by Thomas Moore
“But now this sheet is nearly cramm’d, So, if you will, I sha’n’t be shamm’d, And if you won’t, you may be damn’d, My Murray.
“These matters must be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you might not like to state to me personally, such as ‘heavy season’— ‘flat public’— ‘don’t go off’— ‘Lordship writes too much’ — won’t take advice’— ‘declining popularity’ — deduction for the trade’— ‘make very little’— ‘generally lose by him’— ‘pirated edition’— ‘foreign edition’— ‘severe criticisms,’ &c. with other hints and howls for an oration, which I leave Douglas, who is an orator, to answer.
“You can also state them more freely to a third person, as between you and me they could only produce some smart postscripts, which would not adorn our mutual archives.
“I am sorry for the Queen, and that’s more than you are.”
LETTER 446. TO MR. MOORE.
“Ravenna, August 24. 1821.
“Yours of the 5th only yesterday, while I had letters of the 8th from London. Doth the post dabble into our letters? Whatever agreement you make with Murray, if satisfactory to you, must be so to me. There need be no scruple, because, though I used sometimes to buffoon to myself, loving a quibble as well as the barbarian himself (Shakspeare, to wit)— ‘that, like a Spartan, I would sell my life as dearly as possible’ — it never was my intention to turn it to personal, pecuniary account, but to bequeath it to a friend — yourself — in the event of survivorship. I anticipated that period, because we happened to meet, and I urged you to make what was possible now by it, for reasons which are obvious. It has been no possible privation to me, and therefore does not require the acknowledgments you mention. So, for God’s sake, don’t consider it like * * *
“By the way, when you write to Lady Morgan, will you thank her for her handsome speeches in her book about my books? I do not know her address. Her work is fearless and excellent on the subject of Italy — pray tell her so — and I know the country. I wish she had fallen in with me, I could have told her a thing or two that would have confirmed her positions.
“I am glad you are satisfied with Murray, who seems to value dead lords more than live ones. I have just sent him the following answer to a proposition of his,
“For Orford and for Waldegrave, &c.
“The argument of the above is, that he wanted to ‘stint me of my sizings,’ as Lear says, — that is to say, not to propose an extravagant price for an extravagant poem, as is becoming. Pray take his guineas, by all means — I taught him that. He made me a filthy offer of pounds once, but I told him that, like physicians, poets must be dealt with in guineas, as being the only advantage poets could have in the association with them, as votaries of Apollo. I write to you in hurry and bustle, which I will expound in my next.
“Yours ever, &c.
“P.S. You mention something of an attorney on his way to me on legal business. I have had no warning of such an apparition. What can the fellow want? I have some lawsuits and business, but have not heard of any thing to put me to the expense of a travelling lawyer. They do enough, in that way, at home.
“Ah, poor Queen I but perhaps it is for the best, if Herodotus’s anecdote is to be believed.
“Remember me to any friendly Angles of our mutual acquaintance. What are you doing? Here I have had my hands full with tyrants and their victims. There never was such oppression, even in Ireland, scarcely!”
LETTER 447. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, August 31. 1821.
“I have received the Juans, which are printed so carelessly, especially the fifth Canto, as to be disgraceful to me, and not creditable to you. It really must be gone over again with the manuscript, the errors are so gross; — words added — changed — so as to make cacophony and nonsense. You have been careless of this poem because some of your squad don’t approve of it; but I tell you that it will be long before you see any thing half so good as poetry or writing. Upon what principle have you omitted the note on Bacon and Voltaire? and one of the concluding stanzas sent as an addition? because it ended, I suppose, with —
“And do not link two virtuous souls for life Into that moral centaur man and wife?
“Now, I must say, once for all, that I will not permit any human being to take such liberties with my writings because I am absent. I desire the omissions to be replaced (except the stanza on Semiramis) — particularly the stanza upon the Turkish marriages; and I request that the whole be carefully gone over with the MS.
