by Lord Byron
Their purest fire the Muses lent,
T’ illustrate this sweet argument.”
But when he began to read them aloud, he could not, for laughing, get beyond the first two words. Two or three times he tried, but always broke down, till he was joined by Moore in a fit of laughter which at last infected Rogers himself. The three were, as Moore tells the story,
“in such a state of inextinguishable laughter, that, had the author himself been of the party, I question much whether he could have resisted the infection.”
A day or two afterwards, Byron sent Moore the lines given in Letter 295. On the same day he again returned to the subject, with the following additional lines, in which the last stanza of the same poem is the text:
“Then, thus, to form Apollo’s crown,
(Let ev’ry other bring his own,)
I lay my branch of laurel down.”
“To Lord Thurlow.
1
“‘I lay my branch of laurel down.’
“Thou ‘lay thy branch of laurel down!’
Why, what thou’st stole is not enow;
And, were it lawfully thine own,
Does Rogers want it most, or thou?
Keep to thyself thy wither’d bough,
Or send it back to Dr. Donne —
Were justice done to both, I trow,
He’d have but little, and thou — none.
2
“‘Then thus to form Apollo’s crown.’
“A crown! why, twist it how you will,
Thy chaplet must be foolscap still.
When next you visit Delphi’s town,
Inquire amongst your fellow-lodgers,
They’ll tell you Phœbus gave his crown,
Some years before your birth, to Rogers.
3
“‘Let every other bring his own.’
“When coals to Newcastle are carried,
And owls sent to Athens as wonders,
From his spouse when the Regent’s unmarried,
Or Liverpool weeps o’er his blunders;
When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel,
When Castlereagh’s wife has an heir,
Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel,
And thou shalt have plenty to spare.”
Edward Hovell (1781-1829) succeeded his uncle in 1806 as second Baron Thurlow. He published several volumes of poetry: Poems on Several Occasions (1812); Ariadne, a Poem (1814); Carmen Britannicum, or the Song of Britain: written in honour of the Prince Regent (1814); Moonlight, a Poem (1814); The Sonnets of Edward, Lord Thurlow (privately printed, 1821); Angelica, or the Rape of Proteus, a Poem (1822).
296 — to John Hanson
June 3d, 1813.
Dear Sir, — When you receive this I shall have left town for a week, and, as it is perfectly right we should understand each other, I think you will not be surprised at my persisting in my intention of going abroad. If the Suit can be carried on in my absence, — well; if not, it must be given up. One word, one letter, to Cn. would put an end to it; but this I shall not do, at all events without acquainting you before hand; nor at all, provided I am able to go abroad again. But at all hazards, at all losses, on this last point I am as determined as I have been for the last six months, and you have always told me that you would endeavour to assist me in that intention. Every thing is ordered and ready now. Do not trifle with me, for I am in very solid serious earnest, and if utter ruin were, or is before me, on the one hand — and wealth at home on the other, — I have made my choice, and go I will.
If you wish to write, address a line before Saturday to Salthill Post Office; Maidenhead, I believe, but am not sure, is the Post town; but I shall not be in town till Wednesday next.
Believe me, yours ever,
BN.
P. S. — Let all the books go to Mr. Murray’s immediately, and let the plate, linen, etc., which I find excepted by the contract, be sold, particularly a large silver vase — with the contents not removed as they are curious, and a silver cup (not the skull) be sold also — both are of value.
The Pictures also, and every moveable that is mine, and can be converted into cash; all I want is a few thousand pounds, and then adieu. You shan’t be troubled with me these ten years, if ever.
297 — to Francis Hodgson
June 6, 1813.
