The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6), by (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) Author: (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron Editor: Thomas Moore Release Date: August 27, 2005 [EBook #16609] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITINGS OF LORD BYRON *** Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net LIFE OF LORD BYRON: WITH HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS. BY THOMAS MOORE, ESQ. IN SIX VOLUMES.—VOL. V. NEW EDITION. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1854. CONTENTS OF VOL. V. LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE, from October, 1820, to November, 1822. NOTICES Pg 1 OF THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON. LETTER 394. TO MR. MOORE. "Ravenna, October 17. 1820. "You owe me two letters—pay them. I want to know what you are about. The summer is over, and you will be back to Paris. Apropos of Paris, it was not Sophia Gail, but Sophia Gay—the English word Gay—who was my correspondent.[1] Can you tell who she is, as you did of the defunct * *? "Have you gone on with your Poem? 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. "Have you got my Memoir copied? I have begun a continuation. Shall I send it you, as far as it is gone? "I 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!—as if I, a solitary stranger, could do any mischief. It is because I am fond of rifle and pistol shooting, I believe; for they took the alarm at the quantity of cartridges I consumed,—the wiseacres! "You don't deserve a long letter—nor a letter at all—for your silence. You have got a new Bourbon, it seems, whom they have christened 'Dieu-donné;'—perhaps the honour of the present may be disputed. Did you write the good lines on ——, the Laker? * * "The Queen has made a pretty theme for the journals. Was there ever such evidence published? Why, it is worse than 'Little's Poems' or 'Don Juan.' If you don't write soon, I will 'make you a speech.' Yours," &c. LETTER 395. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, 8bre 25°, 1820. "Pray forward the enclosed to Lady Byron. It is on business. "In thanking you for the Abbot, I made four grand mistakes, Sir John Gordon was not of Gight, but of Bogagicht, and a son of Huntley's. He suffered not for his loyalty, but in an insurrection. He had nothing to do with Loch Leven, having been dead some time at the period of the Queen's confinement: and, fourthly, I 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 I am, being precise upon points of genealogy, like all the aristocratical 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, &c. in arms and doing mischief. I 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, where there has never yet been any definite charge,—will be perused with strong interest:— Pg 2 Pg 3 Pg 4 "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 enquiry 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.[2] But is not the writer content with what has been already said and done? Has not 'the general voice of his countrymen' long ago pronounced upon the subject— sentence without trial, and condemnation without a charge? Have I not been exiled by ostracism, except that the shells which proscribed me were anonymous? Is the writer ignorant of the public opinion and the public conduct upon that occasion? If he is, I am not: the public will forget both long before I shall cease to remember either. "The man who is exiled by a faction has the consolation of thinking that he is a martyr; he is upheld by hope and the dignity of his cause, real or imaginary: he who withdraws from the pressure of debt may indulge in the thought that time and prudence will retrieve his circumstances: he who is condemned by the law has a term to his banishment, or a dream of its abbreviation; or, it may be, the knowledge or the belief of some injustice of the law or of its administration in his own particular: but he who is outlawed by general opinion, without the intervention of hostile politics, illegal judgment, or embarrassed circumstances, whether he 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 not aware; but it was general, and it was decisive. Of me or of mine they knew little, except that I had written what is called poetry, was a nobleman, had married, became a father, and was involved in differences with my wife and her relatives, no one knew why, because the persons complaining refused to state their grievances. The fashionable world was divided into parties, 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 was active 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 waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters. "If I may judge by the statements of 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 the theatres, lest I should be hissed, nor to my duty in parliament, lest I should be insulted by the way; even on the day of my departure, my most intimate friend told me afterwards that he was under apprehensions of violence from the people who might be assembled at the door of the carriage. However, I was not deterred by these counsels from seeing Kean in his best characters, nor from voting according to my principles; and, with regard to the third and last apprehensions of my friends, I could not share in them, not being made acquainted with their extent till some time after I had crossed the Channel. Even if I had been so, I am not of a nature to be much affected by men's anger, though I may feel hurt by their aversion. Against all individual outrage, I could protect or redress myself; and against that of a crowd, I should probably have been enabled to defend myself, with the assistance of others, as has been done on similar occasions. "I retired from the country, perceiving that I was the object of general obloquy; I did not indeed imagine, like Jean Jacques Rousseau, that all mankind