The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 by Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

L >> Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero >> The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

I hear you have been increasing his Majesty's Subjects, which in these
times of War and tribulation is really patriotic. Notwithstanding
Malthus [1] tells us that, were it not for Battle, Murder, and Sudden
death, we should be overstocked, I think we have latterly had a
redundance of these national benefits, and therefore I give you all
credit for your matronly behaviour.

I believe you know that for upwards of two years I have been rambling
round the Archipelago, and am returned just in time to know that I
might as well have staid away for any good I ever have done, or am
likely to do at home, and so, as soon as I have somewhat _repaired_ my
_irreparable_ affairs I shall een go abroad again, for I am heartily
sick of your climate and every thing it _rains_ upon, always save and
except _yourself_ as in _duty bound_.

I should be glad to see you here (as I think you have never seen the
place) if you could make it convenient. Murray is still like a Rock,
and will probably outlast some six Lords Byron, though in his 75th
Autumn. I took him with me to Portugal & sent him round by sea to
Gibraltar whilst I rode through the Interior of Spain, which was then
(1809) accessible.

You say you have much to communicate to me, let us have it by all
means, as I am utterly at a loss to guess; whatever it may be it will
meet with due attention.

Your trusty and well beloved cousin F. Howard [2] is married to a Miss
Somebody, I wish him joy on your account, and on his own, though
speaking generally I do not affect that Brood.

By the bye, I shall marry, if I can find any thing inclined to barter
money for rank within six months; after which I shall return to my
friends the Turks.

In the interim I am, Dear Madam,

[Signature cut out.]

[Footnote 1: The Rev. T. R. Malthus (1766-1834) published, in 1798, his
'Essay on the Principle of Population'.]

[Footnote 2: The Hon. Frederick Howard (see page 55 [Letter 19],
[Foot]note 1) married, August 6, 1811, Frances Susan Lambton, only
daughter of William Lambton, formerly M.P. for Durham.]

167.--To R. C. Dallas.

Newstead, August 21, 1811.

Your letter gives me credit for more acute feelings than I possess;
for though I feel tolerably miserable, yet I am at the same time
subject to a kind of hysterical merriment, or rather laughter without
merriment, which I can neither account for nor conquer, and yet I do
not feel relieved by it; but an indifferent person would think me in
excellent spirits. "We must forget these things," and have recourse to
our old selfish comforts, or rather comfortable selfishness.

I do not think I shall return to London immediately, and shall
therefore accept freely what is offered courteously--your mediation
between me and Murray. [1] I don't think my name will answer the
purpose, and you must be aware that my plaguy Satire will bring the
north and south Grub Streets down upon the _Pilgrimage_;--but,
nevertheless, if Murray makes a point of it, and you coincide with
him, I will do it daringly; so let it be entitled "_By the author of
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." My remarks on the Romaic, etc.,
once intended to accompany the _Hints from Horace_, shall go along
with the other, as being indeed more appropriate; also the smaller
poems now in my possession, with a few selected from those published
in Hobhouse's _Miscellany_. I have found amongst my poor mother's
papers all my letters from the East, and one in particular of some
length from Albania. From this, if necessary, I can work up a note or
two on that subject. As I kept no journal, the letters written on the
spot are the best. But of this anon, when we have definitively
arranged.

Has Murray shown the work to any one? He may--but I will have no
traps for applause. Of course there are little things I would wish to
alter, and perhaps the two stanzas of a buffooning cast on London's
Sunday are as well left out. I much wish to avoid identifying Childe
Harold's character with mine, and that, in sooth, is my second
objection to my name appearing in the title-page. When you have made
arrangements as to time, size, type, etc., favour me with a reply. I
am giving you an universe of trouble, which thanks cannot atone for. I
made a kind of prose apology for my scepticism at the head of the MS.,
which, on recollection, is so much more like an attack than a defence,
that, haply, it might better be omitted--perpend, pronounce. After
all, I fear Murray will be in a scrape with the orthodox; but I cannot
help it, though I wish him well through it. As for me, "I have supped
full of criticism," and I don't think that the "most dismal treatise"
will stir and rouse my "fell of hair" till "Birnam wood do come to
Dunsinane."

