by Lord Byron
When my departure is arranged, and I can get this long-evaded passage, you will be able to tell me whether I am to expect a visit or not, and I can come for or meet you as you think best. If you write, address to Bennet Street.
Yours very truly,
B.
332 — to John Murray
Sept. 15, 1813.
Dear Sir, — Will you pray enquire after any ship with a convoy taking passengers and get me one if possible? I mean not in a ship of war, but anything that may be paid for. I have a friend and 3 servants — Gibraltar or Minorca — or Zante.
Yours ever,
B.
333 — to James Wedderburn Webster
Stilton, September 25th, 1813.
My Dear W., — Thus far can I “report progress,” and as a solid token of my remembrance I send you a cheese of 13 lbs. to enable your digestion to go through the race week. It will go to night; pray let your retainers enquire after it. The date of this letter will account for so homely a present. On my arrival in town I will write more on our different concerns. In the mean time I wish you and yours all the gratification on Doncaster you can wish for yourselves. My love to the faithless Nettle (who I dare say is wronging me during my absence), and my best Compliments to all in your house who will receive them.
Ever, dear W., yours truly,
B.
334 — to Sir James Mackintosh
Sept. 27, 1813.
Dear Sir James, — I was to have left London on Friday, but will certainly remain a day longer (and believe I would a year) to have the honour of meeting you. My best respects to Lady Mackintosh.
Ever your obliged and faithful servant,
Byron.
335 — to Thomas Moore
September 27, 1813.
Thomas Moore, — (Thou wilt never be called “true Thomas,” like he of Ercildoune,) why don’t you write to me? — as you won’t, I must. I was near you at Aston the other day, and hope I soon shall be again. If so, you must and shall meet me, and go to Matlock and elsewhere, and take what, in flash dialect, is poetically termed “a lark,” with Rogers and me for accomplices. Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey — the best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet’s head and shoulders, I would almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that, and — there is his eulogy.
— — read me part of a letter from you. By the foot of Pharaoh, I believe there was abuse, for he stopped short, so he did, after a fine saying about our correspondence, and looked — I wish I could revenge myself by attacking you, or by telling you that I have had to defend you — an agreeable way which one’s friends have of recommending themselves by saying — ”Ay, ay, I gave it Mr. Such-a-one for what he said about your being a plagiary, and a rake, and so on.” But do you know that you are one of the very few whom I never have the satisfaction of hearing abused, but the reverse; — and do you suppose I will forgive that?
I have been in the country, and ran away from the Doncaster races. It is odd, — I was a visitor in the same house which came to my sire as a residence with Lady Carmarthen (with whom he adulterated before his majority — by the by, remember she was not my mamma), — and they thrust me into an old room, with a nauseous picture over the chimney, which I should suppose my papa regarded with due respect, and which, inheriting the family taste, I looked upon with great satisfaction. I stayed a week with the family, and behaved very well — though the lady of the house is young, and religious, and pretty, and the master is my particular friend. I felt no wish for any thing but a poodle dog, which they kindly gave me. Now, for a man of my courses not even to have coveted, is a sign of great amendment. Pray pardon all this nonsense, and don’t “snub me when I’m in spirits.”
Ever yours,
BN.
Here’s an impromptu for you by a “person of quality,” written last week, on being reproached for low spirits:
When from the heart where Sorrow sits,
Her dusky shadow mounts too high,
And o’er the changing aspect flits,
And clouds the brow, or fills the eye:
Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink;
My Thoughts their dungeon know too well —
Back to my breast the wanderers shrink,
And bleed within their silent cell.
“I wish you’d let me and my good alone, then — snubbing this way when I’m in spirits.”
336 — to John Murray
Sept. 29, 1813.
Dear Sir, — Pray suspend the proofs for I am bitten again and have quantities for other parts of The Giaour.
Yours ever,
B.
P. S. — You shall have these in the course of the day.
337 — to James Wedderburn Webster
September 30th, 1813.
My dear Webster, — Thanks for your letter. I had answered it by anticipation last night, and this is but a postscript to my reply. My yesterday’s contained some advice, which I now see you don’t want, and hope you never will.
So! Petersham has not joined you. I pity the poor women. No one can properly repair such a deficiency; but rather than such a chasm should be left utterly unfathomable, I, even I, the most awkward of attendants and deplorable of danglers, would have been of your forlorn hope, on this expedition. Nothing but business, and the notion of my being utterly superfluous in so numerous a party, would have induced me to resign so soon my quiet apartments never interrupted but by the sound, or the more harmonious barking of Nettle, and clashing of billiard balls.
On Sunday I shall leave town and mean to join you immediately. I have not yet had my sister’s answer to Lady Frances’s very kind invitation, but expect it tomorrow. Pray assure Lady Frances that I never can forget the obligation conferred upon me in this respect, and I trust that even Lady Catherine will, in this instance, not question my “stability.”
I yesterday wrote you rather a long tirade about La Comptesse, but you seem in no immediate peril; I will therefore burn it. Yet I don’t know why I should, as you may relapse: it shall e’en go.