was in a conspiracy against me, though I had perhaps as good grounds for such a chimera as ever he had; but I perceived 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,' 'condemned 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 Pg 5 Pg 6 Pg 7 Pg 8 without being favoured with the act of accusation, and to perceive in the absence of this portentous 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 afterwards 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 possesses 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 anything 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 Staël said to me 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 exil'd lot, And if the world hath loved thee not, Its absence may be borne.' "I have heard of, and believe, that there are human beings so constituted 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 Scotorum.' I have not sought, and shall not seek it, and perhaps it may never come in my path. I do not in this allude to 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 personally 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 I 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 Rome till some time after, so that I had no opportunity of knowing the fact; but I was informed, long afterwards, that the greatest indignation had been manifested in the enlightened Anglo-circle of that year, which happened to comprise within it—amidst a considerable leaven of Welbeck Street and Devonshire Place, broken loose upon their travels—several really well-born and well-bred families, who did not the less participate in the feeling of the hour. 'Why should he return to England?' was the general exclamation —I answer why? It is a question I have occasionally asked myself, and I never yet could give it a satisfactory reply. I had then no thoughts of returning, and if I have any now, they are of business, and not of pleasure. Amidst the ties that have been dashed to pieces, there are links yet entire, though the chain itself be broken. There are duties, and connections, 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 of business, which time accumulates during absence, in 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 some things 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 I have described was not confined to the English in England, and as forming part of my answer to the reproach cast upon what has been called my 'selfish exile,' and my 'voluntary exile.' 'Voluntary' it has Pg 9 Pg 10 Pg 11 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 Europe for nearly a century. The great cause of the present deplorable state of English poetry is to be attributed 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 annihilated) 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 nothing 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 adherence; 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 pretends that no great poet ever had immediate fame, which, being interpreted, means that * * is not quite so much read by his contemporaries as might be desirable. This assertion is as false as it is foolish. Homer's glory depended upon his present popularity: he recited,—and without the strongest impression of the moment, who would have gotten the Iliad by heart, and given it to tradition? Ennius, Terence, Plautus, Lucretius, Horace, Virgil, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Sappho, Anacreon, Theocritus, all the great poets of antiquity, were the delight of their contemporaries.[3] The very existence of a poet, previous to the invention of printing, depended upon his present popularity; and how often has it impaired his future fame? Hardly ever. History informs us, that the best have come down to us. The reason is evident: the most popular found the greatest number of transcribers for their MSS.; and that the taste of their contemporaries was corrupt can hardly be avouched by the moderns, the mightiest of whom have but barely approached them. Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, were all the darlings of the contemporary reader. Dante's poem was celebrated long before his death; and, not long after it, States negotiated for his ashes, and disputed for the sites of the composition of the Divina Commedia. Petrarch was crowned in the Capitol. Ariosto was permitted to pass free by the public robber who had read the Orlando Furioso. I would not recommend Mr. * * to try the same experiment with his Smugglers. Tasso, notwithstanding the criticisms of the Cruscanti, 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 in 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 his contemporaries. I will venture to assert, that the sale of the Paradise Lost was greater in the first four years after its publication than that of 'The Excursion,' in the same number, with the difference of Pg 12 Pg 13 Pg 14 Pg 15 nearly a century and a half between them of time, and of thousands in point of general 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 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 I have been considerably astonished at the temporary success of my works, having flattered no person and no party, and expressed 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 different 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 woman'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.'