I shall continue to write at intervals, and hope you will pay me in
kind. How does Pratt get on, or rather get off, Joe Blackett's
posthumous stock? You killed that poor man amongst you, in spite of
your Ionian friend [2] and myself, who would have saved him from
Pratt, poetry, present poverty, and posthumous oblivion. Cruel
patronage! to ruin a man at his calling; but then he is a divine
subject for subscription and biography; and Pratt, who makes the most
of his dedications, has inscribed the volume to no less than five
families of distinction.

I am sorry you don't like Harry White: [3] with a great deal of cant,
which in him was sincere (indeed it killed him as you killed Joe
Blackett), certes there is poesy and genius. I don't say this on
account of my simile and rhymes; but surely he was beyond all the
Bloomfields [4] and Blacketts, and their collateral cobblers, whom
Lofft [5] and Pratt have or may kidnap from their calling into the
service of the trade. You must excuse my flippancy, for I am writing I
know not what, to escape from myself. Hobhouse is gone to Ireland. Mr.
Davies has been here on his way to Harrowgate.

You did not know Matthews: he was a man of the most astonishing
powers, as he sufficiently proved at Cambridge, by carrying off more
prizes and fellowships, against the ablest candidates, than any other
graduate on record; but a most decided atheist, indeed noxiously so,
for he proclaimed his principles in all societies. I knew him well,
and feel a loss not easily to be supplied to myself--to Hobhouse
never. Let me hear from you, and

Believe me, etc.

[Footnote 1: In 1793 John Murray the first (born 1745) died, leaving a
widow, two daughters, and one son, John Murray the second (1778-1843),
then a boy of fifteen. The bookselling and publishing business at 32,
Fleet Street, which the first John Murray had purchased in 1768 from
William Sandby, was for two years carried on by the chief assistant,
Samuel Highley. From 1795, when John Murray the second joined it, it was
conducted as a partnership, under the title of Murray and Highley. But
in 1803 John Murray cancelled the partnership, and started for himself
at 32, Fleet Street. Relieved from a timorous partner, he at once
displayed his shrewdness, energy, and literary enthusiasm. He rapidly
became, as Byron called him, "the [Greek (transliterated): Anax] of
Publishers," or, as he was nicknamed, "The Emperor of the West." In
February, 1809, he had launched the 'Quarterly Review'; in March, 1812,
he published 'Childe Harold'; in the following September, he moved to
50, Albemarle Street, the lease of which, with the stock, good will, and
copyrights, he purchased from William Miller (see page 319 [Letter 158],
[Foot]note 2 [1]). The remarkable position which the second John Murray
created for himself, has two aspects, one commercial, the other social.
He was not only the publisher, but the friend, of the most distinguished
men of the day; and he was both by reason, partly of his honourable
character, partly of his personal attractiveness. Sir Walter Scott,
writing, October 30, 1828, to Lockhart, speaks of Murray in words which
sum up his character:

"By all means do what the Emperor says. He is what Emperor Nap was
not, 'much a gentleman.'"

Murray was the first to divorce the business of publishing from that of
selling books; the first to see, as he wrote to Sir Walter Scott,
October 13, 1825 ('A Publisher and his Friends', vol. ii. p. 199), that

"the business of a publishing bookseller is not in his shop, or even
his connection, but in his brains."

