Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series
Page 284
July 22nd, 1813.
Dear Sir, — I have great pleasure in accepting your invitation to meet anybody or nobody as you like best.
Pray what should you suppose the book in the inclosed advertisement to be? is it anything relating to Buonaparte or Continental Concerns? If so, it may be worth looking after, particularly if it should turn out to be your purchase — Lucien’s Epic.
Believe me, very truly yours,
Byron.
314 — to Thomas Moore
July 25, 1813.
I am not well versed enough in the ways of single woman to make much matrimonial progress.
I have been dining like the dragon of Wantley for this last week. My head aches with the vintage of various cellars, and my brains are muddled as their dregs. I met your friends the Daltons: — she sang one of your best songs so well, that, but for the appearance of affectation, I could have cried; he reminds me of Hunt, but handsomer, and more musical in soul, perhaps. I wish to God he may conquer his horrible anomalous complaint. The upper part of her face is beautiful, and she seems much attached to her husband. He is right, nevertheless, in leaving this nauseous town. The first winter would infallibly destroy her complexion, — and the second, very probably, every thing else.
I must tell you a story. Morris (of indifferent memory) was dining out the other day, and complaining of the Prince’s coldness to his old wassailers. D’Israeli (a learned Jew) bored him with questions — why this? and why that? “Why did the Prince act thus?” — ”Why, sir, on account of Lord — — , who ought to be ashamed of himself.” — ”And why ought Lord — — to be ashamed of himself?” — ”Because the Prince, sir, — — ” — ”And why, sir, did the Prince cut you?” — ”Because, G — d d — mme, sir, I stuck to my principles.” — ”And why did you stick to your principles?”
Is not this last question the best that was ever put, when you consider to whom? It nearly killed Morris. Perhaps you may think it stupid, but, as Goldsmith said about the peas, it was a very good joke when I heard it — as I did from an ear-witness — and is only spoilt in my narration.
The season has closed with a dandy ball; — but I have dinners with the Harrowbys, Rogers, and Frere and Mackintosh, where I shall drink your health in a silent bumper, and regret your absence till “too much canaries” wash away my memory, or render it superfluous by a vision of you at the opposite side of the table. Canning has disbanded his party by a speech from his [ — — ] — the true throne of a Tory.
Conceive his turning them off in a formal harangue, and bidding them think for themselves. “I have led my ragamuffins where they are well peppered. There are but three of the 150 left alive,” and they are for the Townsend (query, might not Falstaff mean the Bow Street officer? I dare say Malone’s posthumous edition will have it so) for life.
Since I wrote last, I have been into the country. I journeyed by night — no incident, or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in crossing Epping Forest, actually, I believe, flung down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second figure of number XIX — mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. I can only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols wherewith I had armed him; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out to me whenever we passed any thing — no matter whether moving or stationary. Conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong. I have scribbled you a fearfully long letter. This sheet must be blank, and is merely a wrapper, to preclude the tabellarians of the post from peeping. You once complained of my not writing; — I will “heap coals of fire upon your head” by not complaining of your not reading. Ever, my dear Moore, your’n (isn’t that the Staffordshire termination?),
Byron.
“Have you not heard of the Trojan Horse;
With Seventy Men in his Belly?
This Dragon was not quite so big,
But very near, I’ll tell you;
Devoured he poor Children three,
That could not with him grapple;
And at one sup he eat them up,
As one would eat an Apple.
“All sorts of Cattle this Dragon did eat,
Some say he eat up Trees,
And that the Forest sure he would
Devour by degrees.
For Houses and Churches were to him Geese and Turkies;
He eat all, and left none behind,
But some Stones, dear Jack, which he could not crack,
Which on the Hills you’ll find.”
Morris, who was an admirable song-writer and singer, attached himself politically to the Prince’s party, and attacked Pitt in such popular ballads as “Billy’s too young to drive us,” and “Billy Pitt and the Farmer.” He was, however, disappointed in his hope of reward from his political patrons, and vented his spleen in his ode, “The Old Whig Poet to his Old Buff Waistcoat”
“Farewell, thou poor rag of the Muse!
