by Lord Byron
I shall have letters of importance to-morrow. Which, — — , — — , or — — ? heigho! — — — is in my heart, — — in my head, — — in my eye, and the single one, Heaven knows where. All write, and will be answered. “Since I have crept in favour with myself, I must maintain it;” but I never “mistook my person,” though I think others have.
— — called to-day in great despair about his mistress, who has taken a freak of — — . He began a letter to her, but was obliged to stop short — I finished it for him, and he copied and sent it. If he holds out, and keeps to my instructions of affected indifference, she will lower her colours. If she don’t, he will, at least, get rid of her, and she don’t seem much worth keeping. But the poor lad is in love — if that is the case, she will win. When they once discover their power, finita è la musica.
Sleepy, and must go to bed.
During the days February 8-26, 1814, it seemed possible that Napoleon might defeat the Allied Armies, and the Funds were sensitive to every rumour. At midnight on Sunday, February 20, a man calling himself Du Bourg brought news to Admiral Foley, at Dover, that Napoleon had been killed by a party of Cossacks. Hurrying towards London, Du Bourg, whose real name was Berenger, spread the news as he went. Arrived in London soon after daybreak, he went to Cochrane’s house, and there changed his uniform. When the Stock Exchange opened at ten on February 21, 1814, the Funds rose rapidly, and among those who sold on the rise was Cochrane. The next day, when the swindle had been discovered, the Stocks fell.
A Stock Exchange Committee sat to investigate the case, and their report (March 7) threw grave suspicion on Cochrane. He, his uncle, Cochrane Johnstone, a Mr. Butt, and Berenger, were indicted for a conspiracy, tried before Lord Ellenborough, June 8-9, and convicted. Cochrane was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and a fine of £1000. On the back of the note for £1000 (still kept in the Bank of England) with which he paid his fine on July 3, 1815, he wrote:
“My health having suffered by long and close confinement, and my oppressors being resolved to deprive me of property or life, I submit to robbery to protect myself from murder, in the hope that I shall live to bring the delinquents to justice.”
Cochrane was also expelled from the House of Commons and from the Order of the Bath. There is little doubt that the circumstances were extremely suspicious. Those who wish to form an opinion as to Cochrane’s guilt or innocence will find the subject of the trial exhaustively treated in Mr. J.B. Atlay’s Lord Cochrane’s Trial before Lord Ellenborough (1897).
“Your friend, Lord B., is, in my opinion, a singularly agreeable person, which is very rarely the case with eminent men. His independent principles give him a great additional charm.”
But the part which Brougham played in the separation, both as counsel and in society, infuriated Byron, who wrote of him in his letters with the utmost bitterness. (See also the passage, now for the first time published, from Byron’s Detached Thoughts, on his Parliamentary experiences, p. 198, of note.)
In private life Mrs. Jordan was chiefly known as the mistress of the Duke of Clarence, to whom she bore ten children. She died at St. Cloud, July 3, 1816.
The play acted at Covent Garden, March 10, 1814, was Sheridan’s Trip to Scarborough, which is a close adaptation of Vanbrugh’s Relapse. The performance is thus described in the Courier, March 11, 1814:
“Mrs. Jordan, the only Miss Hoyden on the stage, supported that character with unabated spirit. In every scene, from her soliloquy on being locked up, which was delivered with extraordinary naïveté, both with reference to her tones, her emphasis, and her action, until the consummation of the piece, the house was shaken by loud and quick-succeeding peals of laughter. The style in which she expressed Hoyden’s rustic arithmetic, ‘Now, Nursey, if he gives me six hundred pounds a-year to buy pins, what will he give me to buy petticoats?’ was uncommonly fine. The frock waving in her hand, the backward bound of two or three steps, the gravity of countenance, induced by a mental glance at the magnitude of the sum, all spoke expectation, delight, and astonishment.”