My Dear Hodgson, — I write to you a few lines on business. Murray has thought proper at his own risk, and peril, and profit (if there be any) to publish The Giaour; and it may possibly come under your ordeal in the Monthly I merely wish to state that in the published copies there are additions to the amount of ten pages, text and margin (chiefly the last), which render it a little less unfinished (but more unintelligible) than before. If, therefore, you review it, let it be from the published copies and not from the first sketch. I shall not sail for this month, and shall be in town again next week, when I shall be happy to hear from you but more glad to see you. You know I have no time or turn for correspondence(!). But you also know, I hope, that I am not the less
Yours ever,
298 — to Francis Hodgson
June 8th, 1813.
My dear Hodgson, — In town for a night I find your card. I had written to you at Cambridge merely to say that Murray has thought it expedient to publish The Giaour at his own risk (and reimbursement, if he can), and that, as it will probably be in your department in the Monthly, I wished to state that, in the published copies, there are additions to the tune of 300 lines or so towards the end, and, if reviewed, it should not be from the privately printed copy. So much for scribbling.
I shall manage to see you somewhere before I sail, which will be next month; till then I am yours here, and afterwards any where and every where,
Dear H., tutto tuo, BN.
299 — to John Murray
Je. 9, 1813.
Dear Sir, — I regret much that I have no profane garment to array you with for the masquerade. As my motions will be uncertain, you need not write nor send the proofs till my return.
Yours truly,
BN.
P. S. — My wardrobe is out of town — or I could have dressed you as an Albanian — or a Turk — or an officer — or a Waggoner.
300 — to John Murray
June 12, 1813.
Dear Sir, — Having occasion to send a servant to London, I will thank you to inform me whether I left with the other things 3 miniatures in your care ( — if not — I know where to find them), and also to “report progress” in unpacking the books? The bearer returns this evening.
How does Hobhouse’s work go on, or rather off — for that is the essential part? In yesterday’s paper, immediately under an advertisement on “Strictures in the Urethra,” I see — most appropriately consequent — a poem with “strictures on Ld B., Mr. Southey and others,” though I am afraid neither “Mr. S.’s” poetical distemper, nor “mine,” nor “others,” is of the suppressive or stranguary kind. You may read me the prescription of this kill or cure physician. The medicine is compounded at White and Cochrane’s, Fleet Street. As I have nothing else to do, I may enjoy it like Sir Fretful, or the Archbishop of Grenada, or any other personage in like predicament.
Recollect that my lacquey returns in the Evening, and that I set out for Portsmouth to-morrow. All here are very well, and much pleased with your politeness and attention during their stay in town.
Believe me, yours truly,
B.
P. S. — Are there anything but books? If so, let those extras remain untouched for the present. I trust you have not stumbled on any more “Aphrodites,” and have burnt those. I send you both the advertisements, but don’t send me the first treatise — as I have no occasion for Caustic in that quarter.
Practical Observations on the best mode of curing Strictures, etc., with Remarks on Inefficacy, etc., of Caustic Applications. By William Wadd. Printed for J. Callow, Soho.
Modern Poets; a Dialog
ue in Verse, containing some Strictures on the Poetry of Lord Byron, Mr. Southey, and Others. Printed for White, Cochrane, and Co., Fleet Street.
In a note on Modern Poets (p. 7) occurs the following passage:
“In English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers the same respectable corps of critics is successively exhibited, in the course of only ten lines, under the following significant but somewhat incongruous forms, viz. (1) Northern Wolves, (2) Harpies, (3) Bloodhounds.”
In proof the writer quotes lines 426-437 of the Satire. Then follows a long review of Childe Harold, in which the critic condemns Harold, the hero, as “an uncouth incumbrance of this flighty Lord;” the want of “plot … action and fable, interest, order, end;” and asks:
“Shall he immortal bays aspire to wear
Who immortality from man would tear,
Repress the sigh which hopes a happier home,
And chase the visions of a life to come?”
301 — to John Murray
[Maidenhead], June 13, 1813.
Dear Sir, — Amongst the books from Bennet St. is a small vol. of abominable poems by the Earl of Haddington which must not be in ye Catalogue on Sale — also — a vol. of French Epigrams in the same predicament.
On the title page of Meletius is an inscription in writing which must be erased and made illegible.
I have read the strictures, which are just enough, and not grossly abusive, in very fair couplets. There is a note against Massinger near the end, but one cannot quarrel with one’s company, at any rate. The author detects some incongruous figures in a passage of E. Bds., page 23., but which edition I do not know. In the sole copy in your possession — I mean the fifth edition — you may make these alterations, that I may profit (though a little too late) by his remarks: — For “hellish instinct,” substitute “brutal instinct;” “harpies” alter to “felons;” and for “blood-hounds” write “hell-hounds.” These be “very bitter words, by my troth,” and the alterations not much sweeter; but as I shall not publish the thing, they can do no harm, but are a satisfaction to me in the way of amendment. The passage is only 12 lines.
You do not answer me about H.’s book; I want to write to him, and not to say anything unpleasing. If you direct to Post Office, Portsmouth, till called for, I will send and receive your letter. You never told me of the forthcoming critique on Columbus which is not too fair; and I do not think justice quite done to the Pleasures, which surely entitles the author to a higher rank than that assigned to him in the Quarterly. But I must not cavil at the decisions of the invisible infallibles; and the article is very well written. The general horror of “fragments” makes me tremulous for “The Giaour;” but you would publish it — I presume, by this time, to your repentance. But as I consented, whatever be its fate, I won’t now quarrel with you, even though I detect it in my pastry; but I shall not open a pye without apprehension for some weeks.
The Books which may be marked G.O. I will carry out. Do you know Clarke’s Naufragia? I am told that he asserts the first volume of Robinson Crusoe was written by the first Lord Oxford, when in the Tower, and given by him to Defoe; if true, it is a curious anecdote. Have you got back Lord Brooke’s MS.? and what does Heber say of it? Write to me at Portsmouth.
Ever yours, etc.,
Bn.
“But before I conclude this Section, I wish to make the admirers of this Nautical Romance mindful of a Report, which prevailed many years ago; that Defoe, after all, was not the real author of Robinson Crusoe. This assertion is noticed in an article in the seventh volume of the Edinburgh Magazine [vol. vii. p. 269]. Dr. Towers, in his Life of Defoe in the Biographia, is inclined to pay no attention to it; but was that writer aware of the following letter, which also appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1788? (vol. lviii. part i. p. 208). At least no notice is taken of it in his Life of Defoe:
‘Dublin, February 25.
Mr. Urban, — In the course of a late conversation with a nobleman of the first consequence and information in this kingdom, he assured me, that Mr. Benjamin Holloway, of Middleton Stony, assured him, some time ago: that he knew for fact, that the celebrated Romance of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ was really written by the Earl of Oxford, when confined in the Tower of London: that his Lordship gave the manuscript to Daniel Defoe, who frequently visited him during his confinement: and that Defoe, having afterwards added the second volume, published the whole as his own production. This anecdote I would not venture to send to your valuable magazine, if I did not think my information good, and imagine it might be acceptable to your numerous readers, not-withstanding the work has heretofore been generally attributed to the latter. W. W.’“
It is impossible for me to enter on a discussion of this literary subject; though I thought the circumstance ought to be more generally known. And yet I must observe, that I always discerned a very striking falling off between the composition of the first and second volumes of this Romance — they seem to bear evident marks of having been the work of different writers.”
A volume of memoranda in the handwriting of Warton, the Laureate, preserved in the British Museum, contains the following:
“Mem. Jul. 10, 1774. In the year 1759, I was told by the Rev. Mr. Benjamin Holloway, rector of Middleton Stony, in Oxfordshire, then about 70 years old, and in the early part of his life domestic Chaplain to Lord Sunderland, that he had often heard Lord Sunderland say that Lord Oxford, while a prisoner in the Tower of London, wrote the first volume of the History of Robinson Crusoe, merely as an amusement under confinement; and gave it to Daniel De Foe, who frequently visited Lord Oxford in the Tower, and was one of his Pamphlet writers. That De Foe, by Lord Oxford’s permission, printed it as his own, and, encouraged by its extraordinary success, added himself the second volume, the inferiority of which is generally acknowledged. Mr. Holloway also told me, from Lord Sunderland, that Lord Oxford dictated some parts of the manuscript to De Foe. Mr. Holloway was a grave conscientious clergyman, not vain of telling anecdotes, very learned, particularly a good orientalist, author of some theological tracts, bred at Eton School, and a Master of Arts at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He lived many years with great respect in Lord Sunderland’s family, and was like to the late Duke of Marlborough. He died, as I remember, about the year “1761.”