I have been passing my time with Rogers and Sir James Mackintosh; and once at Holland House I met Southey; he is a person of very epic appearance, and has a fine head — as far as the outside goes, and wants nothing but taste to make the inside equally attractive.
Ever, my dear W., yours,
Biron.
P.S. — I read your letter thus: “the Countess is miserable” instead of which it is “inexorable” a very different thing. The best way is to let her alone; she must be a diablesse by what you told me. You have probably not bid high enough. Now you are not, perhaps, of my opinion; but I would not give the tithe of a Birmingham farthing for a woman who could or would be purchased, nor indeed for any woman quoad mere woman; that is to say, unless I loved her for something more than her sex. If she loves, a little pique is not amiss, nor even if she don’t; the next thing to a woman’s love in a man’s favour is her hatred, — a seeming paradox but true. Get them once out of indifference and circumstance, and their passions will do wonders for a dasher which I suppose you are, though I seldom had the impudence or patience to follow them up.
“making a particular sort of blacking, which he said would eventually supersede every other.”
His snuff-mixture was famous among tobacconists, and he gave his name to a fashionable great-coat. In his collection of snuff-boxes, one of the finest in England, he was supposed to have a box for every day in the year. Gronow (ibid.)
“heard him, on the occasion of a delightful old light-blue Sèvres box he was using being admired, say, in his lisping way, ‘Yes, it is a nice summer box, but would not do for winter wear.’“
Lord Petersham, who never went out of doors before 6 p.m., was celebrated for his brown carriages, brown horses, brown harness, and brown liveries.
338 — to Francis Hodgson<
br />
October 1, 1813.
My Dear H., — I leave town again for Aston on Sunday, but have messages for you. Lord Holland desired me repeatedly to bring you; he wants to know you much, and begged me to say so: you will like him. I had an invitation for you to dinner there this last Sunday, and Rogers is perpetually screaming because you don’t call, and wanted you also to dine with him on Wednesday last. Yesterday we had Curran there — who is beyond all conception! and Mackintosh and the wits are to be seen at H. H. constantly, so that I think you would like their society. I will be a judge between you and the attorneo. So B[utler] may mention me to Lucien if he still adheres to his opinion. Pray let Rogers be one; he has the best taste extant. Bland’s nuptials delight me; if I had the least hand in bringing them about it will be a subject of selfish satisfaction to me these three weeks. Desire Drury — if he loves me — to kick Dwyer thrice for frightening my horses with his flame-coloured whiskers last July. Let the kicks be hard, etc.
339 — to Thomas Moore
October 2, 1813.
You have not answered some six letters of mine. This, therefore, is my penultimate. I will write to you once more, but, after that — I swear by all the saints — I am silent and supercilious. I have met Curran at Holland House — he beats every body; — his imagination is beyond human, and his humour (it is difficult to define what is wit) perfect. Then he has fifty faces, and twice as many voices, when he mimics — I never met his equal. Now, were I a woman, and eke a virgin, that is the man I should make my Scamander.
He is quite fascinating. Remember, I have met him but once; and you, who have known him long, may probably deduct from my panegyric. I almost fear to meet him again, lest the impression should be lowered. He talked a great deal about you — a theme never tiresome to me, nor any body else that I know. What a variety of expression he conjures into that naturally not very fine countenance of his! He absolutely changes it entirely. I have done — for I can’t describe him, and you know him. On Sunday I return to Aston, where I shall not be far from you. Perhaps I shall hear from you in the mean time. Good night.
Saturday morn. — Your letter has cancelled all my anxieties. I did not suspect you in earnest. Modest again! Because I don’t do a very shabby thing, it seems, I “don’t fear your competition.” If it were reduced to an alternative of preference, I should dread you, as much as Satan does Michael. But is there not room enough in our respective regions? Go on — it will soon be my turn to forgive. To-day I dine with Mackintosh and Mrs. Stale — as John Bull may be pleased to denominate Corinne — whom I saw last night, at Covent Garden, yawning over the humour of Falstaff.
The reputation of “gloom,” if one’s friends are not included in the reputants, is of great service; as it saves one from a legion of impertinents, in the shape of common-place acquaintance. But thou know’st I can be a right merry and conceited fellow, and rarely larmoyant. Murray shall reinstate your line forthwith.
I believe the blunder in the motto was mine; — and yet I have, in general, a memory for you, and am sure it was rightly printed at first.
I do “blush” very often, if I may believe Ladies H. and M.; — but luckily, at present, no one sees me. Adieu.
In Byron’s Detached Thoughts (1821) occurs the following passage:
“I was much struck with the simplicity of Grattan’s manners in private life. They were odd, but they were natural. Curran used to take him off, bowing to the very ground, and ‘thanking God that he had no peculiarities of gesture or appearance,’ in a way irresistibly ludicrous. Rogers used to call him a ‘Sentimental Harlequin;’ but Rogers backbites everybody, and Curran, who used to quiz his great friend Godwin to his very face, would hardly respect a fair mark of mimicry in another. To be sure, Curran was admirable! to hear his description of the examination of an Irish witness was next to hearing his own speeches; the latter I never heard, but I have the former.”