In the bag of the clothesman go lie;
A farthing thou’lt fetch from the Jews,
Which the hard-hearted Christians deny,” etc.
Some of his poems deserve the censure of The Shade of Pope (line 225):
“There reeling Morris and his bestial songs.”
But others, in their ease and vivacity, hold their own with all but the best of Moore’s songs. A collection of them was printed in two volumes by Bentley, in 1840, under the title of Lyra Urbanica.
“a handful of grey pease, given him by a girl at a wake (after fasting for twenty-four hours) the most comfortable repast he had ever made.”
Byron may mean that any joke seems good to a man who had not heard one for a day.
“I liked the Dandies,” says Byron, in his Detached Thoughts; “they were always very civil to me, though in general they disliked literary people, and persecuted and mystified Madme. de Staël, Lewis, Horace Twiss, and the like, damnably. They persuaded Madme. de Staël that Alvanley had a hundred thousand a year, etc., etc., till she praised him to his face for his beauty! and made a set at him for Albertine (Libertine, as Brummell baptized her, though the poor girl was, and is, as correct as maid or wife can be, and very amiable withal), and a hundred other fooleries besides. The truth is, that, though I gave up the business early, I had a tinge of Dandyism in my minority, and probably retained enough of it to conciliate the great ones at four and twenty. I had gamed and drunk and taken my degrees in most dissipations, and, having no pedantry, and not being overbearing, we ran quietly together. I knew them all more or less, and they made me a member of Watier’s (a superb club at that time), being, I take it, the only literary man (except two others, both men of the world, M[oore] and S[pencer] in it. Our Masquerade was a grand one; so was the Dandy Ball too — at the Argyle, — but that (the latter) was given by the four chiefs — B[rummel?], M[idmay?], A[lvanley?], and P[ierreoint?], if I err not.”
His great intellectual powers were shown to most advantage in society. Rogers (Table-Talk, pp. 197, 198) thought him one of the three acutest men he had ever known.
“He had a prodigious memory, and could repeat by heart more of Cicero than you could easily believe…. I never met a man with a fuller mind than Mackintosh, — such readiness on all subjects, such a talker.”
“Till subdued by age and illness,” wrote Sydney Smith (Life of Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 500), “his conversation was more brilliant and instructive than that of any human being I ever had the good fortune to be acquainted with.”
As in political life, so in society, he was too much of the lecturer. Ticknor (Life, vol. i. p. 265) thought him “a little too precise, a little too much made up in his manners and conversation.” But on all sides there is evidence to confirm the testimony of Rogers (Table-Talk, p. 207) that he was a man “who had not a particle of envy or jealousy in his nature.”
The Morning Chronicle for July 29, 1813, has the following paragraph:
“Mr. Canning it seems has (to use a French phrase) reformed his politic
al corps. He assembled them at the close of the Session, and with many expressions of regret for the failure of certain negociations, which might have been favourable to them as a body, relieved them from their oaths of allegiance, and recommended them to pursue in future their objects separately. The Right Honourable gentleman, perhaps, finds it more convenient for himself to act unencumbered; and both he and one or two others may find their interest in disbanding the squad; but some of them are turned off without a character.”
The Courier for July 29, quoting the first part of the statement, adds,
“We believe … that Mr. Canning is not indisposed to join the present Cabinet, and may wish one or two of his particular friends to come in with him.”
“I have led my ragamuffins where they are pepper’d: there’s but three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town’s end, to beg during life.”
(Henry IV., Part I. act v. sc. 3).
Townshend, the Bow Street officer, is described by Cronow (Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 286) as
“a little fat man with a flaxen wig, Kersey-mere breeches, a blue straight-cut coat, and a broad-brimmed white hat. To the most daring courage he added great dexterity and cunning; and was said, in propria persona, to have taken more thieves than all the other Bow Street officers put together.”
315 — to Thomas Moore
July 27, 1813.