“I never saw such stuff as is printed: — Gulleyaz instead of Gulbeyaz, &c. Are you aware that Gulbeyaz is a real name, and the other nonsense? I copied the Cantos out carefully, so that there is no excuse, as the printer read, or at least prints, the MS. of the plays without error.
“If you have no feeling for your own reputation, pray have some little for mine. I have read over the poem carefully, and I tell you, it is poetry. Your little envious knot of parson-poets may say what they please: time will show that I am not in this instance mistaken.
“Desire my friend Hobhouse to correct the press, especially of the last Canto, from the manuscript as it is. It is enough to drive one out of one’s reason to see the infernal torture of words from the original. For instance the line —
“And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves —
is printed
“And praise their rhymes, &c.
Also ‘precarious’ for ‘precocious;’ and this line, stanza 133.
“And this strong extreme effect to tire no longer.
Now do turn to the manuscript and see if I ever wrote such a line: it is not verse.
“No wonder the poem should fail (which, however, it won’t, you will see) with such things allowed to creep about it. Replace what is omitted, and correct what is so shamefully misprinted, and let the poem have fair play; and I fear nothing.
“I see in the last two numbers of the Quarterly a strong itching to assail me (see the review of ‘The Etonian’); let it, and see if they sha’n’t have enough of it. I do not allude to Gifford, who has always been my friend, and whom I do not consider as responsible for the articles written by others.
“You will publish the plays when ready. I am in such a humour about this printing of Don Juan so inaccurately, that I must close this.
“Yours.
“P.S. I presume that you have not lost the stanza to which I allude? It was sent afterwards: look over my letters and find it.”
LETTER 448. TO MR. MURRAY.
“The enclosed letter is written in bad humour, but not without provocation. However, let it (that is, the bad humour) go for little; but I must request your serious attention to the abuses of the printer, which ought never to have been permitted. You forget that all the fools in London (the chief purchasers of your publications) will condemn in me the stupidity of your printer. For instance, in the notes to Canto fifth, ‘the Adriatic shore of the Bosphorus’ instead of the Asiatic!! All this may seem little to you, so fine a gentleman with your ministerial connections, but it is serious to me, who am thousands of miles off, and have no opportunity of not proving myself the fool your printer makes me, except your pleasure and leisure, forsooth.
“The gods prosper you, and forgive you, for I can’t.”
LETTER 449. TO MR. MOORE.
“Ravenna, September 3. 1821.
“By Mr. Mawman (a paymaster in the corps, in which you and I are privates) I yesterday expedited to your address, under cover one, two paper books, containing the Giaour-nal, and a thing or two. It won’t all do — even for the posthumous public — but extracts from it may. It is a brief and faithful chronicle of a month or so — parts of it not very discreet, but sufficiently sincere. Mr. Mawman saith that he will, in person or per friend, have it delivered to you in your Elysian fields.
“If you have got the new Juans, recollect that there are some very gross printer’s blunders, p
articularly in the fifth Canto, — such as ‘praise’ for ‘pair’— ‘precarious’ for ‘precocious’— ‘Adriatic’ for ‘Asiatic’— ‘case’ for ‘chase’ — besides gifts of additional words and syllables, which make but a cacophonous rhythmus. Put the pen through the said, as I would mine through * *’s ears, if I were alongside him. As it is, I have sent him a rattling letter, as abusive as possible. Though he is publisher to the ‘Board of Longitude,’ he is in no danger of discovering it.
“I am packing for Pisa — but direct your letters here, till further notice. Yours ever,” &c.
One of the “paper-books” mentioned in this letter as intrusted to Mr. Mawman for me, contained a portion, to the amount of nearly a hundred pages, of a prose story, relating the adventures of a young Andalusian nobleman, which had been begun by him, at Venice, in 1817. The following passage is all I shall extract from this amusing Fragment: —
“A few hours afterwards we were very good friends, and a few days after she set out for Arragon, with my son, on a visit to her father and mother. I did not accompany her immediately, having been in Arragon before, but was to join the family in their Moorish château within a few weeks.
