Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works

by Thomas Moore

  “I have now written to you at least six letters, or lettered, and all I have received in return is a note about the length you used to write from Bury Street to St. James’s Street, when we used to dine with Rogers, and talk laxly, and go to parties, and hear poor Sheridan now and then. Do you remember one night he was so tipsy that I was forced to put his cocked hat on for him, — for he could not, — and I let him down at Brookes’s, much as he must since have been let down into his grave. Heigh ho! I wish I was drunk — but I have nothing but this d —— d barley-water before me.

  “I am still in love, — which is a dreadful drawback in quitting a place, and I can’t stay at Venice much longer. What I shall do on this point I don’t know. The girl means to go with me, but I do not like this for her own sake. I have had so many conflicts in my own mind on this subject, that I am not at all sure they did not help me to the fever I mentioned above. I am certainly very much attached to her, and I have cause to be so, if you knew all. But she has a child; and though, like all the ‘children of the sun,’ she consults nothing but passion, it is necessary I should think for both; and it is only the virtuous, like * * * *, who can afford to give up husband and child, and live happy ever after.

  “The Italian ethics are the most singular ever met with. The perversion, not only of action, but of reasoning, is singular in the women. It is not that they do not consider the thing itself as wrong, and very wrong, but love (the sentiment of love) is not merely an excuse for it, but makes it an actual virtue, provided it is disinterested, and not a caprice, and is confined to one object. They have awful notions of constancy; for I have seen some ancient figures of eighty pointed out as amorosi of forty, fifty, and sixty years’ standing. I can’t say I have ever seen a husband and wife so coupled.

  “Ever, &c.

  “P.S. Marianna, to whom I have just translated what I have written on our subject to you, says— ‘If you loved me thoroughly, you would not make so many fine reflections, which are only good forbirsi i scarpi,’ — that is, ‘to clean shoes withal,’ — a Venetian proverb of appreciation, which is applicable to reasoning of all kinds.”

  LETTER 268. TO MR. MURRAY.

  “Venice, March 25. 1817.

  “Your letter and enclosure are safe; but ‘English gentlemen’ are very rare — at least in Venice. I doubt whether there are at present any, save, the consul and vice-consul, with neither of whom I have the slightest acquaintance. The moment I can pounce upon a witness, I will send the deed properly signed: but must he necessarily be genteel? Venice is not a place where the English are gregarious; their pigeon-houses are Florence, Naples, Rome, &c.; and to tell you the truth, this was one reason why I stayed here till the season of the purgation of Rome from these people, which is infected with them at this time, should arrive. Besides, I abhor the nation and the nation me; it is impossible for me to describe my own sensation on that point, but it may suffice to say, that, if I met with any of the race in the beautiful parts of Switzerland, the most distant glimpse or aspect of them poisoned the whole scene, and I do not choose to have the Pantheon, and St. Peter’s, and the Capitol, spoiled for me too. This feeling may be probably owing to recent events; but it does not exist the less, and while it exists, I shall conceal it as little as any other.

  “I have been seriously ill with a fever, but it is gone. I believe or suppose it was the indigenous fever of the place, which comes every year at this time, and of which the physicians change the name annually, to despatch the people sooner. It is a kind of typhus, and kills occasionally. It was pretty smart, but nothing particular, and has left me some debility and a great appetite. There are a good many ill at present, I suppose, of the same.

  “I feel sorry for Horner, if there was any thing in the world to make him like it; and still more sorry for his friends, as there was much to make them regret him. I had not heard of his death till by your letter.

  “Some weeks ago I wrote to you my acknowledgments of Walter Scott’s article. Now I know it to be his, it cannot add to my good opinion of him, but it adds to that of myself. He, and Gifford, and Moore, are the only regulars I ever knew who had nothing of the garrison about their manner: no nonsense, nor affectations, look you! As for the rest whom I have known, there was always more or less of the author about them — the pen peeping from behind the ear, and the thumbs a little inky, or so.

