by Lord Byron
“I trust that you will pardon the warmth of this address when I assure your Lordship that it arises, in the greatest degree, in a sincere regard for your lasting reputation, with, however, some view to that portion of it, which must attend the Publisher of so beautiful a Poem, as your Lordship is capable of rendering
“The Romaunt of Childe Harold.
“I have the honour to be, My Lord,
“Your Lordship’s
“Obedient and faithful servant,
“John Murray.”
180 — to R. C. Dallas
Newstead Abbey, September 7, 1811.
As Gifford has been ever my “Magnus Apollo,” any approbation, such as you mention, would, of course, be more welcome than “all Bocara’s vaunted gold”, than all “the gems of Samarcand.” But I am sorry the MS. was shown to him in such a manner, and had written to Murray to say as much, before I was aware that it was too late.
Your objection to the expression “central line” I can only meet by saying that, before Childe Harold left England, it was his full intention to traverse Persia, and return by India, which he could not have done without passing the equinoctial.
The other errors you mention, I must correct in the progress through the press. I feel honoured by the wish of such men that the poem should be continued, but to do that I must return to Greece and Asia; I must have a warm sun, a blue sky; I cannot describe scenes so dear to me by a sea-coal fire. I had projected an additional canto when I was in the Troad and Constantinople, and if I saw them again, it would go on; but under existing circumstances and sensations, I have neither harp, “heart, nor voice” to proceed, I feel that you are all right as to the metaphysical part; but I also feel that I am sincere, and that if I am only to write “ad captandum vulgus,” I might as well edit a magazine at once, or spin canzonettas for Vauxhall.
My work must make its way as well as it can; I know I have every thing against me, angry poets and prejudices; but if the poem is a poem, it will surmount these obstacles, and if not, it deserves its fate. Your friend’s Ode I have read — it is no great compliment to pronounce it far superior to Smythe’s on the same subject, or to the merits of the new Chancellor. It is evidently the production of a man of taste, and a poet, though I should not be willing to say it was fully equal to what might be expected from the author of “Horæ Ionicæ.” I thank you for it, and that is more than I would do for any other Ode of the present day.
I am very sensible of your good wishes, and, indeed, I have need of them. My whole life has been at variance with propriety, not to say decency; my circumstances are become involved; my friends are dead or estranged, and my existence a dreary void. In Matthews I have lost my “guide, philosopher, and friend;” in Wingfield a friend only, but one whom I could have wished to have preceded in his long journey.
Matthews was indeed an extraordinary man; it has not entered into the heart of a stranger to conceive such a man: there was the stamp of immortality in all he said or did; — and now what is he? When we see such men pass away and be no more — men, who seem created to display what the Creator could make his creatures, gathered into corruption, before the maturity of minds that might have been the pride of posterity, what are we to conclude? For my own part, I am bewildered. To me he was much, to Hobhouse every thing. My poor Hobhouse doted on Matthews. For me, I did not love quite so much as I honoured him; I was indeed so sensible of his infinite superiority, that though I did not envy, I stood in awe of it. He, Hobhouse, Davies, and myself, formed a coterie of our own at Cambridge and elsewhere. Davies is a wit and man of the world, and feels as much as such a character can do; but not as Hobhouse has been affected. Davies, who is not a scribbler, has always beaten us all in the war of words, and by his colloquial powers at once delighted and kept us in order. Hobhouse and myself always had the worst of it with the other two; and even Matthews yielded to the dashing vivacity of Scrope Davies. But I am talking to you of men, or boys, as if you cared about such beings.
I expect mine agent down on the I4th to proceed to Lancashire, where I hear from all quarters that I have a very valuable property in coals, etc. I then intend to accept an invitation to Cambridge in October, and shall, perhaps, run up to town. I have four invitations — to Wales, Dorset, Cambridge, and Chester; but I must be a man of business. I am quite alone, as these long letters sadly testify. I perceive, by referring to your letter, that the Ode is from the author; make my thanks acceptable to him. His muse is worthy a nobler theme. You will write as usual, I hope. I wish you good evening, and am, etc.
