Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works

by Thomas Moore

  “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,’ &c. &c. &c. and his own poetry. It is a lengthy poem, and a long preface, with a 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.

  “Thursday, March 17.

  “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 enquire, 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 20.

  “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.

  “Tuesday, March 22.

  “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 eldest daughter, Lady C.L. 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, &c. &c., 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.’

  “Albany, March 28.

  “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, &c. &c. — 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, &c. the characters of hell to trace.’ I must set about some employment soon; my heart begins to eat itself again.

  “April 8.

  “Out of town six days. On my return, find my poor little pagod, Napoleon, pushed off his pedestal; — the thieves are in Paris. It is his own fault. Like Milo, he would rend the oak; but it closed again, wedged his hands, and now the beasts — lion, bear, down to the dirtiest jackall — may all tear him. That Muscovite winter wedged his arms; — ever since, he has fought with his feet and teeth. The last may still leave their marks; and ‘I guess now’ (as the Yankees say) that he will yet play them a pass. He is in their rear — between them and their homes. Query — will they ever reach them?

  “Saturday, April 9. 1814.

  “I mark this day!

  “Napoleon Buonaparte has abdicated the throne of the world. ‘Excellent well.’ Methinks Sylla did better; for he revenged and resigned in the height of his sway, red with the slaughter of his foes — the finest instance of glorious contempt of the rascals upon record. Dioclesian did well too — Amurath not amiss, had he become aught except a dervise — Charles the Fifth but so so — but Napoleon, worst of all. What! wait till they were in his capital, and then talk of his readiness to give up what is already gone!! ‘What whining monk art thou — what holy cheat?’ ‘Sdeath! — Dionysius at Corinth was yet a king to this. The ‘Isle of Elba’ to retire to! — Well — if it had been Caprea, I should have marvelled less. ‘I see men’s minds are but a parcel of their fortunes.’ I am utterly bewildered and confounded.

  “I don’t know — but I think I, even I (an insect compared with this creature), have set my life on casts not a millionth part of this man’s. But, after all, a crown may be not worth dying for. Yet, to outlive Lodi for this!!! Oh that Juvenal or Johnson could rise from the dead! ‘Expende — quot libras in duce summo invenies?’ I knew they were light in the balance of mortality; but I thought their living dust weighed more carats. Alas! this imperial diamond hath a flaw in it, and is now hardly fit to stick in a glazier’s pencil: — the pen of the historian won’t rate it worth a ducat.

  “Psha! ‘something too much of this.’ But I won’t give him up even now; though all his admirers have, ‘like the thanes, fallen from him.’

  “April 10.

  “I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am sure of, that I never am long in the society even of her I love, (God knows too well, and the devil probably too,) without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library. Even in the day, I send away my carriage oftener than I use or abuse it. Per esempio, — I have not stirred out of these rooms for these four days past: but I have sparred for exercise (windows open) with Jackson an hour daily, to attenuate and keep up the ethereal part of me. The more violent the fatigue, the better my spirits for the rest of the day; and then, my evenings have that calm nothingness of languor, which I most delight in. To-day I have boxed one hour — written an ode to Napoleon Buonaparte — copied it — eaten six biscuits — drunk four bottles of soda water — redde away the rest of my time — besides giving poor * * a world of advice about this mistress of his, who is plaguing him into a phthisic and intolerable tediousness. I am a pretty fellow truly to lecture about ‘the sect.’ No matter, my counsels are all thrown away.

  “April 19. 1814.

  “There is ice at both poles, north and south — all extremes are the same — misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only, — to the emperor and the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. There is, to be sure, a damned insipid medium — an equinoctial line — no one knows where, except upon maps and measurement.

  “‘And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.’

  I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in Ipecacuanha,— ‘that the Bourbons are restored!!!’— ‘Hang up philosophy.’ To be sure, I have long despised myself and man, but I never spat in the face of my species before— ‘O fool! I shall go mad.’”