138 — To his Mother
Constantinople, May 18, 1810.
Dear Madam, — I arrived here in an English frigate from Smyrna a few days ago, without any events worth mentioning, except landing to view the plains of Troy, and afterwards, when we were at anchor in the Dardanelles, swimming from Sestos to Abydos, in imitation of Monsieur Leander, whose story you, no doubt, know too well for me to add anything on the subject except that I crossed the Hellespont without so good a motive for the undertaking. As I am just going to visit the Captain-Pacha, you will excuse the brevity of my letter. When Mr. Adair takes leave I am to see the Sultan and the mosques, etc.
Believe me, yours ever,
Byron.
302 — to John Murray
June 18, 1813.
Dear Sir, — Will you forward the enclosed answer to the kindest letter I ever received in my life, my sense of which I can neither express to Mr. Gifford himself nor to any one else?
Ever yours,
B’N.
303 — to W. Gifford
June 18, 1813.
My Dear Sir, — I feel greatly at a loss how to write to you at all — still more to thank you as I ought. If you knew the veneration with which I have ever regarded you, long before I had the most distant prospect of becoming your acquaintance, literary or personal, my embarrassment would not surprise you.
Any suggestion of yours, even were it conveyed in the less tender shape of the text of the Baviad, or a Monk Mason note in Massinger, would have been obeyed; I should have endeavoured to improve myself by your censure: judge then if I shall be less willing to profit by your kindness. It is not for me to bandy compliments with my elders and my betters: I re
ceive your approbation with gratitude, and will not return my brass for your Gold by expressing more fully those sentiments of admiration, which, however sincere, would, I know, be unwelcome.
To your advice on Religious topics, I shall equally attend. Perhaps the best way will be by avoiding them altogether. The already published objectionable passages have been much commented upon, but certainly have been rather strongly interpreted. I am no Bigot to Infidelity, and did not expect that, because I doubted the immortality of Man, I should be charged with denying the existence of a God. It was the comparative insignificance of ourselves and our world, when placed in competition with the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first led me to imagine that our pretensions to eternity might be over-rated.
This, and being early disgusted with a Calvinistic Scotch school, where I was cudgelled to Church for the first ten years of my life, afflicted me with this malady; for, after all, it is, I believe, a disease of the mind as much as other kinds of hypochondria.
I regret to hear you talk of ill-health. May you long exist! not only to enjoy your own fame, but outlive that of fifty such ephemeral adventurers as myself.
As I do not sail quite so soon as Murray may have led you to expect (not till July) I trust I have some chance of taking you by the hand before my departure, and repeating in person how sincerely and affectionately I am
Your obliged servant,
Byron.
304 — to John Murray
June 22, 1813.
Dear Sir, — I send you a corrected copy of the lines with several important alterations, — so many that this had better be sent for proof rather than subject the other to so many blots.
You will excuse the eternal trouble I inflict upon you. As you will see, I have attended to your Criticism, and softened a passage you proscribed this morning.
Yours veritably, B.
305 — to Thomas Moore
June 22, 1813.
Yesterday I dined in company with Stael, the “Epicene,” whose politics are sadly changed. She is for the Lord of Israel and the Lord of Liverpool — a vile antithesis of a Methodist and a Tory — talks of nothing but devotion and the ministry, and, I presume, expects that God and the government will help her to a pension.