by Lord Byron
The poem was occasioned, as Scott’s note states, by the death of “a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition,” who was killed on the mountain in 1805.
245 — to John Murray
Cheltenham, Sept. 14, 1812.
Dear Sir, — The parcels contained some letters and verses, all (but one) anonymous and complimentary, and very anxious for my conversion from certain infidelities into which my good-natured correspondents conceive me to have fallen. The books were presents of a convertible kind also, — Christian Knowledge and the Bioscope, a religious Dial of Life explained: — to the author of the former (Cadell, publisher,) I beg you will forward my best thanks for his letter, his present, and, above all, his good intentions. The Bioscope contained an MS. copy of very excellent verses, from whom I know not, but evidently the composition of some one in the habit of writing, and of writing well. I do not know if he be the author of the Bioscope which accompanied them; but whoever he is, if you can discover him, thank him from me most heartily. The other letters were from ladies, who are welcome to convert me when they please; and if I can discover them, and they be young, as they say they are, I could convince them perhaps of my devotion. I had also a letter from Mr. Walpole on matters of this world, which I have answered.
So you are Lucien’s publisher! I am promised an interview with him, and think I shall ask you for a letter of introduction, as “the gods have made him poetical.” From whom could it come with a better grace than from his publisher and mine? Is it not somewhat treasonable in you to have to do with a relative of the “direful foe,” as the Morning Post calls his brother?
But my book on Diet and Regimen, where is it? I thirst for Scott’s Rokeby; let me have y’e first-begotten copy. The Anti-Jacobin Review is all very well, and not a bit worse than the Quarterly, and at least less harmless. By the by, have you secured my books? I want all the Reviews, at least the Critiques, quarterly, monthly, etc., Portuguese and English, extracted, and bound up in one volume for my old age; and pray, sort my Romaic books, and get the volumes lent to Mr. Hobhouse — he has had them now a long time. If any thing occurs, you will favour me with a line, and in winter we shall be nearer neighbours.
Yours very truly,
Byron.
P. S. — I was applied to to write the Address for Drury Lane, but the moment I heard of the contest, I gave up the idea of contending against all Grub Street, and threw a few thoughts on the subject into the fire. I did this out of respect to you, being sure you would have turned off any of your authors who had entered the lists with such scurvy competitors; to triumph would have been no glory, and to have been defeated — ’sdeath! — I would have choked myself, like Otway, with a quartern loaf; so, remember I had, and have, nothing to do with it, upon my Honour!
246 — to Lord Holland
September 22, 1812.
My Dear Lord, — In a day or two I will send you something which you will still have the liberty to reject if you dislike it. I should like to have had more time, but will do my best, — but too happy if I can oblige you, though I may offend a hundred scribblers and the discerning public.
Ever yours.
Keep my name a secret; or I shall be beset by all the rejected, and, perhaps, damned by a party.
247 — to Lord Holland
Cheltenham, September 23, 1812.
Ecco! — I have marked some passages with double readings — choose between them — cut — add — reject — or destroy — do with them as you will — I leave it to you and the Committee — you cannot say so called “a non committendo.” What will they do (and I do) with the hundred and one rejected Troubadours?
“With trumpets, yea, and with shawms,” will you be assailed in the most diabolical doggerel. I wish my name not to transpire till the day is decided. I shall not be in town, so it won’t much matter; but let us have a good deliverer. I think Elliston should be the man, or Pope; not Raymond, I implore you, by the love of Rhythmus!
The passages marked thus = =, above and below, are for you to choose between epithets, and such like poetical furniture. Pray write me a line, and believe me
Ever, etc.
My best remembrances to Lady H. Will you be good enough to decide between the various readings marked, and erase the other; or our deliverer may be as puzzled as a commentator, and belike repeat both. If these versicles won’t do, I will hammer out some more endecasyllables.
P.S. — Tell Lady H. I have had sad work to keep out the Phœnix — I mean the Fire Office of that name. It has insured the theatre, and why not the Address?
The youngest competitor was “Anna, a young lady in the fifteenth year of her age.”
The actual number sent in was 112, and sixty-nine of the competitors invoked the Phœnix. Among the competitors were Peter Pindar, whose Address was printed in 1813; Whitbread, the manager, who gave the “poulterer’s description” of the Phœnix; and Horace Smith, who published his Address without a Phœnix, By S. T. P., in Rejected Addresses.
248 — to Lord Holland
September 24.
I send a recast of the four first lines of the concluding paragraph.
This greeting o’er, the ancient rule obey’d,
The drama’s homage by her Herald paid,
Receive our welcome too, whose every tone
Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own.
The curtain rises, etc., etc.
And do forgive all this trouble. See what it is to have to do even with the genteelest of us.
Ever, etc.
249 — to Lord Holland
Cheltenham, Sept. 25, 1812.
Still “more matter for a May morning.” Having patched the middle and end of the Address, I send one more couplet for a part of the beginning, which, if not too turgid, you will have the goodness to add. After that flagrant image of the Thames (I hope no unlucky wag will say I have set it on fire, though Dryden, in his Annus Mirabilis, and Churchill, in his Times, did it before me), I mean to insert this:
As flashing far the new Volcano shone
And swept the skies with {lightnings}/{meteors} not their own,
While thousands throng’d around the burning dome,
Etc., etc.
