Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  XXVII

  “But when Convention sent his handy work,

  Pens, tongues, feet, hands, combined in wild uproar;

  Mayor, Alderman, laid down th’ uplifted fork;

  The bench of Bishops half forgot to snore;

  Stern Cobbett, who for one whole week forbore

  To question aught, once more with transport leapt,

  And bit his dev’lish quill agen, and swore

  With foe such treaty never should be kept.

  Then burst the blatant beast, and roared and raged and — slept!!!”

  XXVIII

  “Thus unto heaven appealed the people; heaven,

  Which loves the lieges of our gracious King,

  Decreed that ere our generals were forgiven,

  Inquiry should be held about the thing.

  But mercy cloaked the babes beneath her wing;

  And as they spared our foes so spared we them.

  (Where was the pity of our sires for Byng?)

  Yet knaves, not idiots, should the law condemn.

  Then live ye, triumph gallants! and bless your judges’ phlegm.”

  197 — to R.C. Dallas

  Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811.

  I have returned from Lancashire, and ascertained that my property there may be made very valuable, but various circumstances very much circumscribe my exertions at present. I shall be in town on business in the beginning of November, and perhaps at Cambridge before the end of this month; but of my movements you shall be regularly apprised. Your objections I have in part done away by alterations, which I hope will suffice; and I have sent two or three additional stanzas for both “Fyttes.” I have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times; but “I have almost forgot the taste of grief,” and “supped full of horrors” till I have become callous, nor have I a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed down my head to the earth. It seems as though I were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age. My friends fall around me, and I shall be left a lonely tree before I am withered. Other men can always take refuge in their families; I have no resource but my own reflections, and they present no prospect here or hereafter, except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my betters. I am indeed very wretched, and you will excuse my saying so, as you know I am not apt to cant of sensibility.

  Instead of tiring yourself with my concerns, I should be glad to hear your plans of retirement. I suppose you would not like to be wholly shut out of society? Now I know a large village, or small town, about twelve miles off, where your family would have the advantage of very genteel society, without the hazard of being annoyed by mercantile affluence; where you would meet with men of information and independence; and where I have friends to whom I should be proud to introduce you. There are, besides, a coffee-room, assemblies, etc., etc., which bring people together. My mother had a house there some years, and I am well acquainted with the economy of Southwell, the name of this little commonwealth. Lastly, you will not be very remote from me; and though I am the very worst companion for young people in the world, this objection would not apply to you, whom I could see frequently. Your expenses, too, would be such as best suit your inclinations, more or less, as you thought proper; but very little would be requisite to enable you to enter into all the gaieties of a country life. You could be as quiet or bustling as you liked, and certainly as well situated as on the lakes of Cumberland, unless you have a particular wish to be picturesque.

  Pray, is your Ionian friend in town? You have promised me an introduction. You mention having consulted some friend on the MSS. Is not this contrary to our usual way? Instruct Mr. Murray not to allow his shopman to call the work Child of Harrow’s Pilgrimage!!!!! as he has done to some of my astonished friends, who wrote to inquire after my sanity on the occasion, as well they might. I have heard nothing of Murray, whom I scolded heartily. Must I write more notes? Are there not enough? Cawthorn must be kept back with the Hints. I hope he is getting on with Hobhouse’s quarto. Good evening.

  Yours ever, etc.

  Byron.

  “I have almost forgot the taste of fears:

  ...

  I have supp’d full with horrors.”

  Macbeth, act v. sc. 5.

  “Murray’s shopman, taught, I presume, by himself, calls Psyche ‘Pishy,’ The Four Slaves of Cythera ‘The Four do. of Cythera,’ and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage ‘Child of Harrow’s Pilgrimage.’ This misnomering Vendor of Books must have been misbegotten in some portentous union of the Malaprops and the Slipslops.”

  198 — To Francis Hodgson

  Newstead Abbey, Oct. 13, 1811.

