ÆT. 26. LORD ERSKINE.-FUSELI'S EZZELIN BRACCIAFERRO. 233 common enough—that excited my atten- soul about her—and her colour changestion. and there is that shyness of the antelope "The last bird I ever fired at was an (which I delight in) in her manner so much, eaglet, on the shore of the Gulf of Lepanto, that I observed her more than I did any other near Vostitza. It was only wounded, and woman in the rooms, and only looked at any I tried to save it, the eye was so bright; thing else when I thought she might perbut it pined, and died in a few days; and Iceive and feel embarrassed by my scrutiny. never did since, and never will, attempt the After all, there may be something of assocideath of another bird. I wonder what putation in this. She is a friend of Augusta's, these two things into my head just now? I and whatever she loves I can't help liking. have been reading Sismondi, and there is Her mother, the Marchioness, talked to nothing there that could induce the recol- me a little; and I was twenty times on the lection. point of asking her to introduce me to sa fille, but I stopped short. This comes of that affray with the Carlisles. 66 "I am mightily taken with Braccio di Montone, Giovanni Galeazzo, and Eccelino. But the last is not Bracciaferro (of the same Earl Grey told me laughingly of a paraname), Count of Ravenna, whose history I graph in the last Moniteur, which has stated, want to trace. There is a fine engraving in among other symptoms of rebellion, some Lavater, from a picture by Fuseli, of that particulars of the sensation occasioned in all Ezzelin, over the body of Meduna, punished our government gazettes by the 'tear' lines, by him for a hitch in her constancy during-only amplifying, in its re-statement, an 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 3 - 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.5 [Charlotte Leveson.] They say she is not pretty. I don't know-every thing is pretty that pleases; but there is an air of [In his Diary for 1821, Lord Byron says, "I saw a flight of twelve eagles (Hobhouse says they were vultures, at least in conversation), and I seized the omen. On the day before, I composed the lines to Parnassus, and on beholding the birds had a hope that Apollo had accepted my homage.". -See Works, p. 11.] 2 [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 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 7, 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, brain, my Lord,' was the answer; for I invented it."" - Vol. i. p. 403.] 3 Daughter of William-Henry Cavendish, third Duke of Portland, married, in 1793, to Charles Greville, Esq.] 4 [Now Duchess Countess of Sutherland: 1838.] 3 [Now Countess of Surrey: 1838.] 6 ["On vient de publier à Londres une caricature insolente et grossière contre le mariage projeté de la Princesse de Galles avec le Prince d'Orange. En commentant cette gravure, le Town Talk a osé avancer, que la Princesse Charlotte déteste son époux futur, et que ses veritables affections étaient sacrifiées à des vues politiques. Le Lord Byron a fait de ce bruit populaire le sujet d'une romance."— Moniteur.] 7 [In 1808 Albany House in Piccadilly, long occupied by the Duke of York and Albany, was converted into sets of chambers for single gentlemen, and the gardens behind were also built over with additional suites of rooms. Those of Lord Byron were in the original house on the ground floor, No. 2.] have been very abstemious, regular in exercise, and yet very unwell. 46 Yesterday, dined tête-à-tête at the Cocoa1 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. 66 - 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.'2 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.'s I must set about some employment soon; my heart begins to eat itself again. down to the dirtiest jackal—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? "I mark this day! "Saturday, April 9. 1814. 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. 5 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 Sdeath! what holy cheat?' Dionysius at Corinth was yet a king to this. The Isle of Elba' to retire to!-Wellif 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 ?'6 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: He dared depart in utter scorn Of men that such a yoke had borne, Works, p. 461.] 6 [" Produce the urn that Hannibal contains, And weigh the mighty dust which yet remains: And is this all?" Gifford's Juvenal, vol. ii. p. 26.] 7 ["In the Statistical Account of Scotland, I find that Sir John Paterson had the curiosity to collect, and weigh, the ashes of a person discovered a few years since in the parish of Eccles. Wonderful to relate, he found the whole did not exceed in weight one ounce and a half! And is this all! Alas! the quot libras itself is a satirical exaggeration."— Ib.] 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 timebesides 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. 44 * 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 I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me 1 "As much company," says Pope, as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better, and would rather be employed in reading than in the most agreeable conversation." He had made a present of the copyright of " The Corsair" to Mr. Dallas, who thus describes the manner in which the gift was bestowed: --" On the 28th of December, I called in the morning on Lord Byron, whom I found composing' The Corsair.' He had been working upon it but a few days, and he read me the portion he had written. After some observations he said, I have a great mind-I will.' He then added, that he should 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.'" "Sunday, Jan. 2. 1814. "Excuse this dirty paper- - it is the penultimate half-sheet of a quire. Thanks for your books 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. 