I think “thousands” less flat than “crowds collected” — but don’t let me plunge into the bathos, or rise into Nat. Lee’s Bedlam metaphors.
By the by, the best view of the said fire (which I myself saw from a house-top in Covent-garden) was at Westminster Bridge, from the reflection on the Thames.
Perhaps the present couplet had better come in after “trembled for their homes,” the two lines after; — as otherwise the image certainly sinks, and it will run just as well.
The lines themselves, perhaps, may be better thus — (“choose,” or “refuse” — but please yourself, and don’t mind “Sir Fretful”):
As flash’d the volumed blaze, and {sadly}/{ghastly} shone
The skies with lightnings awful as their own.
The last runs smoothest, and, I think, best; but you know better than best. “Lurid” is also a less indistinct epithet than “livid wave,” and, if you think so, a dash of the pen will do.
I expected one line this morning; in the mean time, I shall remodel and condense, and, if I do not hear from you, shall send another copy.
I am ever, etc.
“A key of fire ran all along the shore,
And lightened all the river with a blaze;
The wakened tides began again to roar,
And wondering fish in shining waters gaze.”
“Bidding in one grand pile this Town expire,
Her towers in dust, her Thames a Lake of fire.”
“When Greek join’d Greek then was the tug of war.”
He collaborated with Dryden in Œdipus (1679) and The Duke of Guise (1682). His numerous dramas were distinguished, in his own day, for extravagance and bombast. His mind failing, he was confined fro
m 1684 to 1688 in Bethlehem Hospital, where he is said to have composed a tragedy in 25 acts.
“He is as envious as an old maid verging on the desperation of six and thirty; and then the insidious humility with which he seduces you to give a free opinion on any of his works can be exceeded only by the petulant arrogance with which he is sure to reject your observations.”
250 — to Lord Holland
September 26, 1812.
You will think there is no end to my villanous emendations. The fifth and sixth lines I think to alter thus:
Ye who beheld — oh sight admired and mourn’d,
Whose radiance mock’d the ruin it adorn’d;
because “night” is repeated the next line but one; and, as it now stands, the conclusion of the paragraph, “worthy him (Shakspeare) and you,” appears to apply the “you” to those only who were out of bed and in Covent Garden market on the night of conflagration, instead of the audience or the discerning public at large, all of whom are intended to be comprised in that comprehensive and, I hope, comprehensible pronoun.
By the by, one of my corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom:
When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write.
Ceasing to live is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first; therefore I will let the old couplet stand, with its half rhymes “sought” and “wrote.”
Second thoughts in every thing are best, but, in rhyme, third and fourth don’t come amiss. I am very anxious on this business, and I do hope that the very trouble I occasion you will plead its own excuse, and that it will tend to show my endeavour to make the most of the time allotted. I wish I had known it months ago, for in that case I had not left one line standing on another. I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as much as I can, but never sufficiently; and, latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning. When I began Childe Harold, I had never tried Spenser’s measure, and now I cannot scribble in any other.
After all, my dear Lord, if you can get a decent Address elsewhere, don’t hesitate to put this aside.
Why did you not trust your own Muse? I am very sure she would have been triumphant, and saved the Committee their trouble — ”‘tis a joyful one” to me, but I fear I shall not satisfy even myself. After the account you sent me, ‘tis no compliment to say you would have beaten your candidates; but I mean that, in that case, there would have been no occasion for their being beaten at all.
There are but two decent prologues in our tongue — Pope’s to Cato — Johnson’s to Drury-Lane.
These, with the epilogue to The Distrest Mother and, I think, one of Goldsmith’s, and a prologue of old Colman’s to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Philaster, are the best things of the kind we have.
P.S. — I am diluted to the throat with medicine for the stone; and Boisragon wants me to try a warm climate for the winter — but I won’t.
“Such are the names that here your plaudits sought,
When Garrick acted, and when Brinsley wrote.”
At present the couplet stands thus:
“Dear are the days that made our annals bright,
Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to write.”
“I am almost ashamed,” writes Lord Holland to Rogers, October 22, 1812 (Clayden’s Rogers and his Contemporaries, vol. i. p. 115), “of having induced Lord Byron to write on so ungrateful a theme (ungrateful in all senses) as the opening of a theatre; he was so good-humoured, took so much pains, corrected so good-humouredly, and produced, as I thought and think, a prologue so superior to the common run of that sort of trumpery, that it is quite vexatious to see him attacked for it. Some part of it is a little too much laboured, and the whole too long; but surely it is good and poetical…. You cannot imagine how I grew to like Lord Byron in my critical intercourse with him, and how much I am convinced that your friendship and judgment have contributed to improve both his understanding and his happiness.”
251 — to Lord Holland
Sept. 27, 1812.
