign friend, which, however, was of no consequence, as there was a gondola to hold his clothes and pick him up. Scott swam on till past the Rialto, where lie got out, less from fatigue than from chill, having been four hours in the water, without rest or stay, except what is to be obtained by floating on one's back — this being the condition of our performance. I continued my course on to Santa Chiara, comprising the whole of the Grand Canal (besides the distance from the Lido), and got out where the Laguna once more opens to Fusina. I had been in the water, by my watch, without help or rest, and never touching ground or boat, four hours and twenty minutes. To this match, and during the greater part of its performance, Mr. Hoppner, the consul-general, was witness, and it is well known to many others. Mr. Turner can easily verify the fact, if he thinks it worth while, by referring to Mr. Hoppner. The distance we could not accurately ascertain ; it was of course considerable. " I crossed the Hellespont in one hour and ten minutes only. I am now ten years older in time, and twenty in constitution, than I was when I passed the Dardanelles, and yet two years ago I was capable of swimming four hours and twenty minutes ; and I am sure that I could have continued two hours longer, though I had on a pair of trowsers, an accoutrement which by no means assists the performance. My two companions were also four hours in the water. Mengaldo might be about thirty years of age ; Scott about six-and-twenty? "With this experience in swimming at' different periods of life, not only upon the spot, but elsewhere, of various persons, what is there to make me doubt that Leander' s exploit was perfectly practicable 1 If 310 NOTICES OF THE [a. o. 1821. three individuals did more than the pa of the Hellespont, why Bbould In have done Less ! But Mr. Turner failed, and, naturally :ing a plausible reason for his failure, 1; blame on thi of the strait. He tried to swim directlj across, instead of going higher up to take th well have tried to jhj over Mounl Uhos. "Thai a young Greek of the heroic times, in love, and with his limbs in lull yigour, might have su h an attempt is nei- ther wonderful nor doubtful. Whether he attempted it ornoJ is an- other question, because he might have had a small boat to save lum the troul le. " I am yours very truly, '• Btroit. " P.S. Mr. Turner says that the swimming from Europe i" \ 3ia was 'the easiest part of the task.' I doubt whether Leander found it bo, as it was tin: return; however, he hi 1 hours between the inter- vals. The argumentof Mr. Turner ' that higher up, or lower down, the strait widens so consid ave little labour by Ins starting,' is only good for indiffen nl swimmers; a man of an\ prac- tice or skill will always consider the distance less than the strength of the stream.. It" Ekenhead and myself had thought of crossing at the narrowest point, instead i e above it, we should havi . The strait, however, is not so extremely v m where it broadens above and below the forts. As the frigat< sometime in the Dardanelles waiting for the firman, I often in the straits subsequently to our traject, and generally i le, without perceiving the greater strength of osite stream by which the diplomatic tra- r palliates his own failure. Our amusement in the small bay which opens immediately below th c fort was to dive for the land tortoises, which we flung in on purp they amphibiously crawled along the bottom. 7 ue am greater violence of current than on tl pean shore. With regard to the modest in- sinuation thai wi the Em 'easier,' I appeal to Mr. Hobhouse and Captain Bathursl if it be tun- or i Ekenhead being since dead). Had • i of any such difference of current as is asserted, ■■• ■ it, and were not likely to have given it up in the twenty-live minutes of Mr. Turner's own experiment. Thesecrel of all this is, that Mr, Turner failed, and that we succeeded; and he is consequent dis ppointed, and seems not unwilling to overshadow v r little merit there might be in oursuccess. Why did he not tn the European side ! [f he had suc- ceeded there, after failing on the \siatic, his plea would have been more graceful and gracious. Yr. Turner may find what fault he pleases with mj poetry, or my politics ; but I recommend lum to leave aquatic reflections till he is able to swim ' five-and-twenty minutes' without being ' exhausted,'' though I believe he is the first modern Tory w ho ever BVi am • "- df the time."* * 'Pu the above letter, which was published at the time, Mr. Turner wrote a reply, but, for n d by himself, did not print it. At his request, I give insertion to his paper in the Appendix. a. d. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 311 LETTER CCCCXIV. TO MR. MOORE. " Ravenna, February 22d, 1821. " As I wish the soul of the late Antoine Galignani to rest in peace (yon will have read his death published by himself, in his own news- paper), you are requested particularly to inform his children and heirs, that of their ' Literary Gazette,' to which I subscribed more than two months ago, I have only received one number, notwithstanding I have written to them repeatedly. If they have no regard for me, a sub- scriber, they ought to have some for their deceased parent, who is undoubtedly no better off in his present residence for this total want of attention. If not, let me have my francs. They were paid by Missiaglia, the fFenetian bookseller. You may also hint to them that when a gentleman writes a letter, it is usual to send an answer. If not, I shall make them ' a speech,' which will comprise an eulogy on the deceased. " We are here full of war, and within two days of the seat of it, expecting intelligence momently. We shall now see if our Italian friends are good for any thing but ' shooting round a corner,' like the Irishman's gun. Excuse haste, — I write with my spurs putting on. My horses are at the door, and an Italian Count waiting to accompany me in ray ride. " Yours, &c. " P.S. Pray, among my letters, did you get one detailing the death of the commandant here ? He was killed near my door, and died in my house. " BOWLES AND CAMPBELL. u To the air of 'How now, Madame Flirt,'' in the Beggar's Opera. " Bowles. " Why, how now, saucy Tom, If you thus must ramble, I will publish some Remarks on Mr. Campbell. " Campbell. " Why, how now, Billy Bowles &c. &c. &c. LETTER CCCCXV. TO MR. MURRAY. "March 2, 1821. " This was the beginning of a letter which I meant for Perry, but stopped short hoping that you would be able to prevent the theatres. Of course you need not send it; but it explains to you my feelings on the subject. You say that ' there is nothing to fear, let them do what they please ;' that is to say, that you would see me damned with great tranquillity. You are a fine fellow." 312 NOTICES OF THE [a. d. 1621. TO MB, PERRT. •• l.avcnna, January 22d, 1821. "dear sir, "I have received a strange piece of news, which cannot be more disagreeable to your public than n is to me. Letters and the gazettes do me the honour to say, thai it is the intention of some of the London managers to bring forward on their stage the poem of ' Marino Falicro,' &c, which was never intended lor such an exhibition, and I trust will never undergo it. It is certainly unfit for it. I have never written but for the solitary reader, and require do experiments for applause beyond his silent approbation. Since such an attempt to drag me forth as a gladiator in the theatrical arena is a violation of all the cour- tesies of literature, 1 trust that the impartial pari of the press will step between me and this pollution. I say pollution, because every viola- tion of a right is such, and I claim my right as an author to prevent what I have written from being turned* into a stage-play. I have too much respect for the public to permit this of my own free will. Had I sought their favour, it would have been by a pantomime. " I have said that I write only for the reader. Beyond this I cannot consent to any publication, or to the abuse of any publication of mine to the purposes of histrionism. The applauses of an audience would 'jive mi' no pleasure; their disapprobation might, however, give me pain. The wager is therefore not equal. You may, perhaps, say, 'How can this be r if their disapprobation gives pain, their praise might afford pleasure >' By no means : the I ick of an ass or the sting ol a wasp may be painful to those who would find nothing agreeable in the braving of the one or the buzzing of the other. "This may not seem a courteous comparison, but I have no other ready ; and it occurs naturally." LETTER CCCCXVI. TO MR. HI BRAY. "Uavcnna, Marzo, 1821. " DBAB MORAY, "In my packet of the 12th instant, in the last sheet (not the half sheet), last page, omii the sentence which (defining, or attempting to define, what and who are gentlemen) begins '1 should say at least in life that most military men have it, and few naval; that several men of rank have it, and few Lawyers, 1 &c. &c. I say, omit the whole of that sentence, because, like the ' cosmogony, or creation of the world,' in the - \ icar of \\ akefield,' it is not much to the purpose. M In the sentence above, tOO, almost at the top ol" the same page, after the words ' that there ever was, or can be, an aristocracy of poets,' add and insert these words— ' I do not mean lint they should write in ih- style of the song by a person ofquality, or parte euphuism; but there is a nobility of thought and expression to be found no less in kspeare, Pope, ami Burns, than in Dante, Allien,' &c. &c, and so On. (tr, il'you please, perhaps you had belter omit the whole of the latter digression on the vulgar poets, and insert only as far as the end a. d. 1821.] HFE OF LORD BYRON. 