  “‘Lalla Rookh’ — you must recollect that, in the way of title, the ‘Giaour’ has never been pronounced to this day; and both it and Childe Harold sounded very facetious to the blue-bottles of wit and humour about town, till they were taught and startled into a proper deportment; and therefore Lalla Rookh, which is very orthodox and oriental, is as good a title as need be, if not better. I could wish rather that he had not called it ‘a Persian Tale;’ firstly, because we have had Turkish Tales, and Hindoo Tales, and Assyrian Tales, already; and tale is a word of which it repents me to have nicknamed poesy. ‘Fable’ would be better; and, secondly, ‘Persian Tale’ reminds one of the lines of Pope on Ambrose Phillips; though no one can say, to be sure, that this tale has been ‘turned for half-a-crown;’ still it is as well to avoid such clashings. ‘Persian Story’ — why not? — or Romance? I feel as anxious for Moore as I could do for myself, for the soul of me, and I would not have him succeed otherwise than splendidly, which I trust he will do.

  “With regard to the ‘Witch Drama,’ I sent all the three acts by post, week after week, within this last month. I repeat that I have not an idea if it is good or bad. If bad, it must, on no account, be risked in publication; if good, it is at your service I value it at three hundred guineas, or less, if you like it. Perhaps, if published, the best way will be to add it to your winter volume, and not publish separately. The price will show you I don’t pique myself upon it; so speak out. You may put it in the fire, if you like, and Gifford don’t like.

  “The Armenian Grammar is published — that is, one; the other is still in MS. My illness has prevented me from moving this month past, and I have done nothing more with the Armenian.

  “Of Italian or rather Lombard manners, I could tell you little or nothing: I went two or three times to the governor’s conversazione, (and if you go once, you are free to go always,) at which, as I only saw very plain women, a formal circle, in short a worst sort of rout, I did not go again. I went to Academie and to Madame Albrizzi’s, where I saw pretty much the same thing, with the addition of some literati, who are the same blue, by —— , all the world over. I fell in love the first week with Madame * *, and I have continued so ever since, because she is very pretty and pleasing, and talks Venetian, which amuses me, and is naïve.

  “Very truly, &c.

  “P.S. Pray send the red tooth-powder by a safe hand, and speedily.

  “To hook the reader, you, John Murray, Have publish’d ‘Anjou’s Margaret,’ Which won’t be sold off in a hurry (At least, it has not been as yet); And then, still further to bewilder ’em, Without remorse you set up ‘Ilderim;’ So mind you don’t get into debt, Because as how, if you should fail, These books would be but baddish bail. And mind you do not let escape These rhymes to Morning Post or Perry, Which would be very treacherous — very, And get me into such a scrape! For, firstly, I should have to sally, All in my little boat, against a Gally; And, should I chance to slay the Assyrian wight, Have next to combat with the female knight.

  “You may show these matters to Moore and the select, but not to the profane; and tell Moore, that I wonder he don’t write to one now and then.”

  LETTER 269. TO MR. MOORE.

  “Venice, March 31. 1817.

  “You will begin to think my epistolary offerings (to whatever altar you please to devote them) rather prodigal. But until you answer, I shall not abate, because you deserve no better. I know you are well, because I hear of your voyaging to London and the environs, which I rejoice to learn, because your note alarmed me by the purgation and phlebotomy therein prognosticated. I also hear of your being in the press; all which, methinks, m
ight have furnished you with subject-matter for a middle-sized letter, considering that I am in foreign parts, and that the last month’s advertisements and obituary would be absolute news to me from your Tramontane country.

  “I told you, in my last, I have had a smart fever. There is an epidemic in the place; but I suspect, from the symptoms, that mine was a fever of my own, and had nothing in common with the low, vulgar typhus, which is at this moment decimating Venice, and which has half unpeopled Milan, if the accounts be true. This malady has sorely discomfited my serving men, who want sadly to be gone away, and get me to remove. But, besides my natural perversity, I was seasoned in Turkey, by the continual whispers of the plague, against apprehensions of contagion. Besides which, apprehension would not prevent it; and then I am still in love, and ‘forty thousand’ fevers should not make me stir before my minute, while under the influence of that paramount delirium. Seriously speaking, there is a malady rife in the city — a dangerous one, they say. However, mine did not appear so, though it was not pleasant.