I believe this is the third scrawl since yesterday — all about epithets. I think the epithet “intellectual” won’t convey the meaning I intend; and though I hate compounds, for the present I will try (col’ permesso) the word “genius gifted patriots of our line” instead. Johnson has “many coloured life,” a compound — — but they are always best avoided. However, it is the only one in ninety lines, but will be happy to give way to a better. I am ashamed to intrude any more remembrances on Lady H. or letters upon you; but you are, fortunately for me, gifted with patience already too often tried by
Your etc., etc.,
Byron.
“Immortal names emblazon’d on our line.”
252 — to Lord Holland
September 27, 1812.
I have just received your very kind letter, and hope you have met with a second copy corrected and addressed to Holland House, with some omissions and this new couplet,
As glared each rising flash, and ghastly shone
The skies with lightnings awful as their own.
As to remarks, I can only say I will alter and acquiesce in any thing. With regard to the part which Whitbread wishes to omit, I believe the Address will go off quicker without it, though, like the agility of the Hottentot, at the expense of its vigour. I leave to your choice entirely the different specimens of stucco-work; and a brick of your own will also much improve my Babylonish turret. I should like Elliston to have it, with your leave. “Adorn” and “mourn” are lawful rhymes in Pope’s Death of the Unfortunate Lady. — Gray has “forlorn” and “mourn” — and “torn” and “mourn” are in Smollett’s famous Tears of Scotland.
As there will probably be an outcry amongst the rejected, I hope the Committee will testify (if it be needful) that I sent in nothing to the congress whatever, with or without a name, as your Lordship well knows. All I have to do with it is with and through you; and though I, of course, wish to satisfy the audience, I do assure you my first object is to comply with your request, and in so doing to show the sense I have of the many obligations you have conferred upon me.
Yours ever,
B.
“As glared the volumed blaze.”
“Mr. Whitbread was a more steady character; his appearance was heavy; he was fond of agriculture, and was very plain and simple in his tastes. Both were reckoned good debaters in the House, but Grey was the most eloquent.”
An independent Whig, and an advocate for peace with France, Whitbread supported Fox against Pitt throughout the Napoleonic War, strongly opposed its renewal after the return of the emperor from Elba, and interested himself in such measures as moderate Parliamentary reform, the amendment of the poor law, national education, and retrenchment of public expenditure. On April 8, 1805, he moved the resolutions which ended in the impeachment of Lord Melville, and took the lead in the inquiries, which were made, March, 1809, into the conduct of the Duke of York. He was a plain, business-like speaker, and a man of such unimpeachable integrity that Mr., afterwards Lord, Plunket, in a speech on the Roman Catholic claims, February 28, 1821, called him “the incorruptible sentinel of the constitution.”
When he moved the articles of impeachment against Lord Melville, Canning scribbled the following impromptu parody of his speech (Anecdotal History of the British Parliament, p. 222):
“I’m like Archimedes for science and skill;
I’m like a young prince going straight up a hill;
I’m like — (with respect to the fair be it said) —
I’m like a young lady just bringing to bed.
If you ask why the 11th of June I remember
Much better than April, or May, or November,
On that day, my lords, with truth I assure ye,
My sainted progenitor set up his brewery;
On that day, in the morn, he began brewing beer;
On that day, too, commenced his c
onnubial career;]
On that day he received and he issued his bills;
On that day he cleared out all the cash from his tills;
On that day he died, having finished his summing,
And the angels all cried, ‘Here’s old Whitbread a-coming!’
So that day still I hail with a smile and a sigh,
For his beer with an E, and his bier with an I;
And still on that day, in the hottest of weather,
The whole Whitbread family dine all together. —
So long as the beams of this house shall support
The roof which o’ershades this respectable Court,
Where Hastings was tried for oppressing the Hindoos;
So long as that sun shall shine in at those windows,
My name shall shine bright as my ancestor’s shines,
Mine recorded in journals, his blazoned on signs!”
An active member of Parliament, a large landed proprietor, the manager of his immense brewery in Chiswell Street, Whitbread also found time to reduce to order the chaotic concerns of Drury Lane Theatre. He was, with Lord Holland and Harvey Combe, responsible for the request to Byron to write an address, having first rejected his own address with its “poulterer’s description of the Phœnix.” He was fond of private theatricals, and Dibdin (Reminiscences, vol. ii. pp. 383, 384) gives the play-bill of an entertainment given by him at Southill. In the first play, The Happy Return, he took the part of “Margery;” and in the second, Fatal Duplicity, that of “Eglantine,” a very young lady, loved by “Sir Buntybart” and “Sir Brandywine.” In his capacity as manager of Drury Lane, Whitbread is represented by the author of Accepted Addresses (1813) as addressing “the M — s of H — d” —
“My Lord, —
“As I now have the honour to be
By Man’ging a Playhouse a double M.P.,
In this my address I think fit to complain
Of certain encroachments on great Drury Lane,” etc., etc.
Whitbread strongly supported the cause of the Princess of Wales. Miss Berry (Journal, vol. iii. p. 25) says that he dictated the letters which the Princess wrote to the Queen, who had desired that she should not attend the two drawing-rooms to be held in June, 1814. “They were good,” she adds, “but too long, and sometimes marked by Whitbread’s want of taste.”