“Sweet maid, if thou would’st charm my sight,
And bid these arms thy neck infold;
That rosy cheek, that lily hand,
Would give thy poet more delight,
Than all Bocara’s vaunted gold,
Than all the gems of Samarcand.”
181 — to the Hon. Augusta Leigh
[Six Mile Bottom, Newmarket.]
Newstead Abbey, Sept. 9th, 1811.
My Dear Augusta, — My Rochdale affairs are understood to be settled as far as the Law can settle them, and indeed I am told that the most valuable part is that which was never disputed; but I have never reaped any advantage from them, and God knows if I ever shall. Mr. H., my agent, is a good man and able, but the most dilatory in the world. I expect him down on the 14th to accompany me to Rochdale, where something will be decided as to selling or working the Collieries. I am Lord of the Manor (a most extensive one), and they want to enclose, which cannot be done without me; but I go there in the worst humour possible and am afraid I shall do or say something not very conciliatory. In short all my affairs are going on as badly as possible, and I have no hopes or plans to better them as I long ago pledged myself never to sell Newstead, which I mean to hold in defiance of the Devil and Man.
I am quite alone and never see strangers without being sick, but I am nevertheless on good terms with my neighbours, for I neither ride or shoot or move over my Garden walls, but I fence and box and swim and run a good deal to keep me in exercise and get me to sleep. Poor Murray is ill again, and one of my Greek servants is ill too, and my valet has got a pestilent cough, so that we are in a peck of troubles; my family Surgeon sent an Emetic this morning for one of them, I did not very well know which, but I swore Somebody should take it, so after a deal of discussion the Greek swallowed it with tears in his eyes, and by the blessing of it, and the Virgin whom he invoked to assist it and him, I suppose he’ll be well tomorrow, if not, another shall have the next. So your Spouse likes children, that is lucky as he will have to bring them up; for my part (since I lost my Newfoundland dog,) I like nobody except his successor a Dutch Mastiff and three land Tortoises brought with me from Greece.
I thank you for your letters and am always glad to hear from you, but if you won’t come here before Xmas, I very much fear we shall not meet here at all, for I shall be off somewhere or other very soon out of this land of Paper credit (or rather no credit at all, for every body seems on the high road to Bankruptcy), and if I quit it again I shall not be back in a hurry.
However, I shall endeavour to see you somewhere, and make my bow with decorum before I return to the Ottomans, I believe I shall turn Mussulman in the end.
You ask after my health; I am in tolerable leanness, which I promote by exercise and abstinence. I don’t know that I have acquired any thing by my travels but a smattering of two languages and a habit of chewing Tobacco.
Yours ever,
B.
“In fact, there’s nothing makes me so much grieve,
As that abominable tittle-tattle,
Which is the cud eschewed by human cattle.”
182 — to Francis Hodgson
Newstead Abbey, Sept. 9, 1811.
Dear Hodgson, — I have been a good deal in your company lately, for I have been reading Juvenal and Lady Jane, etc., for the first time since my return. The Tenth Sat’e has always been my favourite, as I suppose indeed of everybo
dy’s. It is the finest recipe for making one miserable with his life, and content to walk out of it, in any language. I should think it might be redde with great effect to a man dying without much pain, in preference to all the stuff that ever was said or sung in churches. But you are a deacon, and I say no more. Ah! you will marry and become lethargic, like poor Hal of Harrow, who yawns at 10 o’ nights, and orders caudle annually.
I wrote an answer to yours fully some days ago, and, being quite alone and able to frank, you must excuse this subsequent epistle, which will cost nothing but the trouble of deciphering. I am expectant of agents to accompany me to Rochdale, a journey not to be anticipated with pleasure; though I feel very restless where I am, and shall probably ship off for Greece again; what nonsense it is to talk of Soul, when a cloud makes it melancholy and wine makes it mad.