“During her journey I received a very affectionate letter from Donna Josepha, apprising me of the welfare of herself and my son. On her arrival at the château, I received another still more affectionate, pressing me, in very fond, and rather foolish, terms, to join her immediately. As I was preparing to set out from Seville, I received a third — this was from her father, Don Jose di Cardozo, who requested me, in the politest manner, to dissolve my marriage. I answered him with equal politeness, that I would do no such thing. A fourth letter arrived — it was from Donna Josepha, in which she informed me that her father’s letter was written by her particular desire. I requested the reason by return of post — she replied, by express, that as reason had nothing to do with the matter, it was unnecessary to give any — but that she was an injured and excellent woman. I then enquired why she had written to me the two preceding affectionate letters, requesting me to come to Arragon. She answered, that was because she believed me out of my senses — that, being unfit to take care of myself, I had only to set out on this journey alone, and making my way without difficulty to Don Jose di Cardozo’s, I should there have found the tenderest of wives and — a strait waistcoat.
“I had nothing to reply to this piece of affection but a reiteration of my request for some lights upon the subject. I was answered that they would only be related to the Inquisition. In the mean time, our domestic discrepancy had become a public topic of discussion: and the world, which always decides justly, not only in Arragon but in Andalusia, determined that I was not only to blame, but that all Spain could produce nobody so blamable. My case was supposed to comprise all the crimes which could, and several which could not, be committed, and little less than an auto-da-fé was anticipated as the result. But let no man say that we are abandoned by our friends in adversity — it was just the reverse. Mine thronged around me to condemn, advise, and console me with their disapprobation. — They told me all that was, would, or could be said on the subject. They shook their heads — they exhorted me — deplored me, with tears in their eyes, and — went to dinner.”
LETTER 450. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, September 4. 1821.
“By Saturday’s post, I sent you a fierce and furibund letter upon the subject of the printer’s blunders in Don Juan. I must solicit your attention to the topic, though my wrath hath subsided into sullenness.
“Yesterday I received Mr. —— , a friend of yours, and because he is a friend of yours; and that’s more than I would do in an English case, except for those whom I honour. I was as civil as I could be among packages even to the very chairs and tables, for I am going to Pisa in a few weeks, and have sent and am sending off my chattels. It regretted me that, my books and every thing being packed, I could not send you a few things I meant for you; but they were all sealed and baggaged, so as to have made it a month’s work to get at them again. I gave him an envelope, with the Italian scrap in it, alluded to in my Gilchrist defence. Hobhouse will make it out for you, and it will make you laugh, and him too, the spelling particularly. The ‘Mericani,’ of whom they call me the ‘Capo’ (or Chief), mean ‘Americans,’ which is the name given in Romagna to a part of the Carbonari; that is to say, to the popular part, the troops of the Carbonari. They are originally a society of hunters in the forest, who took the name of Americans, but at present comprise some thousands, &c.; but I shan’t let you further into the secret, which may be participated with the postmasters. Why they thought me their Chief, I know not: their Chiefs are like ‘Legion, being many. However, it is a post of more honour than profit, for, now that they are persecuted, it is fit that I should aid them; and so I have done, as far as my means would permit. They will rise again some day, for these fools of the government are blundering: they actually seem to know nothing; for they have arrested and banished many of their own party, and let others escape who are not their friends.
“What think’st thou of Greece?
“Address to me here as usual, till you hear further from me.
“By Mawman I have sent a Journal to Moore; but it won’t do for the public, — at least a great deal of it won’t; — parts may.