Quick-tempered and warm-hearted, he was endowed with a strong sense of
humour, and a gift of felicitous expression, which made him at once an
admirable talker and an excellent letter-writer, and enabled him to hold
his own among the noted wits and brilliant men of letters whom he
gathered under his roof. A man of ideas more than a man of business, of
enterprise rather than of calculation, he was always on the watch for
new writers and new openings. But his imagination and impulsive
temperament were checked by his fine taste for sound literature, and
controlled by high principles in matters of trade. Thus he was saved
from those disastrous speculations which involved Scott in ruin, and
might otherwise have appealed with fatal force to his own sanguine
nature. His close relations with Byron, which began in 1811, and lasted
till the poet's death, are set forth in the numerous letters which
follow, and were never embittered even when he refused to continue the
publication of 'Don Juan'. Their names are inseparably associated in the
history of literature. A generous paymaster, he was also an hospitable
host. Round him gathers much of the literary history of a half-century
which includes such names as those of Scott, Byron, Southey, Coleridge,
Hallam, Milman, Mahon, Carlyle, Grote, Benjamin Disraeli, Sir Robert
Peel, Canning, and Mr. Gladstone. His literary dinners were famous, and
his drawing-room was the rallying-place of all that was witty and
agreeable in society. At the same time, he was the acknowledged head of
the publishing trade, unswerving in the rectitude of his commercial
dealings, and in the maintenance of the honourable traditions of his
most distinguished predecessors, as well as sincere in his enthusiasm
for English letters.]

[Footnote 2: Walter Rodwell Wright, author of 'Horae Ionicae, a Poem
descriptive of the Ionian Islands, and part of the adjacent coast of
Greece,' (1809), had been Consul-General of the Seven Islands. On his
return he became Recorder of Bury St. Edmund's. He was subsequently
President of the Court of Appeals in Malta, where he died in 1826. (See
Byron's address to him in 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers', lines
877-880.)]

[Footnote 3: Henry Kirke White (1785-1806) published 'Clifton Grove' and
other poems in 1803. He died at Cambridge in 1806. His 'Remains' were
published by Southey in 1807. (See 'English Bards', and Scotch
Reviewers', lines 831-848, and note 2.)]

[Footnote 4: The three brothers, George Bloomfield, a shoemaker,
Nathaniel, a tailor, and Robert, also a shoemaker, were the sons of a
tailor at Honington, in Suffolk, whose wife kept the village school.
(For further details as to George and Nathaniel, see 'English Bards, and
Scotch Reviewers', lines 765-798, and 'notes'.)

Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823) achieved a success with his 'Farmer's Boy'
(1800), of which thousands of copies were sold in England, and which was
translated into French and Italian. But however creditable the lines may
have been to the author, Byron's opinion of the merits of the poet was
the true one. Bloomfield's subsequent volumes, of which there were
seven, were inferior to 'The Farmer's Boy'. 'Good Tidings, or News from
the Farm' (1804), is perhaps the best known. A collected edition of
Bloomfield's 'Works' was published in 1824.]

[Footnote 5: Capel Lofft (1751-1824), educated at Eton and Cambridge,
was called to the Bar in 1775. Succeeding in 1781 to the family estates
near Bury St. Edmund's, he lived for some years at Troston Hall. Crabb
Robinson ('Diary', vol. i. p. 29) describes him, in 1795, as

"a gentleman of good family and estate--an author on an infinity of
subjects; his books were on Law, History, Poetry, Antiquities,
Divinity, and Politics. He was then an acting magistrate, having
abandoned the profession of the Bar. He was one of the numerous
answerers of Burke; and, in spite of a feeble voice and other
disadvantages, was an eloquent speaker."

His boyish figure, slovenly dress, and involved sentences were well
known on the platforms where he advocated parliamentary reform. On May
17, 1784, Johnson dined at Mr. Dilly's. Among the guests was

"Mr. Capel Lofft, who, though a most zealous Whig, has a mind so full
of learning and knowledge, and so much in exercise in various
exertions, and withal so much liberality, that the stupendous powers
of the literary Goliath, though they did not frighten this little
David of popular spirit, could not but excite his admiration."