Tuesday, March 15th
Dined yesterday with Rogers, Mackintosh, and Sharpe. Sheridan could not come. Sharpe told several very amusing anecdotes of Henderson, the actor. Stayed till late, and came home, having drunk so much tea, that I did not get to sleep till six this morning. R. says I am to be in this Quarterly — cut up, I presume, as they “hate us youth.” N’importe. As Sharpe was passing by the doors of some debating society (the Westminster Forum), in his way to dinner, he saw rubricked on the wall Scott’s name and mine — ”Which the best poet?” being the question of the evening; and I suppose all the Templars and would-bes took our rhymes in vain in the course of the controversy. Which had the greater show of hands, I neither know nor care; but I feel the coupling of the names as a compliment — though I think Scott deserves better company.
Wedderburn Webster called — Lord Erskine, Lord Holland, etc., etc. Wrote to — — The Corsair report. She says she don’t wonder, since “Conrad is so like.” It is odd that one, who knows me so thoroughly, should tell me this to my face. However, if she don’t know, nobody can.
Mackintosh is, it seems, the writer of the defensive letter in the Morning Chronicle. If so, it is very kind, and more than I did for myself.
Told Murray to secure for me Bandello’s Italian Novels at the sale to-morrow. To me they will be nuts. Redde a satire on myself, called “Anti-Byron,” and told Murray to publish it if he liked. The object of the author is to prove me an atheist and a systematic conspirator against law and government. Some of the verse is good; the prose I don’t quite understand. He asserts that my “deleterious works” have had “an effect upon civil society, which requires,” etc., etc., etc., and his own poetry. It is a lengthy poem, and a long preface, with an harmonious title-page. Like the fly in the fable, I seem to have got upon a wheel which makes much dust; but, unlike the said fly, I do not take it all for my own raising.
A letter from Bella, which I answered. I shall be in love with her again if I don’t take care.
I shall begin a more regular system of reading soon.
“Henderson was a truly great actor: his Hamlet and his Falstaff were equally good. He was a very fine reader too: in his comic readings, superior, of course, to Mrs. Siddons: his John Gilpin was marvellous.”
In Sharp’s Letters and Essays (ed. 1834, pp. 16-18) will be found an interesting letter to Henderson, written a few days before his death, giving an account of John Kemble’s first appearance on the London boards, in the character of “Hamlet.”
“There has not,” says Sharp, “been such a first appearance since yours; yet Nature, though she has been bountiful to him in figure and feature, has denied him a voice…. You have been so long without a ‘brother near the throne,’ that it will perhaps be serviceable to you to be obliged to bestir yourself in Hamlet, Macbeth, Lord Townley, and Maskwell; but in Lear, Richard, Falstaff, and Benedict, you have nothing to fear, not-withstanding the known fickleness of the public and its love of novelty.”
Thursday, March 17th
I have been sparring with Jackson for exercise this morning; and mean to continue and renew my acquaintance with the muffles. My chest, and arms, and wind are in very good plight, and I am not in flesh. I used to be a hard hitter, and my arms are very long for my height (5 feet 8 1/2 inches). At any rate, exercise is good, and this the severest of all; fencing and the broad-sword never fatigued me half so much.
Redde the Quarrels of Authors (another sort of sparring) — a new work, by that most entertaining and researching writer, Israeli. They seem to be an irritable set, and I wish myself well out of it. “I’ll not march through Coventry with them, that’s flat.” What the devil had I to do with scribbling? It is too late to inquire, and all regret is useless. But, an it were to do again, — I should write again, I suppose. Such is human nature, at least my share of it; — though I shall think better of myself, if I have sense to stop now. If I have
a wife, and that wife has a son — by any body — I will bring up mine heir in the most anti-poetical way — make him a lawyer, or a pirate, or — any thing. But, if he writes too, I shall be sure he is none of mine, and cut him off with a Bank token. Must write a letter — three o’clock.
Sunday, March 20th
I intended to go to Lady Hardwicke’s, but won’t. I always begin the day with a bias towards going to parties; but, as the evening advances, my stimulus fails, and I hardly ever go out — and, when I do, always regret it. This might have been a pleasant one; — at least, the hostess is a very superior woman. Lady Lansdowne’s to-morrow — Lady Heathcote’s Wednesday. Um! — I must spur myself into going to some of them, or it will look like rudeness, and it is better to do as other people do — confound them!