[4] Without being old in years, I am in days, and do not feel the adequate spirit within me to attempt a work which should show what I think right in poetry, and must content myself with 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 search for passion, where is it to be found stronger than in the epistle from Eloisa to Abelard, or in Palamon and Arcite? Do you wish for invention, imagination, sublimity, character? seek them in the Rape of the Lock, the Fables of Dryden, the Ode on Saint Cecilia's Day, and Absalom and Achitophel: you will discover in these two poets only, all for which you must ransack innumerable metres, and 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 Fudge Family, nor Whistlecraft; but that is not wit—it is humour. I will say nothing of the harmony of Pope and Dryden in comparison, for there is not a living poet (except Rogers, Gifford, Campbell, and Crabbe) who can write an heroic couplet. The fact is, that the exquisite beauty of their versification has withdrawn the public attention from their other excellences, as the vulgar eye will rest 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 versification is perfect, it is assumed that it is his 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,' as 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 two 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 find them? "I merely mention one instance of many in reply to the injustice done to the memory of him who harmonised our poetical language. The attorneys clerks, and other self-educated genii, found it easier to distort themselves to the new models than to toil after the symmetry of him who had enchanted their fathers. They were besides smitten by being told that the new school were to revive the language of Queen Elizabeth, the true English; as every body in the reign of Queen Anne wrote no better than French, by a species of literary treason. "Blank verse, which, unless in the 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. I am aware that Johnson has said, after some hesitation, that he could not 'prevail upon himself to wish that Milton Pg 16 Pg 17 Pg 18 Pg 19 Pg 20 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 time will restore to him from all; but, with all humility, I am not persuaded that the Paradise Lost would not have been more nobly conveyed to posterity, not perhaps in heroic couplets, although even they could sustain the subject if well balanced, but in the stanza of Spenser, or of Tasso, or in the terza rima of Dante, which the powers of Milton could easily have grafted on our language. The Seasons of Thomson would have been better in rhyme, although still inferior to his Castle of Indolence; and Mr. Southey's Joan of Arc no worse, although it might have taken up six months instead of weeks in the composition. 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 predecessor in their college, and to recollect that their earliest English poetical pleasures were drawn from the 'little nightingale' of Twickenham. "The first is from the notes to a Poem of the 'Friends[5],' 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 degrading 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[6]: "'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[7] Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and chip, and fit, 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 Mark'd with most flimsy mottos, and in large The name of one Boileau.' "A little before the manner of Pope is termed "'A scism[8], Nurtured by foppery and barbarism, Made great Apollo blush for this his land.' "I thought 'foppery' was a consequence of refinement; but n'importe. "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 learnt 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 recommend him to try before he is so positive on the subject, and then compare what he will have then written and what he has now 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, Pg 21 Pg 22 Pg 23 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—I 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: there 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 Ettrick shepherd, 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 Coleridge, or Wordsworth, made a follower of renown? Wilson never did well till he set up for himself in the 'City of the Plague.' Has Moore, or any other living writer of reputation, had a tolerable imitator, or rather 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 fame, but the despair of imitation, and the ease of not imitating him sufficiently. This, and the same reason which induced the Athenian burgher to vote for the banishment of Aristides, 'because he was tired of always hearing him called the Just,' have produced 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 generation, who "Will blush to find their fathers were his foes." LETTER 396. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, 9bre 4. 1820. "I have received from Mr. Galignani the enclosed letters, duplicates and receipts, which will explain themselves.[9] As the poems are your property by purchase, right, and justice, all matters of publication, &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 nothing 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 permissive papers in the fire. I can have no view nor object whatever, but to secure to you your property. "Yours, &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 themselves and deny God in running down Pope, the most faultless of poets, and almost of men." LETTER 397. TO MR. MOORE. "Ravenna, November 5. 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 sup-planted and sub-pirated by another Parisian publisher, who has audaciously printed an edition of L.B.'s Works, at the ultra-liberal price of ten francs, and (as Galignani piteously observes) eight francs only for booksellers! 'horresco referens.' Think of a man's whole works producing so little! "Galignani sends me, post haste, a permission for him, from me, to publish, &c. &c. which permit I have signed and sent to Mr. Murray of Albemarle Street. Will you explain to G. that 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 say as much; but a word of mouth from a 'great brother author' 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. Pg 24 Pg 25 Pg 26 Pg 27 "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 pronounced at Naples, and is spreading; but we are nearer the Barbarians; 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 unlooked 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. "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 the Deed of Separation, in the April of 1816. "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 'tis worth. "For the anniversary of January 2. 