Elsewhere (ibid.) he returns to the subject:
“Curran! Curran’s the man who struck me most — such imagination! There never was anything like it, that ever I saw or heard of. His published life — his published speeches — give you no idea of the man; none at all. He was a Machine of imagination, as some one said that Piron was an ‘Epigrammatic Machine.’ I did not see a great deal of Curran, — only in 1813; but I met him at home (for he used to call on me), and in society, at Mackintosh’s, Holland House, etc., etc. And he was wonderful, even to me, who had seen many remarkable men of the time.”
The following notes on this passage are in the handwriting of Walter Scott:
“When Mathews first began to imitate Curran in Dublin — in society, I mean, — Curran sent for him and said, the moment he entered the room, ‘Mr. Mathews, you are a first-rate artist, and, since you are to do my picture, pray allow me to give you a sitting.’ Everyone knows how admirably Mathews succeeded in furnishing at last the portraiture begun under these circumstances. No one was more aware of the truth than Curran himself. In his latter and feeble days, he was riding in Hyde Park one morning, bowed down over the saddle and bitterly dejected in his air. Mathews happened to observe and saluted him. Curran stopped his horse for a moment, squeezed Charles by the hand, and said in that deep whisper which the comedian so exquisitely mimics, ‘Don’t speak to me, my dear Mathews; you are the only Curran now!’“
“Did you know Curran?” asked Byron of Lady Blessington (Conversations, p. 176); “he was the most wonderful person I ever saw. In him was combined an imagination the most brilliant and profound, with a flexibility and wit that would have justified the observation applied to — — , that his heart was in his head.”
Moore (Journal, etc., vol. i. p. 40) quotes a couplet by Mrs. Battier upon Curran, which “commemorates in a small compass two of his most striking peculiarities, namely, his very unprepossessing personal appearance, and his great success, notwithstanding, in pursuits of gallantry…:
“‘For though his monkey face might fail to woo her,
Yet, ah! his monkey tricks would quite undo her.’“
“It is the custom of maidens, on the eve of their marriage, to wash in the waters of the Scamander, and then to utter this almost sacred formula,
‘Take, O Scamander, my virginity’
“The motto to The Giaour:
One fatal remembrance — one sorrow that throws
Its bleak shade alike o’er our joys and our woes,’ etc.
which is taken from one of the Irish Melodies, had been quoted by him incorrectly in the first editions of the poem” (Moore).
340 — to John Murray
Stilton, Oct. 3, 1813.
Dear Sir, — I have just recollected an alteration you may make in the proof to be sent to Aston. — Among the lines on Hassan’s Serai, not far from the beginning, is this:
Unmeet for Solitude to share.
Now to share implies more than one, and Solitude is a single gentlewoman; it must be thus:
For many a gilded chamber’s there,
Which Solitude might well forbear;
and so on. — My address is Aston Hall, Rotherham. Will you adopt this correction? and pray accept a cheese from me for your trouble.
Ever yours,
B.
P. S. — I leave this to your discretion; if any body thinks the old line a good one or the cheese a bad one, don’t accept either. But, in that case, the word share is repeated soon after in the line:
To share the Master’s “bread and salt;”
and must be altered to:
To break the Master’s bread and salt.
This is not so well, though — confound it! If the old line stands, let the other run thus:
Nor there will weary traveller halt,
To bless the sacred “bread and salt.”
Note. — To partake of food — to break bread and taste salt with your host — ensures the safety of the guest; even though an enemy, his person from that moment becomes sacred.
&n
bsp; There is another additional note sent yesterday — on the Priest in the Confessional.
341 — to John Hanson
Nottingham, Octr. 10th, 1813.
Dear Sir, — I am disposed to advance a loan of £1000 to James Webster Wedderburne Webster, Esqre., of Aston Hall, York County, and request you will address to me there a bond and judgement to be signed by the said as soon as possible. Of Claughton’s payments I know nothing further, and the demands on myself I know also; but W. is a very old friend of mine, and a man of property, and, as I can command the money, he shall have it. I do not at all wish to inconvenience you, and I also know that, when we balance accounts, it will be much in your favour; but if you could replace the sum at Hoare’s from my advance of two thousand eight hundred in July, it would be a favour; or, still better, if C. makes further payments, which will render it unnecessary. Don’t let the first part of the last sentence embarrass you at all; the last part about Claughton I would wish you to attend to. I have written this day — about his opening the cellar.
Pray send the bond and judgement to Aston as directed.
Ever, dear Sir,
B.
P. S. — Many, many thanks for your kind invitation; but it was too late. I was in this county before it arrived. My best remembrances to Mrs. H. and all the family.
342 — to the Hon. Augusta Leigh
[Sunday], October 10th, 1813.
My dearest Augusta, — I have only time to say that I am not in the least angry, and that my silence has merely arisen from several circumstances which I cannot now detail. I trust you are better, and will continue best. Ever, my dearest,
Yours,
B.
343 — to John Murray
Oct. 12, 1813.
Dear Sir, — You must look The Giaour again over carefully; there are a few lapses, particularly in the last page, — ”I know ‘twas false; she could not die;” it was, and ought to be — ”knew.” Pray observe this and similar mistakes.