Redde Machiavel, parts of Chardin, and Sismondi, and Bandello — by starts. Redde the Edinburgh, 44, just come out. In the beginning of the article on Edgeworth’s Patronage, I have gotten a high compliment, I perceive. Whether this is creditable to me, I know not; but it does honour to the editor, because he once abused me. Many a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its censure, or can praise the man it has once attacked. I have often, since my return to England, heard Jeffrey most highly commended by those who know him for things independent of his talents. I admire him for this — not because he has praised me (I have been so praised elsewhere and abused, alternately, that mere habit has rendered me as indifferent to both as a man at twenty-six can be to any thing), but because he is, perhaps, the only man who, under the relations in which he and I stand, or stood, with regard to each other, would have had the liberality to act thus; none but a great soul dared hazard it. The height on which he stands has not made him giddy; — a little scribbler would have gone on cavilling to the end of the chapter. As to the justice of his panegyric, that is matter of taste. There are plenty to question it, and glad, too, of the opportunity.
Lord Erskine called to-day. He means to carry down his reflections on the war — or rather wars — to the present day. I trust that he will. Must send to Mr. Murray to get the binding of my copy of his pamphlet finished, as Lord E. has promised me to correct it, and add some marginal notes to it. Any thing in his handwriting will be a treasure, which will gather compound interest from years. Erskine has high expectations of Mackintosh’s promised History. Undoubtedly it must be a classic, when finished.
Sparred with Jackson again yesterday morning, and shall to-morrow. I feel all the better for it, in spirits, though my arms and shoulders are very stiff from it. Mem. to attend the pugilistic dinner: — Marquess Huntley is in the chair.
Lord Erskine thinks that ministers must be in peril of going out. So much the better for him. To me it is the same who are in or out; — we want something more than a change of ministers, and some day we will have it.
I remember, in riding from Chrisso to Castri (Delphos), along the sides of Parnassus, I saw six eagles in the air. It is uncommon to see so many together; and it was the number — not the species, which is common enough — that excited my attention.
The last bird I ever fired at was an eaglet, on the shore of the Gulf of Lepanto, near Vostitza. It was only wounded, and I tried to save it, the eye was so bright; but it pined, and died in a few days; and I never did since, and never will, attempt the death of another bird. I wonder what put these two things into my head just now? I have been reading Sismondi, and there is nothing there that could induce the recollection.
I am mightily taken with Braccio di Montone, Giovanni Galeazzo, and Eccelino. But the last is not Bracciaferro (of the same name), Count of Ravenna, whose history I want to trace. There is a fine engraving in Lavater, from a picture by Fuseli, of that Ezzelin, over the body of Meduna, punished by him for a hitch in her constancy during his absence in the Crusades. He was right — but I want to know the story.
“It is no slight consolation to us, while suffering under alternate reproaches for ill-timed severity, and injudicious praise, to reflect that no very mischievous effects have as yet resulted to the literature of the country, from this imputed misbehaviour on our part. Powerful genius, we are persuaded, will not be repressed even by unjust castigation; nor will the most excessive praise that can be lavished by sincere admiration ever abate the efforts that are fitted to attain to excellence. Our alleged severity upon a youthful production has not prevented the noble author from becoming the first poet of his time.”
Edinburgh Review, vol. xxii. p. 416.
a History of England for Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1830);
a History of the Revolution in England (1834).
“Fuseli’s picture of Ezzelin Bracciaferro musing over Meduna, slain by him for disloyalty during his absence in the Holy Land, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780. Mr. Knowles, in his Life of the painter, relates the following anecdote: ‘Fuseli frequently invented the subject of his pictures without the aid of the poet or historian, as in his composition of Ezzelin, Belisaire, and some others: these he denominated “philosophical ideas intuitive, or sentiment personified.” On one occasion he was much amused by the following inquiry of Lord Byron: “I have been looking in vain, Mr. Fuseli, for some months, in the poets and historians of Italy, for the subject of your picture of Ezzelin: pray where is it to be found?” “Only in my brain, my Lord,” was the answer: “for I invented it”‘ (vol. i. p. 403)” (Moore).