  You will begin to deem me a most liberal correspondent; but as my letters are free, you will overlook their frequency. I have sent you answers in prose and verse to all your late communications; and though I am invading your ease again, I don’t know why, or what to put down that you are not acquainted with already. I am growing nervous (how you will laugh!) — but it is true, — really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically nervous. Your climate kills me; I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. My days are listless, and my nights restless; I have very seldom any society, and when I have, I run out of it. At “this present writing,” there are in the next room three ladies, and I have stolen away to write this grumbling letter. — I don’t know that I sha’n’t end with insanity, for I find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely; but this looks more like silliness than madness, as Scrope Davies would facetiously remark in his consoling manner. I must try the hartshorn of your company; and a session of Parliament would suit me well, — any thing to cure me of conjugating the accursed verb “ennuyer.”

  When shall you be at Cambridge? You have hinted, I think, that your friend Bland is returned from Holland. I have always had a great respect for his talents, and for all that I have heard of his character; but of me, I believe he knows nothing, except that he heard my sixth form repetitions ten months together at the average of two lines a morning, and those never perfect. I remembered him and his Slaves as I passed between Capes Matapan, St. Angelo, and his Isle of Ceriga, and I always bewailed the absence of the Anthology. I suppose he will now translate Vondel, the Dutch Shakspeare, and Gysbert van Amsteli will easily be accommodated to our stage in its present state; and I presume he saw the Dutch poem, where the love of Pyramus and Thisbe is compared to the passion of Christ; also the love of Lucifer for Eve, and other varieties of Low Country literature.

  No doubt you will think me crazed to talk of such things, but they are all in black and white and good repute on the banks of every canal from Amsterdam to Alkmaar.

  Yours ever,

  B.

  My poesy is in the hands of its various publishers; but the Hints from Horace (to which I have subjoined some savage lines on Methodism, and ferocious notes on the vanity of the triple Editory of the Edin. Annual Register), my Hints, I say, stand still, and why? — I have not a friend in the world (but you and Drury) who can construe Horace’s Latin or my English well enough to adjust them for the press, or to correct the proofs in a grammatical way. So that, unless you have bowels when you return to town (I am too far off to do it for myself), this ineffable work will be lost to the world for — I don’t know how many weeks.

  Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage must wait till Murray’s is finished. He is making a tour in Middlesex, and is to return soon, when high matter may be expected. He wants to have it in quarto, which is a cursed unsaleable size; but it is pestilent long, and one must obey one’s bookseller. I trust Murray will pass the Paddington Canal without being seduced by Payne and Mackinlay’s example, — I say Payne and Mackinlay, supposing that the partnership held good. Drury, the villain, has not written to me; “I am never (as Mrs. Lumpkin says to Tony) to be gratified with the monster’s dear wild notes.”

  So you are going (going indeed!) into orders. You must make your peac
e with the Eclectic Reviewers — they accuse you of impiety, I fear, with injustice. Demetrius, the “Sieger of Cities,” is here, with “Gilpin Horner.”

  The painter is not necessary, as the portraits he already painted are (by anticipation) very like the new animals. — Write, and send me your “Love Song” — but I want paulo majora from you. Make a dash before you are a deacon, and try a dry publisher.

  Yours always,

  B.

  “Now full in sight the Paphian gardens smile,

  And thence by many a green and summer isle,

  Whose ancient walls and temples seem to sleep,

  Enshadowed on the mirror of the deep,

  They coast along Cythera’s happy ground,

  Gem of the sea, for love’s delight renown’d.”

  “I’m never to be delighted with your agreeable wild notes, unfeeling monster!”

  199 — to R. C. Dallas

  Oct. 14, 1811.

  Dear Sir, — Stanza 9th, for Canto 2nd, somewhat altered, to avoid recurrence in a former stanza.

  IX

  There, thou! whose love and life together fled,

  Have left me here to love and live in vain: —

  Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead,

  When busy Memory flashes o’er my brain?