1821, I have a small grateful anticipation, which, in case of accident, I add— "To Penelope, January 2. 1821. "This day, of all our days, has done The worst for me and you:— 'Tis just six years since we were one, And five 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 'Memoirs,' 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 husband has murdered me—he has carried away my fine jubilee clothes.' "So Bowles has been telling a story, too ('tis in the Quarterly), about the woods of 'Madeira,' and so forth. I shall be at Bowles again, if he is not quiet. He mis-states, or mistakes, in a point or two. The paper is finished, and so is the letter. "Yours," &c. Pg 28 Pg 29 LETTER 393. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, 9bre 9°, 1820. "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, 'Twould 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 Croker would not disrelish a sight of these light little humorous things, and may be indulged now and then. "Why, I do like one or two vices, to be sure; but I can back a horse and fire a pistol 'without thinking or blinking' like Major Sturgeon; I have fed at times for two months together on sheer biscuit and water (without metaphor); I can get over seventy or eighty miles a day riding post, and swim five at a stretch, as at Venice, in 1818, or at least I could do, and have done it once. "I know Henry Matthews: he is the image, to the very voice, of his brother Charles, only darker—his laugh his in particular. The first time I ever met him was in Scrope Davies's rooms after his brother's death, and I nearly 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 that 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.[10] "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. I myself have no doubt of the fact, historical and spectral.[11] She always appeared on particular occasions, before the deaths of the family, &c. &c. I 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 afterwards. 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 Countess had her shut up in the wall of the castle, like Constance de Beverley. Ever after, she haunted them and all the Colaltos. She is described as very beautiful and fair. It is well authenticated." LETTER 399. TO MR. MURRAY. "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. Good God, he and Blake[12] both gone! I left them both in the most robust health, and little 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' who gains a name by breaking heads and knocking out grinders. Who succeeds him? Where is tooth- powder mild and yet efficacious—where is tincture—where are clearing roots and brushes now to be obtained? Pray obtain what information you can upon these 'Tusculan 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. I have seen a thousand graves opened, and always perceived, that whatever was gone, the teeth and hair remained 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. Pg 30 Pg 31 Pg 32 Pg 33 "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. Don'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 can't furbish. 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 don'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!' 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 Reviewers. At present all the men they have ever praised are degraded by that insane article. Why don't they review and praise 'Solomon's Guide to Health?' it is better sense and as much poetry as Johnny Keats. "Bowles must be bowled down. 'Tis 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, gaining more notches (as one of our chosen eleven) than any, except Lord Ipswich and Brookman, on our side." LETTER 400. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, 9bre 23°, 1820. "The 'Hints,' Hobhouse says, will require a good deal of slashing to suit the times, which will be a work of time, for I don't feel at all laborious just now. Whatever effect they are to have would perhaps be greater in a separate form, and they also must have my name to them. Now, if you publish them in the same volume with Don Juan, they identify Don Juan as mine, which I don't think worth a Chancery suit about my daughter's guardianship, as in your present code a facetious poem is sufficient to take away a man's rights over his family. "Of the state of things here it would be difficult and not very prudent 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 my most legible hand, that I think them damned scoundrels and barbarians, and their emperor a fool, and themselves more fools than he; all which they may send to Vienna for any thing I 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 I suppose that Providence will get tired of them at last, * * "Yours," &c. LETTER 401. TO MR. MOORE. "Ravenna, Dec. 9. 1820. "Besides this letter, you will receive three packets, containing, in all, 18 more sheets of Memoranda, which, I fear, will cost you more in 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 you?—and what say you? "Over these latter sheets I would leave you a discretionary power[13]; because they contain, perhaps, a thing or two which is too sincere for the public. If I consent to your disposing of their reversion now, Pg 34 Pg 35 Pg 36 where would be the harm? Tastes may 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 what you please from your own knowledge; and, above 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 lecturer. He wrote to me several letters upon Christianity, to convert me: and, if I had not been a Christian a...