Tuesday, March 22nd
Last night, party at Lansdowne House. To-night, party at Lady Charlotte Greville’s — deplorable waste of time, and something of temper. Nothing imparted — nothing acquired — talking without ideas: — if any thing like thought in my mind, it was not on the subjects on which we were gabbling. Heigho! — and in this way half London pass what is called life. To-morrow there is Lady Heathcote’s — shall I go? yes — to punish myself for not having a pursuit.
Let me see — what did I see? The only person who much struck me was Lady S — d’s [Stafford’s] eldest daughter, Lady C. L. [Charlotte Leveson]. They say she is not pretty. I don’t know — every thing is pretty that pleases; but there is an air of soul about her — and her colour changes — and there is that shyness of the antelope (which I delight in) in her manner so much, that I observed her more than I did any other woman in the rooms, and only looked at any thing else when I thought she might perceive and feel embarrassed by my scrutiny. After all, there may be something of association in this. She is a friend of Augusta’s, and whatever she loves I can’t help liking.
Her mother, the Marchioness, talked to me a little; and I was twenty times on the point of asking her to introduce me to sa fille, but I stopped short. This comes of that affray with the Carlisles.
Earl Grey told me laughingly of a paragraph in the last Moniteur, which has stated, among other symptoms of rebellion, some particulars of the sensation occasioned in all our government gazettes by the “tear” lines, — only amplifying, in its re-statement, an epigram (by the by, no epigram except in the Greek acceptation of the word) into a roman. I wonder the Couriers, etc., etc., have not translated that part of the Moniteur, with additional comments.
The Princess of Wales has requested Fuseli to paint from The Corsair — leaving to him the choice of any passage for the subject: so Mr. Locke tells me. Tired, jaded, selfish, and supine — must go to bed.
Roman, at least Romance, means a song sometimes, as in the Spanish. I suppose this is the Moniteur’s meaning, unless he has confused it with The Corsair.
“Londres le 9 Mars… On vient de publier une caricature insolente et grossiere centre le mariage projeté (de la Princesse de Galles) et centre le Prince d’Orange. En commentant cette gravure, le Town Talk a osé avancer que la Princesse Charlotte détestait son époux futur, et que ses véritables affections étaient sacrifices à des vues politiques. Le Lord Byron a fait de ce bruit populaire le sujet d’une romance.”
Moniteur, 17 Mars, 1814.
March 28th
Al
bany
This night got into my new apartments, rented of Lord Althorpe, on a lease of seven years. Spacious, and room for my books and sabres. In the house, too, another advantage. The last few days, or whole week, have been very abstemious, regular in exercise, and yet very unwell.
Yesterday, dined tête-à-tête at the Cocoa with Scrope Davies — sat from six till midnight — drank between us one bottle of champagne and six of claret, neither of which wines ever affect me. Offered to take Scrope home in my carriage; but he was tipsy and pious, and I was obliged to leave him on his knees praying to I know not what purpose or pagod. No headach, nor sickness, that night nor to-day. Got up, if any thing, earlier than usual — sparred with Jackson ad sudorem, and have been much better in health than for many days. I have heard nothing more from Scrope. Yesterday paid him four thousand eight hundred pounds, a debt of some standing, and which I wished to have paid before. My mind is much relieved by the removal of that debit.
Augusta wants me to make it up with Carlisle. I have refused every body else, but I can’t deny her any thing; — so I must e’en do it, though I had as lief “drink up Eisel — eat a crocodile.” Let me see — Ward, the Hollands, the Lambs, Rogers, etc., etc., — every body, more or less, have been trying for the last two years to accommodate this couplet quarrel, to no purpose. I shall laugh if Augusta succeeds.
Redde a little of many things — shall get in all my books to-morrow. Luckily this room will hold them — with “ample room and verge, etc., the characters of hell to trace.” I must set about some employment soon; my heart begins to eat itself again.
“Lord Byron, as you know, has removed into Albany, and lives in an apartment, I should think thirty by forty feet.”