  Well — I will dream that we may meet again,

  And woo the vision to my vacant breast;

  If aught of young Remembrance then remain,

  Be as it may

  Whate’er beside Futurity’s behest;

  or

  Howe’er may be

  For me ‘twere bliss enough to see thy spirit blest!

  I think it proper to state to you, that this stanza alludes to an event which has taken place since my arrival here, and not to the death of any male friend.

  Byron.

  200 — to R. C. Dallas

  Newstead Abbey, Oct. 16, 1811.

  I am on the wing for Cambridge. Thence, after a short stay, to London. Will you be good enough to keep an account of all the MSS. you receive, for fear of omission? Have you adopted the three altered stanzas of the latest proof? I can do nothing more with them. I am glad you like the new ones. Of the last, and of the two, I sent for a new edition, to-day a fresh note. The lines of the second sheet I fear must stand; I will give you reasons when we meet. Believe me, yours ever,

  Byron

  201 — to R. C. Dallas

  Cambridge, Oct. 25, 1811.

  Dear Sir, I send you a conclusion to the whole. In a stanza towards the end of Canto I. in the line,

  Oh, known the earliest and beloved the most,

  I shall alter the epithet to “esteemed the most.” The present stanzas are for the end of Canto II. For the beginning of the week I shall be at No. 8, my old lodgings, in St. James’ Street, where I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you.

  Yours ever,

  B.

  202 — To Thomas Moore

  Cambridge, October 27, 1811.

  Sir, — Your letter followed me from Notts, to this place, which will account for the delay of my reply.

  Your former letter I never had the honour to receive; — be assured in whatever part of the world it had found me, I should have deemed it my duty to return and answer it in person.

  The advertisement you mention, I know nothing of. — At the time of your meeting with Mr. Jeffrey, I had recently entered College, and remember to have heard and read a number of squibs on the occasion; and from the recollection of these I derived all my knowledge on the subject, without the slightest idea of “giving the lie” to an address which I never beheld. When I put my name to the production, which has occasioned this correspondence, I became responsible to all whom it might concern, — to explain where it requires explanation, and, where insufficiently or too sufficiently explicit, at all events to satisfy. My situation leaves me no choice; it rests with the injured and the angry to obtain reparation in their own way.

  With regard to the passage in question, you were certainly not the person towards whom I felt personally hostile. On the contrary, my whole thoughts were engrossed by one, whom I had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could I foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion. You do not specify what you would wish to have done: I can neither retract nor apologise for a charge of falsehood which I never advanced.

  In the beginning of the week, I shall be at No. 8, St. James’s Street. — Neither the letter nor the friend to whom you stated your intention ever made their appearance.

  Your friend, Mr. Rogers, or any other gentleman delegated by you, will find me most ready to adopt any conciliatory proposition which shall not compromise my own honour, — or, failing in that, to make the atonement you deem it necessary to require.

  I have the honour to be, Sir,

  Your most obedient, humble servant,

  Byron.

  The review of Moore’s Odes, Epistles, and Other Poems (1806), which appeared in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1806, provoked Moore to challenge Jeffrey. Their duel with “leadless pistols” led, not only to Moore’s friendship with Jeffrey, but, indirectly, as is seen from the following letters, to Moore’s acquaintance with Byron. Moore himself contributed to the Edinburgh, between the years 1814 and 1834, essays on multifarious subjects, from poetry to German Rationalism, from the Fathers to French official life. In 1807 the first of the Irish Melodies was published; they continued to appear at irregular intervals till 1834, when 122 had been printed. A master of the art of versification, Moore sings, with graceful fancy, in a tone of mingled mirth and melancholy, his love of his country, of the wine of other countries, and the women of all countries. But, except in his patriotism, he shows little depth of feeling. The Melodies are the work of a brilliantly clever man, endowed with an exquisite musical ear, and a temperament that is rather susceptible than intense. With them may be classed his National Airs (1815) and Sacred Song (1816).