  “This is Passion-week — and twilight — and all the world are at vespers. They have an eternal churching, as in all Catholic countries, but are not so bigoted as they seem to be in Spain.

  “I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry that you are leaving Mayfield. Had I ever been at Newstead during your stay there, (except during the winter of 1813-14, when the roads were impracticable,) we should have been within hail, and I should like to have made a giro of the Peak with you. I know that country well, having been all over it when a boy. Was you ever in Dovedale? I can assure you there are things in Derbyshire as noble as Greece or Switzerland. But you had always a lingering after London, and I don’t wonder at it. I liked it as well as any body, myself, now and then.

  “Will you remember me to Rogers? whom I presume to be flourishing, and whom I regard as our poetical papa. You are his lawful son, and I the illegitimate. Has he begun yet upon Sheridan? If you see our republican friend, Leigh Hunt, pray present my remembrances. I saw about nine months ago that he was in a row (like my friend Hobhouse) with the Quarterly Reviewers. For my part, I never could understand these quarrels of authors with critics and with one another. ‘For God’s sake, gentlemen, what do they mean?’

  “What think you of your countryman, Maturin? I take some credit to myself for having done my best to bring out Bertram; but I must say my colleagues were quite as ready and willing. Walter Scott, however, was the first who mentioned him, which he did to me, with great commendation, in 1815; and it is to this casualty, and two or three other accidents, that this very clever fellow owed his first and well-merited public success. What a chance is fame!

  “Did I tell you that I have translated two Epistles? — a correspondence between St. Paul and the Corinthians, not to be found in our version, but the Armenian — but which seems to me very orthodox, and I have done it into scriptural prose English.

  “Ever,” &c.

  LETTER 270. TO MR. MURRAY.

  “Venice, April 2. 1817.

  “I sent you the whole of the Drama at three several times, act by act, in separate covers. I hope that you have, or will receive, some or the whole of it.

  “So Love has a conscience. By Diana! I shall make him take back the box, though it were Pandora’s. The discovery of its intrinsic silver occurred on sending it to have the lid adapted to admit Marianna’s portrait. Of course I had the box remitted in statu quo, and had the picture set in another, which suits it (the picture) very well. The defaulting box is not touched, hardly, and was not in the man’s hands above an hour.

  “I am aware of what you say of Otway; and am a very great admirer of his, — all except of that maudlin b — h of chaste lewdness and blubbering curiosity, Belvidera, whom I utterly despise, abhor, and detest. But the story of Marino Faliero is different, and, I think, so much finer, that I wish Otway had taken it instead: the head conspiring against the body for refusal of redress for a real injury, — jealousy — treason, with the more fixed and inveterate passions (mixed with policy) of an old or elderly man — the devil himself could not have a finer subject, and he is your only tragic dramatist.

  “There is still, in the Doge’s palace, the black veil painted over Faliero’s picture, and the staircase whereon he was first crowned Doge, and subsequently decapitated. This was the thing that most struck my imagination in Venice — more than the Rialto, which I visited for the sake of Shylock; and more, too, than Schiller’s ‘Armenian,’ a novel which took a great hold of me when a boy. It is also called the ‘Ghost Seer,’ and I never walked down St. Mark’s by moonlight without thinking of it, and ‘at nine o’clock he died!’ — But I hate things all fiction; and therefore the Merchant and Othello have no great associations to me: but Pierre has. There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a liar.

  “Maturin’s tragedy. — By your account of him last year to me, he seemed a bit of a coxcomb, personally. Poor fellow! to be sure, he had had a long seasoning of adversity, which is not so hard to bear as t’other thing. I hope that this won’t throw him back into the ‘slough of Despond.’

  “You talk of ‘marriage;’ — ever since my own funeral, the word makes me giddy, and throws me into a cold sweat. Pray, don’t repeat it.

  “You should close with Madame de Staël. This will be her best work, and permanently historical; it is on her father, the Revolution, and Buonaparte, &c. Bunstetten told me in Switzerland it was very great. I have not seen it myself, but the author often. She was very kind to me at Copet.