When you next imitate the style of “Tacitus,” pray add, de moribus Germannorum; — this last was a piece of barbarous silence, and could only be taken from the Woods, and, as such, I attribute it entirely to your sylvan sequestration at Mayfield Cottage. You will find, on casting up accounts, that you are my debtor by several sheets and one epistle. I shall bring my action; — if you don’t discharge, expect to hear from my attorney. I have forwarded your letter to Ruggiero; but don’t make a postman of me again, for fear I should be tempted to violate your sanctity of wax or wafer.
Believe me, ever yours indignantly,
BN.
316 — to Thomas Moore
July 28, 1813.
Can’t you be satisfied with the pangs of my jealousy of Rogers, without actually making me the pander of your epistolary intrigue? This is the second letter you have enclosed to my address, notwithstanding a miraculous long answer, and a subsequent short one or two of your own. If you do so again, I can’t tell to what pitch my fury may soar. I shall send you verse or arsenic, as likely as any thing, — four thousand couplets on sheets beyond the privilege of franking; that privilege, sir, of which you take an undue advantage over a too susceptible senator, by forwarding your lucubrations to every one but himself. I won’t frank from you, or for you, or to you — may I be curst if I do, unless you mend your manners. I disown you — I disclaim you — and by all the powers of Eulogy, I will write a panegyric upon you — or dedicate a quarto — if you don’t make me ample amends.
P. S. — I am in training to dine with Sheridan and Rogers this evening. I have a little spite against R., and will shed his “Clary wines pottle-deep.” This is nearly my ultimate or penultimate letter; for I am quite equipped, and only wait a passage. Perhaps I may wait a few weeks for Sligo, but not if I can help it.
“In society I have met Sheridan frequently: he was superb! He had a sort of liking for me, and never attacked me, at least to my face, as he did every body else — high names, and wits, and orators, some of them poets also. I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Staël, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others (whose names, as friends, I set not down) of good fame and ability. Poor fellow! he got drunk very thoroughly and very soon. It occasionally fell to my lot to pilot him home — no sinecure, for he was so tipsy that I was obliged to put on his cocked hat for him. To be sure, it tumbled off again, and I was not myself so sober as to be able to pick it up again.
“The last time I met him was, I think, at Sir Gilbert Elliot’s, where he was as quick as ever — no, it was not the last time; the last time was at Douglas Kinnaird’s. I have met him in all places and parties — at Whitehall with the Melbournes, at the Marquis of Tavistock’s, at Robins’s the auctioneer’s, at Sir Humphry Davy’s, at Sam Rogers’s, — in short, in most kinds of company, and always found him very convivial and delightful.
“I have seen Sheridan weep two or three times. It may be that he was maudlin; but this only renders it more impressive, for who would see
‘From Marlborough’s eyes the tears of dotage flow,
And Swift expire a driveller and a show’?
“Once I saw him cry at Robins’s the auctioneer’s, after a splendid dinner, full of great names and high spirits. I had the honour of sitting next to Sheridan. The occasion of his tears was some observation or other upon the subject of the sturdiness of the Whigs in resisting office and keeping to their principles: Sheridan turned round: ‘Sir, it is easy for my Lord G. or Earl G. or Marquis B. or Lord H. with thousands upon thousands a year, some of it either presently derived, or inherited in sinecure or acquisitions from the public money, to boast of their patriotism and keep aloof from temptation; but they do not know from what temptation those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal talents, and not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not in the course of their lives what it was to have a shilling of their own.’ And in saying this he wept.
“There was something odd about Sheridan. One day, at dinner, he was slightly praising that pert pretender and impostor, Lyttelton (the Parliamentary puppy, still alive, I believe). I took the liberty of differing from him; he turned round upon me, and said, ‘Is that your real opinion?’ I confirmed it. Then said he, ‘Fortified by this concurrence, I beg leave to say that it, in fact, is my opinion also, and that he is a person whom I do absolutely and utterly despise, abhor, and detest.’ He then launched out into a description of his despicable qualities, at some length, and with his usual wit, and evidently in earnest (for he hated Lyttelton). His former compliment had been drawn out by some preceding one, just as its reverse was by my hinting that it was unmerited.
“I have more than once heard him say, ‘that he never had a shilling of his own.’ To be sure, he contrived to extract a good many of other people’s.