  Moore had already found one field in which he excelled; it was not long before he discovered another. His serious satires, Corruption (1808), Intolerance (1808), and The Sceptic (1809), failed. His nature was neither deep enough nor strong enough for success in such themes. In the ephemeral strife of party politics he found his real province. Nothing can be better of their kind than the metrical lampoons collected in Intercepted Letters, or the Twopenny Post-bag, by Thomas Brown the Younger (1813). In his hands the bow and arrows of Cupid become formidable weapons of party warfare; nor do their ornaments impede the movements of the archer. The shaft is gaily winged and brightly polished; the barb sharp and dipped in venom; and the missile hums music as it flies to its mark. Moore’s satire is the satire of the Clubs at its best; but it is scarcely the satire of literature. The Twopenny Post-bag was the parent of many similar productions, beginning with The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and ending with Fables for the Holy Alliance (1823), which he dedicated to Byron.

  As a serious poet, and the author of Lalla Rookh (1817), The Loves of the Angels (1823), and Alciphron (1839), Moore was perhaps overrated by his contemporaries. In spite of their brightness of fancy, metrical skill, and brilliant cleverness, they lack the greater elements of the highest poetry.

  Moore’s prose work begins, apart from his contributions to periodical literature, with the Memoirs of Captain Rock (1824), The Epicurean (1827), The Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion (1834), The History of Ireland (1846); and a succession of biographies — the life of Sheridan (1825), of Byron (1830), and Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1831) — complete the list. In the midst of his biographical work, Moore was advised by Lord Lansdowne to write nine lives at once, and print them together under the title of The Cat.

  In 1811 Moore married Miss Elizabeth Dyke (born 1793), an actress who fascinated him at the Kilkenny private theatricals in 1809. To the outer world, Mrs. Moore’s bird, as she called him, was a sprightly little songster, who lived in a whirl of
dinners, suppers, concerts, and theatricals. These, as well as his private anxieties and misfortunes, are recorded in the eight volumes of his Memoirs, Journals, and Correspondence, which were edited by Lord John Russell, in 1853. Moore was an excellent son, a good husband, an affectionate father, and to Byron a loyal friend, neither envious nor subservient. Clare, Hobhouse, and Moore were (Lady Blessington’s Conversations, 2nd edition, 1850, pp. 393, 394) the only persons whose friendship Byron never disclaimed. He spoke of Moore (ibid., pp. 322, 323) as

  “a delightful companion, gay without being boisterous, witty without effort, comic without coarseness, and sentimental without being lachrymose. He reminds one of the fairy who, whenever she spoke, let diamonds fall from her lips. My tête-à-tête suppers with Moore are among the most agreeable impressions I retain of the hours passed in London.”

  In July, 1806, in consequence of the article in the Edinburgh Review on his recent volume of Poems, Moore sent, through his friend Hume, a challenge to Jeffrey, who was seconded by Francis Horner, and a meeting was arranged. Moore, who had only once in his life discharged a firearm of any kind, and then nearly blew his thumb off, borrowed a case of pistols from William Spencer, and bought in Bond Street enough powder and bullets for a score of duels. The parties met at Chalk Farm; the seconds loaded the pistols, placed the men at their posts, and were about to give the signal to fire, when the police officers, rushing upon them from behind a hedge, knocked Jeffrey’s weapon from his hand, disarmed Moore, and conveyed the whole party to Bow Street. They were released on bail; but, on Moore returning to claim the borrowed pistols, the officer refused to give them up, because only Moore’s pistol was loaded with ball. Horner, however, gave evidence that he had seen both pistols loaded; and there, but for the reports circulated in the newspapers, the affair would have ended. But the joke was too good to be allowed to drop, and, in spite of Moore’s published letter, he was for months a target for the wits (Memoirs, Journals, and Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 199-208).

  In English Bards, etc., lines 466, 467, and his note, Byron made merry over “Little’s leadless pistol,” with the result that, when the second edition o£ the satire was published, with his name attached, Moore sent him the following letter: