by Lord Byron
Harry has not brought ma petite cousine. I want us to go to the play together; — she has been but once. Another short note from Jersey, inviting Rogers and me on the 23d. I must see my agent to-night. I wonder when that Newstead business will be finished. It cost me more than words to part with it — and to have parted with it! What matters it what I do? or what becomes of me? — but let me remember Job’s saying, and console myself with being “a living man.”
I wish I could settle to reading again, — my life is monotonous, and yet desultory. I take up books, and fling them down again. I began a comedy, and burnt it because the scene ran into reality; — a novel, for the same reason. In rhyme, I can keep more away from facts; but the thought always runs through, through … yes, yes, through. I have had a letter from Lady Melbourne — the best friend I ever had in my life, and the cleverest of women.
Not a word from — — [Lady F. W. Webster], Have they set out from — — ? or has my last precious epistle fallen into the lion’s jaws? If so — and this silence looks suspicious — I must clap on my “musty morion” and “hold out my iron.”
I am out of practice — but I won’t begin again at Manton’s now. Besides, I would not return his shot. I was once a famous wafer-splitter; but then the bullies of society made it necessary. Ever since I began to feel that I had a bad cause to support, I have left off the exercise.
What strange tidings from that Anakim of anarchy — Buonaparte!
Ever since I defended my bust of him at Harrow against the rascally time-servers, when the war broke out in 1803, he has been a Héros de Roman of mine — on the Continent; I don’t want him here. But I don’t like those same flights — leaving of armies, etc., etc. I am sure when I fought for his bust at school, I did not think he would run away from himself. But I should not wonder if he banged them yet. To be beat by men would be something; but by three stupid, legitimate-old-dynasty boobies of regular-bred sovereigns — O-hone-a-rie! — O-hone-a-rie! It must be, as Cobbett says, his marriage with the thick-lipped and thick-headed Autrichienne brood. He had better have kept to her who was kept by Barras. I never knew any good come of your young wife, and legal espousals, to any but your “sober-blooded boy” who “eats fish” and drinketh “no sack.” Had he not the whole opera? all Paris? all France? But a mistress is just as perplexing — that is, one — two or more are manageable by division.
I have begun, or had begun, a song, and flung it into the fire. It was in remembrance of Mary Duff, my first of flames, before most people begin to burn. I wonder what the devil is the matter with me! I can do nothing, and — fortunately there is nothing to do. It has lately been in my power to make two persons (and their connections) comfortable, pro tempore, and one happy, ex tempore, — I rejoice in the last particularly, as it is an excellent man. I wish there had been more convenience and less gratification to my self-love in it, for then there had been more merit. We are all selfish — and I believe, ye gods of Epicurus! I believe in Rochefoucault about men, and in Lucretius (not Busby’s translation) about yourselves. Your bard has made you very nonchalant and blest; but as he has excused us from damnation, I don’t envy you your blessedness much — a little, to be sure. I remember, last year, — — [Lady Oxford] said to me, at — — [Eywood], “Have we not passed our last month like the gods of Lucretius?” And so we had. She is an adept in the text of the original (which I like too); and when that booby Bus. sent his translating prospectus, she subscribed. But, the devil prompting him to add a specimen, she transmitted him a subsequent answer, saying, that “after perusing it, her conscience would not permit her to allow her name to remain on the list of subscribblers.” Last night, at Lord H.’s — Mackintosh, the Ossulstones, Puységur, etc., there — I was trying to recollect a quotation (as I think) of Stael’s, from some Teutonic sophist about architecture. “Architecture,” says this Macoronico Tedescho, “reminds me of frozen music.” It is somewhere — but where? — the demon of perplexity must know and won’t tell. I asked M., and he said it was not in her: but Puységur said it must be hers, it was so like. H. laughed, as he does at all “De l’Allemagne” — in which, however, I think he goes a little too far. B., I hear, contemns it too. But there are fine passages; — and, after all, what is a work — any — or every work — but a desert with fountains, and, perhaps, a grove or two, every day’s journey? To be sure, in Madame, what we often mistake, and “pant for,” as the “cooling stream,” turns out to be the “mirage” (criticè verbiage); but we do, at last, get to something like the temple of Jove Ammon, and then the waste we have passed is only remembered to gladden the contrast.
Called on C — , to explain — — . She is very beautiful, to my taste, at least; for on coming home from abroad, I recollect being unable to look at any woman but her — they were so fair, and unmeaning, and blonde. The darkness and regularity of her features reminded me of my “Jannat al Aden.” But this impression wore off; and now I can look at a fair woman, without longing for a Houri. She was very good-tempered, and every thing was explained.
To-day, great news — ”the Dutch have taken Holland,” — which, I suppose, will be succeeded by the actual explosion of the Thames. Five provinces have declared for young Stadt, and there will be inundation, conflagration, constupration, consternation, and every sort of nation and nations, fighting away, up to their knees, in the damnable quags of this will-o’-the-wisp abode of Boors. It is said Bernadotte is amongst them, too; and, as Orange will be there soon, they will have (Crown) Prince Stork and King Log in their Loggery at the same time. Two to one on the new dynasty!
Mr. Murray has offered me one thousand guineas for The Giaour and The Bride of Abydos. I won’t — it is too much, though I am strongly tempted, merely for the say of it. No bad price for a fortnight’s (a week each) what? — the gods know — it was intended to be called poetry.
I have dined regularly to-day, for the first time since Sunday last — this being Sabbath, too. All the rest, tea and dry biscuits — six per diem. I wish to God I had not dined now! — It kills me with heaviness, stupor, and horrible dreams; and yet it was but a pint of Bucellas, and fish. Meat I never touch, — nor much vegetable diet. I wish I were in the country, to take exercise, — instead of being obliged to cool by abstinence, in lieu of it. I should not so much mind a little accession of flesh, — my bones can well bear it. But the worst is, the devil always came with it, — till I starved him out, — and I will not be the slave of any appetite. If I do err, it shall be my heart, at least, that heralds the way. Oh, my head — how it aches? — the horrors of digestion! I wonder how Buonaparte’s dinner agrees with him?
Mem. I must write to-morrow to “Master Shallow, who owes me a thousand pounds,” and seems, in his letter, afraid I should ask him for it; — as if I would! — I don’t want it (just now, at least,) to begin with; and though I have often wanted that sum, I never asked for the repayment of £10 in my life — from a friend. His bond is not due this year, and I told him when it was, I should not enforce it. How often must he make me say the same thing?
I am wrong — I did once ask — — to repay me. But it was under circumstances that excused me to him, and would to any one. I took no interest, nor required security. He paid me soon, — at least, his padre. My head! I believe it was given me to ache with. Good even.
“Wherefore doth a living man complain?”
(Lam. iii. 39).
“I dare not fight; but I will wink, and hold out mine iron.”
Henry V., act ii. sc. I.
“Bold Robert Speer was Bony’s bad precursor.
Bob was a bloody dog, but Bonaparte a worser.”
His feeling for him was probably that which is expressed in the following passage from an undated letter, written to him by Moore:
“We owe great gratitude to this thunderstorm of a fellow for clearing the air of all the old legitimate fogs that have settled upon us, and I sincerely trust his task is not yet over.”
Ticknor (Life, vol.
i. p. 60) describes Byron’s reception of the news of the battle of Waterloo:
“After an instant’s pause, Lord Byron replied, ‘I am damned sorry for it;’ and then, after another slight pause, he added, ‘I didn’t know but I might live to see Lord Castlereagh’s head on a pole. But I suppose I shan’t now.’“
Byron’s liking for Buonaparte was probably increased by his dislike of Wellington and Blucher. The following passages are taken from the Detached Thoughts(1821):
“The vanity of Victories is considerable. Of all who fell at Waterloo or Trafalgar, ask any man in company to name you ten off hand. They will stick at Nelson: the other will survive himself. Nelson was a hero, the other is a mere Corporal, dividing with Prussians and Spaniards the luck which he never deserved. He even — but I hate the fool, and will be silent.”
“The Miscreant Wellington is the Cub of Fortune, but she will never lick him into shape. If he lives, he will be beaten; that’s certain. Victory was never before wasted upon such an unprofitable soil as this dunghill of Tyranny, whence nothing springs but Viper’s eggs.”
“I remember seeing Blucher in the London Assemblies, and never saw anything of his age less venerable. With the voice and manners of a recruiting Sergeant, he pretended to the honours of a hero; just as if a stone could be worshipped because a man stumbled over it.”
“L’intérêt est l’ame de l’amour-propre, de sorte que comme le corps, privé de son ame, est sans vue, sans ouïe, sans connoissance, sans sentiment, et sans mouvement; de même l’amour-propre, séparé, s’il le faut dire ainsi, de son intérêt, ne voit, n’entend, ne sent, et ne se remue plus,” etc., etc.
(Rochefoucault, Lettre à Madame Sablé). The passage in Lucretius probably is De Rerum Naturâ, i. 57-62.
“Monsieur de Puységur,” says Lady H. Leveson Gower (Letters of Harriet, Countess of Granville, vol. i. p. 23), “is really concentré into one wrinkle. It is the oldest, gayest, thinnest, most withered, and most brilliant thing one can meet with. When there are so many young, fat fools going about the world, I wish for the transmigration of souls. Puységur might animate a whole family.”
The phrase, of which Byron was in search, is Goethe’s, eine erstarrte Musik (Stevens’s Life of Madame de Staël, vol. ii. p. 195).
Footnote 10: That the poet sometimes dined seems evident from the annexed bill:
Lord Byron
To M. Richold
>
1813
£
s.
d.
Balance of last bill
0
13
10
Aug. 9
To dinner bill
1
6
0
10
To do. do.
4
13
6
11
To do. do.
1
4
0
14
To do. do.
1
6
0
15
To share of do.
4
4
6
16
To dinner bill
1
6
0
17
To do. do.
1
6
6
19
To do. do.
1
2
6
20
To share of do.
4
19
0
21
To dinner bill
1
1
6
22
To do. do.
1
2
0
23
To do. do.
1
2
0
25
To do. do.
1
9
0
26
To dinner bill
1
1
6
27
To do. do.
1
8
6
Sept. 2
To do. do.
1
4
0
3
To do. do.
1
2
0
4
To do. do.
1
11
0
5
To do. do.
1
6
6
7
To do. do.
5
7
0
9
To do. do.
1
6
6
26
To do. do.
1
9
0
Nov. 14
To do. do.
1
0
6
21
To do. do.
0
19
0
Total
44
11
10
November 22nd, 1813
“Orange Boven!” So the bees have expelled the bear that broke open their hive. Well, — if we are to have new De Witts and De Ruyters, God speed the little republic! I should like to see the Hague and the village of Brock, where they have such primitive habits. Yet, I don’t know, — their canals would cut a poor figure by the memory of the Bosphorus; and the Zuyder Zee look awkwardly after “Ak-Denizi”. No matter, — the bluff burghers, puffing freedom out of their short tobacco-pipes, might be worth seeing; though I prefer a cigar or a hooka, with the rose-leaf mixed with the milder herb of the Levant. I don’t know what liberty means, — never having seen it, — but wealth is power all over the world; and as a shilling performs the duty of a pound (besides sun and sky and beauty for nothing) in the East, — that is the country. How I envy Herodes Atticus! — more than Pomponius. And yet a little tumult, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an aventure of any lively description. I think I rather would have been Bonneval, Ripperda, Alberoni, Hayreddin, or Horuc Barbarossa, or even Wortley Montague, than Mahomet himself.
Rogers will be in town soon? — the 23d is fixed for our Middleton visit. Shall I go? umph! — In this island, where one can’t ride out without overtaking the sea, it don’t much matter where one goes.
I remember the effect of the first Edinburgh Review on me. I heard of it six weeks before, — read it the day of its denunciation, — dined and drank three bottles of claret, (with S. B. Davies, I think,) neither ate nor slept the less, but, nevertheless, was not easy till I had vented my wrath and my rhyme, in the same pages, against every thing and every body. Like George, in the Vicar of Wakefield, -”the fate of my paradoxes” would allow me to perceive no merit in another. I remembered only the maxim of my boxing-master, which, in my youth, was found useful in all general riots, — ”Whoever is not for you is against you — mill away right and left,” and so I did; — like Ishmael, my hand was against all men, and all men’s anent me. I did wonder, to be sure, at my own success:
“And marvels so much wit is all his own,”
as Hobhouse sarcastically says of somebody (not unlikely myself, as we are old friends); — but were it to come over again, I would not. I have since redde the cause of my couplets, and it is not adequate to the effect. C — — told me that it was believed I alluded to poor Lord Carlisle’s nervous disorder in one of the lines. I thank Heaven I did not know it — and would not, could not, if I had. I must naturally be the last person to be pointed on defects or maladies.
Rogers is silent, — and, it is said, severe. When he does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expr
ession is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house — his drawing-room — his library — you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor. But this very delicacy must be the misery of his existence. Oh the jarrings his disposition must have encountered through life!
Southey, I have not seen much of. His appearance is Epic; and he is the only existing entire man of letters. All the others have some pursuit annexed to their authorship. His manners are mild, but not those of a man of the world, and his talents of the first order. His prose is perfect. Of his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps, too much of it for the present generation; posterity will probably select. He has passages equal to any thing. At present, he has a party, but no public — except for his prose writings. The life of Nelson is beautiful.
Sotheby is a Littérateur, the Oracle of the Coteries, of the — — s, Lydia White (Sydney Smith’s “Tory Virgin”), Mrs. Wilmot (she, at least, is a swan, and might frequent a purer stream,) Lady Beaumont, and all the Blues, with Lady Charlemont at their head — but I say nothing of her — ”look in her face and you forget them all,” and every thing else. Oh that face! — by te, Diva potens Cypri, I would, to be beloved by that woman, build and burn another Troy.
Moore has a peculiarity of talent, or rather talents, — poetry, music, voice, all his own; and an expression in each, which never was, nor will be, possessed by another. But he is capable of still higher flights in poetry. By the by, what humour, what — every thing, in the “Post-Bag!” There is nothing Moore may not do, if he will but seriously set about it. In society, he is gentlemanly, gentle, and, altogether, more pleasing than any individual with whom I am acquainted. For his honour, principle, and independence, his conduct to — — speaks “trumpet-tongued.” He has but one fault — and that one I daily regret — he is not here.
A play was announced at Drury Lane, December 8, 1813, under the title of Orange Boven, but it was suppressed because no licence had been obtained for its performance. It was produced December 10, 1813, and ran about ten nights.