  “There have been two articles in the Venice papers, one a Review of Glenarvon * * * *, and the other a Review of Childe Harold, in which it proclaims me the most rebellious and contumacious admirer of Buonaparte now surviving in Europe. Both these articles are translations from the Literary Gazette of German Jena.

  “Tell me that Walter Scott is better. I would not have him ill for the world. I suppose it was by sympathy that I had my fever at the same time.

  “I joy in the success of your Quarterly, but I must still stick by the Edinburgh; Jeffrey has done so by me, I must say, through every thing, and this is more than I deserved from him. I have more than once acknowledged to you by letter the ‘Article’ (and articles); say that you have received the said letters, as I do not otherwise know what letters arrive. Both Reviews came, but nothing more. M.’s play and the extract not yet come.

  “Write to say whether my Magician has arrived, with all his scenes, spells, &c. Yours ever, &c.

  “It is useless to send to the Foreign Office: nothing arrives to me by that conveyance. I suppose some zealous clerk thinks it a Tory duty to prevent it.”

  LETTER 271. TO MR. ROGERS.

  “Venice, April 4. 1817.

  “It is a considerable time since I wrote to you last, and I hardly know why I should trouble you now, except that I think you will not be sorry to hear from me now and then. You and I were never correspondents, but always something better, which is, very good friends.

  “I saw your friend Sharp in Switzerland, or rather in the German territory (which is and is not Switzerland), and he gave Hobhouse and me a very good route for the Bernese Alps; however we took another from a German, and went by Clarens, the Dent de Jamen to Montbovon, and through Simmenthal to Thoun, and so on to Lauterbrounn; except that from thence to the Grindelwald, instead of round about, we went right over the Wengen Alps’ very summit, and being close under the Jungfrau, saw it, its glaciers, and heard the avalanches in all their glory, having famous weather therefor. We of course went from the Grindelwald over the Sheidech to Brientz and its lake; past the Reichenbach and all that mountain road, which reminded me of Albania and Ætolia and Greece, except that the people here were more civilised and rascally. I do not think so very much of Chamouni (except the source of the Arveron, to which we went up to the teeth of the ice, so as to look into and touch the cavity, against the warning of the guides, only one of whom would go with us so c
lose,) as of the Jungfrau, and the Pissevache, and Simplon, which are quite out of all mortal competition.

  “I was at Milan about a moon, and saw Monti and some other living curiosities, and thence on to Verona, where I did not forget your story of the assassination during your sojourn there, and brought away with me some fragments of Juliet’s tomb, and a lively recollection of the amphitheatre. The Countess Goetz (the governor’s wife here) told me that there is still a ruined castle of the Montecchi between Verona and Vicenza. I have been at Venice since November, but shall proceed to Rome shortly. For my deeds here, are they not written in my letters to the unreplying Thomas Moore? to him I refer you: he has received them all, and not answered one.

  “Will you remember me to Lord and Lady Holland? I have to thank the former for a book which. I have not yet received, but expect to reperuse with great pleasure on my return, viz. the 2d edition of Lope de Vega. I have heard of Moore’s forthcoming poem: he cannot wish himself more success than I wish and augur for him. I have also heard great things of ‘Tales of my Landlord,’ but I have not yet received them; by all accounts they beat even Waverley, &c., and are by the same author. Maturin’s second tragedy has, it seems, failed, for which I should think any body would be sorry. My health was very victorious till within the last month, when I had a fever. There is a typhus in these parts, but I don’t think it was that. However, I got well without a physician or drugs.

  “I forgot to tell you that, last autumn, I furnished Lewis with ‘bread and salt’ for some days at Diodati, in reward for which (besides his conversation) he translated ‘Goethe’s Faust’ to me by word of mouth, and I set him by the ears with Madame de Staël about the slave trade. I am indebted for many and kind courtesies to our Lady of Copet, and I now love her as much as I always did her works, of which I was and am a great admirer. When are you to begin with Sheridan? what are you doing, and how do you do? Ever very truly,” &c.