  The perusal of this singular Journal having made the reader acquainted with the chief occurrences that marked the present period of his history — the publication of The Corsair, the attacks upon him in the newspapers, &c. — there only remains for me to add his correspondence at the same period, by which the moods and movements of his mind, during these events, will be still further illustrated.

  TO MR. MURRAY.

  “Sunday, Jan. 2. 1814.

  “Excuse this dirty paper — it is the penultimate half-sheet of a quire. Thanks for your book and the Ln. Chron., which I return. The Corsair is copied, and now at Lord Holland’s; but I wish Mr. Gifford to have it to-night.

  “Mr. Dallas is very perverse; so that I have offended both him and you, when I really meaned to do good, at least to one, and certainly not to annoy either. But I shall manage him, I hope. — I am pretty confident of the Tale itself; but one cannot be sure. If I get it from Lord Holland, it shall be sent.

  “Yours,” &c.

  TO MR. MURRAY.

  [“Jan. 1814.]

  “I will answer your letter this evening; in the mean time, it may be sufficient to say, that there was no intention on my part to annoy you, but merely to serve Dallas, and also to rescue myself from a possible imputation that I had other objects than fame in writing so frequently. Whenever I avail myself of any profit arising from my pen, depend upon it, it is not for my own convenience; at least it never has been so, and I hope never will.

  “P.S. I shall answer this evening, and will set all right about Dallas. I thank you for your expressions of personal regard, which I can assure you I do not lightly value.”

  LETTER 155. TO MR. MOORE.

  “January 6. 1814.

  “I have got a devil of a long story in the press, entitled ‘The Corsair,’ in the regular heroic measure. It is a pirate’s isle, peopled with my own creatures, and you may easily suppose they do a world of mischief through the three cantos. Now for your dedication — if you will accept it. This is positively my last experiment on public literary opinion, till I turn my thirtieth year, — if so be I flourish until that downhill period. I have a confidence for you — a perplexing one to me, and, just at present, in a state of abeyance in itself.

  “However, we shall see. In the mean time, you may amuse yourself with my suspense, and put all the justices of peace in requisition, in case I come into your county with ‘hackbut bent.’

 
“Seriously, whether I am to hear from her or him, it is a pause, which I shall fill up with as few thoughts of my own as I can borrow from other people. Any thing is better than stagnation; and now, in the interregnum of my autumn and a strange summer adventure, which I don’t like to think of, (I don’t mean * *’s, however, which is laughable only,) the antithetical state of my lucubrations makes me alive, and Macbeth can ‘sleep no more:’ — he was lucky in getting rid of the drowsy sensation of waking again.

  “Pray write to me. I must send you a copy of the letter of dedication. When do you come out? I am sure we don’t clash this time, for I am all at sea, and in action, — and a wife, and a mistress, &c.

  “Thomas, thou art a happy fellow; but if you wish us to be so, you must come up to town, as you did last year: and we shall have a world to say, and to see, and to hear. Let me hear from you.

  “P.S. Of course you will keep my secret, and don’t even talk in your sleep of it. Happen what may, your dedication is ensured, being already written; and I shall copy it out fair to-night, in case business or amusement — Amant alterna Camænæ.”

  TO MR. MURRAY.

  “Jan. 7. 1814.

  “You don’t like the dedication — very well; there is another: but you will send the other to Mr. Moore, that he may know I had written it. I send also mottoes for the cantos. I think you will allow that an elephant may be more sagacious, but cannot be more docile.

  “Yours, BN.

  “The name is again altered to Medora”

  LETTER 156. TO MR. MOORE.

  “January 8. 1814.

  “As it would not be fair to press you into a dedication, without previous notice, I send you two, and I will tell you why two. The first, Mr. M., who sometimes takes upon him the critic (and I bear it from astonishment), says, may do you harm — God forbid! — this alone makes me listen to him. The fact is, he is a damned Tory, and has, I dare swear, something of self, which I cannot divine, at the bottom of his objection, as it is the allusion to Ireland to which he objects. But he be d —— d — though a good fellow enough (your sinner would not be worth a d —— n).