Lofft held strong opinions in favour of the French Revolution, which he
admired. He, "Godwin, and Thelwall are the only three persons I know
(except Hazlitt) who grieve at the late events;" so writes Crabb
Robinson, after the battle of Waterloo ('Diary', vol. i. p. 491). He
published numerous works on law and politics, besides four volumes of
poetry: 'The Praises of Poetry, a Poem' (1775); 'Eudosia, or a Poem on
the Universe' (1781); 'The first and second Georgics of Virgil' (in
blank verse, 1803); 'Laura, or an Anthology of Sonnets' (1814). He also
edited Milton's 'Paradise Lost'. In November, 1798, Lofft read the
manuscript of 'The Farmer's Boy', written by Robert Bloomfield in a
London garret, where he worked as a shoemaker. Interested in the poem
and the Suffolk poet, Lofft had it published in 1800, with cuts by
Bewick, and a preface by himself.]

168.--To Francis Hodgson.

Newstead Abbey, August 22, 1811.

You may have heard of the sudden death of my mother, and poor
Matthews, which, with that of Wingfield (of which I was not fully
aware till just before I left town, and indeed hardly believed it,)
has made a sad chasm in my connections. Indeed the blows followed each
other so rapidly that I am yet stupid from the shock; and though I do
eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh, at times, yet I can hardly
persuade myself that I am awake, did not every morning convince me
mournfully to the contrary.--I shall now wave the subject,--the dead
are at rest, and none but the dead can be so.

You will feel for poor Hobhouse,--Matthews was the "god of his
idolatry;" and if intellect could exalt a man above his fellows, no
one could refuse him preeminence. I knew him most intimately, and
valued him proportionably; but I am recurring--so let us talk of life
and the living.

If you should feel a disposition to come here, you will find "beef and
a sea-coal fire," and not ungenerous wine. Whether Otway's two other
requisites for an Englishman or not, I cannot tell, but probably one
of them [1].--Let me know when I may expect you, that I may tell you
when I go and when return. I have not yet been to Lancs. Davies has
been here, and has invited me to Cambridge for a week in October, so
that, peradventure, we may encounter glass to glass. His gaiety (death
cannot mar it) has done me service; but, after all, ours was a hollow
laughter.

You will write to me? I am solitary, and I never felt solitude irksome
before. Your anxiety about the critique on----'s book is amusing; as
it was anonymous, certes it was of little consequence: I wish it had
produced a little more confusion, being a lover of literary malice.
Are you doing nothing? writing nothing? printing nothing? why not your
Satire on Methodism? the subject (supposing the public to be blind to
merit) would do wonders. Besides, it would be as well for a destined
deacon to prove his orthodoxy.--It really would give me pleasure to
see you properly appreciated. I say _really_, as, being an author, my
humanity might be suspected.

Believe me, dear H., yours always.

[Footnote 1:

"Give but an Englishman his whore and ease,
Beef and a sea-coal fire, he's yours for ever."

'Venice Preserved', act ii. sc. 3]

APPENDIX I.

REVIEW OF WORDSWORTH'S POEMS,

2 VOLS. 1807.

(From 'Monthly Literary Recreations' for July, 1807.)

The volumes before us are by the author of Lyric Ballads, a collection
which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public
applause. The characteristics of Mr. Wordsworth's muse are simple and
flowing, though occasionally inharmonious verse; strong, and sometimes
irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments.
Though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the
poems possess a native elegance, natural and unaffected, totally devoid
of the tinsel embellishments and abstract hyperboles of several
contemporary sonneteers. The last sonnet in the first volume, p. 152, is
perhaps the best, without any novelty in the sentiments, which we hope
are common to every Briton at the present crisis; the force and
expression is that of a genuine poet, feeling as he writes--

Another year! another deadly blow!
Another mighty empire overthrown!
And we are left, or shall be left, alone--
The last that dares to struggle with the foe.
'Tis well!--from this day forward we shall know
That in ourselves our safety must be sought,
That by our own right-hands it must be wrought;
That we must stand unprop'd, or be laid low.
O dastard! whom such foretaste doth not cheer!
We shall exult, if they who rule the land
Be men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, valiant, not a venal band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand.