2 But I shall finish it soon, and asked me to accept of the copyright. I was much surprised. He had, before he was aware of the value of his works, declared that he never would take money for them, and that I should have the whole advantage of all he wrote. This declaration became morally void when the question was about thousands, instead of a few hundreds; and I perfectly agree with the admired and admirable author of Waverley, that the wise and good accept not gifts which are made in heat of blood, and which may be after repented of.' - I felt this on the sale of Childe Harold,' and observed it to him. The copyright of The Giaour' and The "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. 66 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 amuse· Amant alterna Camœnæ," ment TO MR. MURRAY. "Jan. 7. 1814. "January 6. 1814. "You don't like the dedication- very "I have got a devil of a long story in the well; there is another: but you will send press, entitled The Corsair,' in the regular the other to Mr. Moore, that he may know I heroic measure. It is a pirate's isle, peopled had written it. I send also mottoes for the with my own creatures, and you may easily cantos. I think you will allow that an elesuppose they do a world of mischief through phant may be more sagacious, but cannot be the three cantos. Now for more docile. dedication your - 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.' Bride of Abydos' remained undisposed of, though the poems were selling rapidly, nor had I the slightest notion that he would ever again give me a copyright. But as he continued in the resolution of not appropriating the sale of his works to his own use, I did not scruple to accept that of The Corsair,' and I thanked him. He asked me to call and hear the portions read as he wrote them. I went every morning, and was astonished at the rapidity of his composition. He gave me the poem 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). complete on New-year's day, 1814, saying, that my acceptance of it gave him great pleasure, and that I was fully at liberty to publish it with any bookseller I pleased, independent of the profit." Out of this last-mentioned permission arose the momentary embarrassment between the noble poet and his publisher, to which the above notes allude. It had been at first Genevra,- not Francesca, as Mr. Dallas asserts. ÆT. 26. THE CORSAIR. 237 "P. S.-Pray report my best acknowledgments to Mr. Gifford in any words that may best express how truly his kindness obliges I won't bore him with lip thanks or me. "Take your choice; - no one, save he and Mr. Dallas, has seen either, and D. is quite on my side, and for the first. If I can but testify to you and the world how truly I admire and esteem you, I shall be quite satis-notes.” fied. As to prose, I don't know Addison's from Johnson's; but I will try to mend my cacology. Pray perpend, pronounce, and don't be offended with either. "My last epistle would probably put you in a fidget. But the devil, who ought to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my letter to the right place. "Is it not odd?-the very fate I said she had escaped from **, she has now undergone from the worthy **. Like Mr. Fitzgerald, shall I not lay claim to the character of Vates?'-as he did in the Morning Herald for prophesying the fall of Buonaparte, who, by the by, I don't think is yet fallen. I wish he would rally and rout your legitimate sovereigns, having a mortal hate to all royal entails. But I am scrawling a treatise. Good night. Ever, &c." - "I had written to you a long letter of dedication, which I suppress, because, though it contained something relating to you which every one had been glad to hear, yet there was too much about politics, and poesy, and all things whatsoever, ending with that topic on which most men are fluent, and none very amusing-one's self. It might have been re-written but to what purpose? My praise could add nothing to your well-earned and firmlyestablished fame; and with my most hearty admiration of your talents, and delight in your conversation, you are already acquainted. In availing myself of your friendly TO MR. Moore. January 13. 1814. "I have but a moment to write, but all is as it should be. I have said really far short of my opinion, but if you think enough, I am content. Will you return the proof by the post, as I leave town on Sunday, and have no other corrected copy? I put servant,' as being less familiar before the public; because I don't like presuming upon our friendship to infringe upon forms. As to the other word, you may be sure it is one I cannot hear or repeat too often. "I write in an agony of haste and confusion. Perdonate." LETTER 157. TO MR. MURRAY. "January 15. 1814. "Before any proof goes to Mr. Gifford, it may be as well to revise this, where there are words omitted, faults committed, and the devil knows what. As to the dedication, I another word shall move unless for a better. cut out the parenthesis of Mr.3, but not Mr. Moore has seen, and decidedly preferred the part your Tory bile sickens at. If every syllable were a rattle-snake, or every letter a pestilence, they should not be expunged. Let those who cannot swallow chew the expressions on Ireland; or though Mr. Croker should array himself in all his terrors against them, I care for none of you, except Gifford; and he won't abuse me, except I deserve it- which will at least reconcile me to his justice. As to the poems in Hobhouse's volume, the translation from the Romaic is well enough; but the best of the other volume (of mine, I mean) have been already printed. But do as you please — only as I shall be absent when you come permission to inscribe this poem to you, I can only wish "Yours, most affectionately and faithfully, 2 [William-Thomas Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the "Small Beer Poet." For more than thirty years this harmless poetaster was an attendant at the anniversary dinners of the Literary Fund, and constantly honoured the occasion with an Ode, which he himself recited with most comical dignity of emphasis. He died in 1820. See the opening lines of "English Bards," &c.] 3 He had at first, after the words "Scott alone," inserted, in a parenthesis,-" He will excuse the Mr.'we do not say Mr. Cæsar.'" |