Collet of Staines, your “most kind host,” has lost that girl you saw of his. She grew to five feet eleven, and might have been God knows how high if it had pleased Him to renew the race of Anak; but she fell by a ptisick, a fresh proof of the folly of begetting children. You knew Matthews. Was he not an intellectual giant? I knew few better or more intimately, and none who deserved more admiration in point of ability.
Scrope Davies has been here on his way to Harrowgate; I am his guest in October at King’s, where we will “drink deep ere we depart.” “Won’t you, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you come, Mr. Mug?” We did not amalgamate properly at Harrow; it was somehow rainy, and then a wife makes such a damp; but in a seat of celibacy I will have revenge. Don’t you hate helping first, and losing the wings of chicken? And then, conversation is always flabby. Oh! in the East women are in their proper sphere, and one has — no conversation at all. My house here is a delightful matrimonial mansion. When I wed, my spouse and I will be so happy! — one in each wing.
I presume you are in motion from your Herefordshire station, and Drury must be gone back to Gerund Grinding. I have not been at Cambridge since I took my M.A. degree in 1808. Eheu fugaces! I look forward to meeting you and Scrope there with the feelings of other times. Capt. Hobhouse is at Enniscorthy in Juverna. I wish he was in England.
Yours ever,
B.
“Heel-Tap. Now, neighbours, have a good caution that this Master Mug does not cajole you; he is a damn’d palavering fellow.”
But there is no passage in the play which exactly corresponds with Byron’s quotation.
183 — To R.C. Dallas
Newstead Abbey, Sept. 10, 1811.
Dear Sir, — I rather think in one of the opening stanzas of Childe Harold there is this line:
‘Tis said at times the sullen tear would start.
Now, a line or two after, I have a repetition of the epithet “sullen reverie;” so (if it be so) let us have “speechless reverie,” or “silent reverie;” but, at all events, do away the recurrence.
Yours ever,
B.
184 — To Francis Hodgson
Newstead Abbey, September 13, 1811.
My Dear Hodgson, — I thank you for your song, or, rather, your two songs, — your new song on love, and your old song on religion. I admire the first sincerely, and in turn call upon you to admire the following on Anacreon Moore’s new operatic farce, or farcical opera — call it which you will:
Good plays are scarce,
So Moore writes Farce;
Is Fame like his so brittle?
We knew before
That “Little’s” Moore,
But now ‘tis Moore that’s Little.
I won’t dispute with you on the Arcana of your new calling; they are Bagatelles like the King of Poland’s rosary. One remark, and I have done; the basis of your religion is injustice; the Son of God, the pure, the immaculate, the innocent, is sacrificed for the Guilty. This proves His heroism; but no more does away man’s guilt than a schoolboy’s volunteering to be flogged for another would exculpate the dunce from negligence, or preserve him from the Rod. You degrade the Creator, in the first place, by making Him a begetter of children; and in the next you convert Him into a Tyrant over an immaculate and injured Being, who is sent into existence to suffer death for the benefit of some millions of Scoundrels, who, after all, seem as likely to be damned as ever. As to miracles, I agree with Hume that it is more probable men should lie or be deceived, than that things out of the course of Nature should so happen. Mahomet wrought miracles, Brothers the prophet had proselytes, and so would Breslaw the conjuror, had he lived in the time of Tiberius.
Besides I trust that God is not a Jew, but the God of all Mankind; and as you allow that a virtuous Gentile may be saved, you do away the necessity of being a Jew or a Christian.
I do not believe in any revealed religion, because no religion is revealed: and if it pleases the Church to damn me for not allowing a nonentity, I throw myself on the mercy of the “Great First Cause, least understood,” who must do what is most proper; though I conceive He never made anything to be tortured in another life, whatever it may in this. I will neither read pro nor con. God would have made His will known without books, considering how very few could read them when Jesus of Nazareth lived, had it been His pleasure to ratify any peculiar mode of worship. As to your immortality, if people are to live, why die? And our carcases, which are to rise again, are they worth raising? I hope, if mine is, that I shall have a better pair of legs than I have moved on these two-and-twenty years, or I shall be sadly behind in the squeeze into Paradise. Did you ever read “Malthus on Population”? If he be right, war and pestilence are our best friends, to save us from being eaten alive, in this “best of all possible Worlds.”