The song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, the Seven Sisters, the
Affliction of Margaret----of----, possess all the beauties, and few
of the defects, of the writer: the following lines from the last are in
his first style:--

"Ah! little doth the young one dream,
When full of play and childish cares,
What power hath e'en his wildest scream,
Heard by his mother unawares:
He knows it not, he cannot guess:
Years to a mother bring distress,
But do not make her love the less."

The pieces least worthy of the author are those entitled "Moods of my
own Mind." We certainly wish these "Moods" had been less frequent, or
not permitted to occupy a place near works which only make their
deformity more obvious; when Mr. W. ceases to please, it is by
"abandoning" his mind to the most commonplace ideas, at the same time
clothing them in language not simple, but puerile. What will any reader
or auditor, out of the nursery, say to such namby-pamby as "Lines
written at the Foot of Brother's Bridge"?

"The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest,
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising,
There are forty feeding like one.
Like an army defeated,
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill,
On the top of the bare hill."

"The ploughboy is whooping anon, anon," etc., etc., is in the same
exquisite measure. This appears to us neither more nor less than an
imitation of such minstrelsy as soothed our cries in the cradle, with
the shrill ditty of

"Hey de diddle,
The cat and the fiddle:
The cow jump'd over the moon,
The little dog laugh'd to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon."

On the whole, however, with the exception of the above, and other
INNOCENT odes of the same cast, we think these volumes display a genius
worthy of higher pursuits, and regret that Mr. W. confines his muse to
such trifling subjects. We trust his motto will be in future "Paulo
majora canamus." Many, with inferior abilities, have acquired a loftier
seat on Parnassus, merely by attempting strains in which Wordsworth is
more qualified to excel.

APPENDIX II.

ARTICLE FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW,

FOR JANUARY, 1808.

'Hours of Idleness; a Series of Poems, original and translated.'
By George Gordon, Lord Byron, a Minor. 8vo, pp. 200. Newark, 1807.

The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor
men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a
quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that
exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no
more get above or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant
water. As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly
forward in pleading minority. We have it in the title-page, and on the
very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of
his 'style'. Much stress is laid upon it in the preface; and the poems
are connected with this general statement of his case, by particular
dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now, the law
upon the point of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea
available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a
supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought
against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court
a certain quantity of poetry, and if judgment were given against him, it
is highly probable that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver
'for poetry' the contents of this volume. To this he might plead
'minority'; but, as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he
hath no right to sue, on that ground, for the price in good current
praise, should the goods be unmarketable.

This is our view of the law on the point; and, we dare to say, so will
it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in reality, all that he tells us about
his youth is rather with a view to increase our wonder than to soften
our censures. He possibly means to say, "See how a minor can write! This
poem was actually composed by a young man of eighteen, and this by one
of only sixteen!" But, alas! We all remember the poetry of Cowley at
ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far from hearing, with any degree of
surprise, that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving
school to his leaving college, inclusive, we really believe this to be
the most common of all occurrences; that it happens in the life of nine
men in ten who are educated in England; and that the tenth man writes
better verse than Lord Byron.

His other plea of privilege our author rather brings forward in order to
waive it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family
and ancestry--sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and, while giving
up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr.
Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit
should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration
only that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review,
beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry,
and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities,
which are great, to better account.

With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere
rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of
a certain number of feet,--nay, although (which does not always happen)
those feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately
upon the fingers,--is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him
to believe, that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is
necessary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in the present day, to
be read, must contain at least one thought, either in a little degree
different from the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We
put it to his candour, whether there is any thing so deserving the name
of poetry in verses like the following, written in 1806; and whether, if
a youth of eighteen could say any thing so uninteresting to his
ancestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it;--

"Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing
From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu!
Abroad or at home, your remembrance imparting
New courage, he'll think upon glory and you.

"Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation,
'Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret;
Far distant he goes, with the same emulation;
The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget.

"That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish;
He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown;
Like you will he live, or like you will he perish;
When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own."

Now, we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these
stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's volume.

Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets
have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to
see at his writing-master's) are odious. Gray's Ode on Eton College
should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "On a distant View
of the Village and School of Harrow."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30