“I read over the Juans, which are excellent. Your squad are quite wrong; and so you will find by and by. I regret that I do not go on with it, for I had all the plan for several cantos, and different countries and climes. You say nothing of the note I enclosed to you, which will explain why I agreed to discontinue it (at Madame G — — ‘s request); but you are so grand, and sublime, and occupied, that one would think, instead of publishing for ‘the Board of Longitude,’ that you were trying to discover it.
“Let me hear that Gifford is better. He can’t be spared either by you or me.”
LETTER 451. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, September 12. 1821.
“By Tuesday’s post, I forwarded, in three packets, the drama of Cain in three acts, of which I request the acknowledgment when arrived. To the last speech of Eve, in the last act (i.e. where she curses Cain), add these three lines to the concluding one —
“May the grass wither from thy foot! the woods Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust A grave! the sun his light! and Heaven her God!
“There’s as pretty a piece of imprecation for you, when joined to the lines already sent, as you may wish to meet with in the course of your business. But don’t forget the addition of the above three lines, which are clinchers to Eve’s speech.
“Let me know what Gifford thinks (if the play arrives in safety); for I have a good opinion of the piece, as poetry; it is in my gay metaphysical style, and in the Manfred line.
“You must at least commend my facility and variety, when you consider what I have done within the last fifteen months, with my head, too, full of other and of mundane matters. But no doubt you will avoid saying any good of it, for fear I should raise the price upon you: that’s right: stick to business. Let me know what your other ragamuffins are writing, for I suppose you don’t like starting too many of your vagabonds at once. You may give them the start, for any thing I care.
“Why don’t you publish my Pulci — the best thing I ever wrote, — with the Italian to it? I wish I was alongside of you; nothing is ever done in a man’s absence; every body runs counter, because they can. If ever I do return to England, (which I sha’n’t, though,) I will write a poem to which ‘English Bards,’ &c. shall be new milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar. But I am not yet quite bilious enough: a season or two more, and a provocation or two, will wind me up to the point, and then have at the whole set!
“I have no patience with the sort of trash you send me out by way of books; except Scott’s novels, and three or four other things, I never saw such work, or works. Campbell is lecturing — Moore idling — S * * twaddling — W * * drivellin
g — C * * muddling — * * piddling — B * * quibbling, squabbling, and snivelling. * * will do, if he don’t cant too much, nor imitate Southey; the fellow has poesy in him; but he is envious, and unhappy, as all the envious are. Still he is among the best of the day. B * * C * * will do better by-and-by, I dare say, if he don’t get spoiled by green tea, and the praises of Pentonville and Paradise Row. The pity of these men is, that they never lived in high life, nor in solitude: there is no medium for the knowledge of the busy or the still world. If admitted into high life for a season, it is merely as spectators — they form no part of the mechanism thereof. Now Moore and I, the one by circumstances, and the other by birth, happened to be free of the corporation, and to have entered into its pulses and passions, quarum partes fuimus. Both of us have learnt by this much which nothing else could have taught us.
“Yours.
“P.S. I saw one of your brethren, another of the allied sovereigns of Grub Street, the other day, Mawman the Great, by whom I sent due homage to your imperial self. To-morrow’s post may perhaps bring a letter from you, but you are the most ungrateful and ungracious of correspondents. But there is some excuse for you, with your perpetual levee of politicians, parsons, scribblers, and loungers. Some day I will give you a poetical catalogue of them.”
LETTER 452. TO MR. MOORE.
“Ravenna, September 17. 1821.
“The enclosed lines, as you will directly perceive, are written by the Rev. W.L.B * *. Of course it is for him to deny them if they are not.
“Believe me yours ever and most affectionately,
“B.
“P.S. Can you forgive this? It is only a reply to your lines against my Italians. Of course I will stand by my lines against all men; but it is heart-breaking to see such things in a people as the reception of that unredeemed * * * * * * in an oppressed country. Your apotheosis is now reduced to a level with his welcome, and their gratitude to Grattan is cancelled by their atrocious adulation of this, &c. &c. &c.”