I will write, read, and think no more; indeed, I do not wish to shock your prejudices by saying all I do think. Let us make the most of life, and leave dreams to Emanuel Swedenborg. Now to dreams of another genus — Poesies. I like your song much; but I will say no more, for fear you should think I wanted to scratch you into approbation of my past, present, or future acrostics. I shall not be at Cambridge before the middle of October; but, when I go, I should certes like to see you there before you are dubbed a deacon. Write to me, and I will rejoin.
Yours ever, Byron
“Fully believing this to be the Man whom God has appointed, I engrave this likeness. William Sharp.”
“et Pangloss disait quelquefois à Candide; Tous les événements sont enchainés dans le meilleur des mondes possibles,” etc.
Hodgson replies (September 18, 1811):
“Your last letter has unfeignedly grieved me. Believing, as I do from my heart, that you would be better and happier by thoroughly examining the evidences for Christianity, how can I hear you say you will not read any book on the subject, without being pained? But God bless you under all circumstances. I will say no more. Only do not talk of ‘shocking my prejudices,’ or of ‘rushing to see me before I am a Deacon.’ I wish to see you at all times; and as to our different opinions, we can easily keep them to ourselves.”
The next day he writes again:
“Let me make one other effort. You mentioned an opinion of Hume’s about miracles. For God’s sake, — hear me, Byron, for God’s sake — examine Paley’s answer to that opinion; examine the whole of Paley’s Evidences. The two volumes may be read carefully in less than a week. Let me for the last time by our friendship, implore you to read them.”
185 — To John Murray
Newstead Abbey, Notts., Sept. 14, 1811.
Sir, — Since your former letter, Mr. Dallas informs me that the MS. has been submitted to the perusal of Mr. Gifford, most contrary to my wishes, as Mr. D. could have explained, and as my own letter to you did, in fact, explain, with my motives for objecting to such a proceeding. Some late domestic events, of which you are probably aware, prevented my letter from being sent before; indeed, I hardly conceived you would have so hastily thrust my productions into the hands of a Stranger, who could be as little pleased by receiving them, as their author is at their being offered,
in such a manner, and to such a Man.
My address, when I leave Newstead, will be to “Rochdale, Lancashire;” but I have not yet fixed the day of departure, and I will apprise you when ready to set off.
You have placed me in a very ridiculous situation, but it is past, and nothing more is to be said on the subject. You hinted to me that you wished some alterations to be made; if they have nothing to do with politics or religion, I will make them with great readiness.
I am, Sir, etc., etc., Byron.
“Fresh from the fencing rooms of Angelo and Jackson, he used to amuse himself by renewing his practice of Carte et Tierce, with his walking-cane directed against the bookshelves, while Murray was reading passages from the poem with occasional ejaculations of admiration, on which Byron would say, ‘You think that a good idea, do you, Murray?’ Then he would fence and lunge with his walking-stick at some special book which he had picked out on the shelves before him. As Murray afterwards said, ‘I was often very glad to get rid of him!’“
(Smiles’s Memoir of John Murray, vol. i. p. 207).
186 — To R. C. Dallas
Newstead Abbey, Sept. 15, 1811.
My dear Sir, — My agent will not he here for at least a week, and even afterwards my letters will be forwarded to Rochdale. I am sorry that Murray should groan on my account, tho’ that is better than the anticipation of applause, of which men and books are generally disappointed.
The notes I sent are merely matter to be divided, arranged, and published for notes hereafter, in proper places; at present I am too much occupied with earthly cares to waste time or trouble upon rhyme, or its modern indispensables, annotations.
Pray let me hear from you, when at leisure. I have written to abuse Murray for showing the MS. to Mr. G., who must certainly think it was done by my wish, though you know the contrary. — Believe me, Yours ever,