313 of the sentence on Pope's Homer, where I prefer it to Cowper's and quote Dr. Clarke in favour of its accuracy. " Upon all these points, take an opinion ; take the sense (or non- sense) of your learned visitants, and act thereby. I am very tractable — in prose. " Whether I have made out the case for Pope, I know not ; but I am very sure that I have been zealous in the attempt. If it comes to the proofs, we shall beat the blackguards. I will show more imagery in twenty lines of Pope than in any equal length of quotation in Eng- lish poesy, and that in places where they least expect it. For instance, in his lines on Sporus, — now, do just read them over — the subject is of no consequence (whether it be satire or epic) — we are talking of poetry and imagery from nature and art. Now mark the images separately and arithmetically : — 1. The thing of silk. 2. Curd of ass's milk. 3. The butterfly. 4. The wheel. 5. Bug with gilded wings. 6. Painted child of dirt. 7. Whose buzz. 8. Well-bred spaniels. 9. Shallow streams run dimpling. 10. Florid impotence. 11. Prompter. Puppet squeaks. 12. The ear of Eve. 13. Familiar toad. 14. Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad. 15. Fop at the toilet. 16. Flatterer at the board. 17. Amphibious thing. 18. Now trips a lady. 19. Now struts a lord. 20. A cherub's face. 21. A reptile all the rest. 22. The Rabbins. 23. Pride that licks the dust — ' Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dusV " Now, is there a line of all the passage without the most forcible imagery (for his purpose) ? Look at the variety— at the poetry of the passage— at the imagination : there is hardly a line from which a paint- ing might not be made, and is. But this is nothing in comparison with his higher passages in the Essay on Man, and many of his other poems, serious and comic. There never was such an unjust outcry in this world as that which these fellows are trying against Pope. " Ask Mr. Gifford if, in the fifth act of ' the Doge,' you could not con- trive (Avhere the sentence of the Veil is passed) to insert the following- lines in Marino Faliero's answer ? ' But let it be so. It will be in vain : The veil which blackens o'er this blighted name, And hides, or seems to hide, these lineaments, 314 NOTICES OF THE, [a. d. 1821. Shall draw more gazers than the thousand portraits Which glitter round it In their painted trappings, Your delegated skives — the 's tyranl , •■ Sours truly, &c. "P.S. Upon public matters hi I y little : you will all hear soon enough of a g< neral rov throughout Italy. There never was a more foolish step than th ition to V. these fellows. "I wish to pro D Holmes, the miniature r, to come out tome this spring. I will paj Ins s, and any sum in reason. 1 wish him to lake my daughter's picture (who is in a convent) ;int her feeling upon religious subjects might be disturbed by the con- ition of SheHey himself, prevented him from allowing her to remain under his friend's roof. a. d. 1821.] LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 315 disadvantages of lier birth, her after-settlement would be doubly diffi- cult. Abroad, with a fair foreign education and a portion of five or six thousand pounds, she might and may marry very respectably. In England such a dowry would be a pittance, while elsewhere it is a fortune. It is, besides, my wish that she should be a Roman Catholic, which I look upon as the best religion, as it is assuredly the oldest of the various branches of Christianity. I have now explained my notions as to the place where she now is — it is the best I could find for the present ; but I have no prejudices in its favour. "I do not speak of politics, because it seems a hopeless subject, as long as those scoundrels are to be permitted to bully states out of their independence. Believe me " Yours ever and truly. " P.S. There is a report here of a change in France ; but with what truth is not yet known. "P.S. My respects to Mrs. H. I have the 'best opinion' of her countrywomen; and at my time of life (three-and-thirty, 22d Janu- ary, 1321), that is to say, after the life I have led,