“In 1815 I had occasion to visit my lawyer in Chancery Lane; he was with Sheridan. After mutual greetings, etc., Sheridan retired first. Before recurring to my own business, I could not help inquiring that of Sheridan. ‘Oh,’ replied the attorney, ‘the usual thing! to stave off an action from his wine-merchant, my client.’ — ’Well,’ said I, ‘and what do you mean to do?’ — ’Nothing at all for the present,’ said he: ‘would you have us proceed against old Sherry? what would be the use of it?’ and here he began laughing, and going over Sheridan’s good gifts of conversation.
“Now, from personal experience, I can vouch that my attorney is by no means the tenderest of men, or particularly accessible to any kind of impression out of the statute or record; and yet Sheridan, in half an hour, had found the way to soften and seduce him in such a manner, that I almost think he would have thrown his client (an honest man, with all the laws, and some justice, on his side) out of the window, had he come in at the moment.
“Such was Sheridan! he could soften an attorney! There has been nothing like it since the days of Orpheus.
“One day I saw him take up his own ‘Monody on Garrick.’ He lighted upon the Dedication to the Dowager Lady Spencer. On seeing it, he flew into a rage, and exclaimed ‘that it must be a forgery, that he had never dedicated any thing of his to such a damned canting bitch,’ etc., etc. — and so went on for half an hour abusing his own dedication, or at least the object of it. If all writers were equally sincere, it would be ludicrous.
“He told me that, on the night of the grand success of his School for Scandal he was knocked down and put into the watch-house for making a row in the street, and being found intoxicated by the watchmen. Latterly, when found drunk one night in the kennel, and asked his name by the watchmen, he answered,
‘Wilberforce.’
“When dying he was requested to undergo ‘an operation.’ He replied that he had already submitted to two, which were enough for one man’s lifetime. Being asked what they were, he answered, ‘having his hair cut, and sitting for his picture.”
“I have met George Colman occasionally, and thought him extremely pleasant and convivial. Sheridan’s humour, or rather wit, was always saturnine, and sometimes savage; he never laughed (at least that I saw, and I watched him), but Colman did. If I had to choose and could not have both at a time I should say, ‘Let me begin the evening with Sheridan, and finish it with Colman.’ Sheridan for dinner, Colman for supper; Sheridan for claret or port but Colman for every thing, from the madeira and champagne at dinner the claret with a layer of port between the glasses up to the punch of the night, and down to the grog, or gin and water, of daybreak; — all these I have threaded with both the same. Sheridan was a grenadier company of life guards, but Colman a whole regiment — of light infantry, to be sure, but still a regiment.”
“Potations pottle deep”
Othello, act ii. sc. 3, line 54.
317 — to John Murray
July 31, 1813.
Dear Sir — As I leave town early tomorrow, the proof must be sent to-night, or many days will be lost. If you have any reviews of the Giaour to send, let me have them now. I am not very well to day. I thank you for the Satirist, which is short but savage on this unlucky affair, and personally facetious on me which is much more to the purpose than a tirade upon other peoples’ concerns.
Ever yours, B.
With horn-handled knife,
To kill a tender lamb as dead as mutton.”
“A short time back (say the newspapers, and newspapers never say the thing which is not) Lady H. gave a ball and supper. Among the company were Lord B — n, Lady W — , and Lady C. L — b. Lord B., it would appear, is a favourite with the latter Lady; on this occasion, however, he seemed to lavish his attention on another fair object. This preference so enraged Lady C. L. that in a paroxysm of jealousy she took up a dessert-knife and stabbed herself. The gay circle was, of course, immediately plunged in confusion and dismay, which however, was soon succeeded by levity and scandal. The general cry for medical assistance was from Lady W — d: Lady W — d!!! And why? Because it was said that, early after her marriage, Lady W — also took a similar liberty with her person for a similar cause, and was therefore considered to have learned from experience the most efficacious remedy for the complaint. It was also whispered that the Lady’s husband had most to grieve, that the attempt had not fully succeeded. Lady C. L. is still living.