house, in the next box to me, and the next, and the next, were the most distinguished old and young Babylonians of quality;-so I burst out a laughing. It was really odd; Lady divorced-Lady ** and her daughter, Lady**, both divorceable-Mrs **, in the next, the like, and still nearer ! What an assemblage to me, who know all their histories. It was as if the house had been divided between your public and your understood courtesans;-but the Intriguantes much outnumbered the regular mercenaries. On the other side were only Pauline and her mother, and, next box to her, three of inferior note. Now, where lay the difference between her and mamma, and Lady ** and daughter? except that the two last may enter Carleton and any other house, and the two first are limited to the opera and b- -house. How I do delight in observing life as it really is! and myself, after all, the worst of any. But, no matter-I must avoid egotism, which, just now, would be no vanity. "I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called 'The Devil's Drive,'‡ the notion of which I took from Porson's Devil's Walk.' †These names are all left blank in the original. Of this strange, wild Poem, which extends to about 250 lines, the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever wrote, he presented to Lord Holland. Though with a good deal of vigour and imagination, it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed, wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of Mr Coleridge which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has attributed to Professor Porson. There are, however, some of the stanzas of "The Devil's Drive" well worth preserving. 1. The Devil retura'd to hell by two, And he staid at home till five; When he dined on some homicides done in ragoût, I walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night; 2. "And what shall I ride in!" quoth Lucifer, then"If I follow'd my taste, indeed, I should mount in a waggon of wounded men, But these will be furnish'd again and again, And at present my purpose is speed; To see my manor as much as I may, And watch that no souls shall be poach'd away. 3. "I have a state-coach at C-House, A chariot in Seymour-place; But they're lent to two friends, who make me amends And they handle their reins with such a grace, 4. "So now for the earth to take my chance." Then up to the earth sprung he; And making a jump from Moscow to France, And rested his hoof on a turnpike road, 5. But first as he flew, I forgot to say, And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare, But the softest note that sooth'd his ear As round her fell her long fair hair; A child of famine dying: And the carnage begun, when resistance is done, And the fall of the vainly flying! He saw the Lord Ll seemingly wise, In spite of his prayers and his prophecies; A certain Chief Justice say something like swearing. And the Devil was shock'd-and quoth he, "I must go, If thus he harangues when he passes my border, I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order." * He learned to think more reverently of "the Petrarch" afterwards. 21 "January 16th, 1814. "To-morrow I leave town for a few days. I saw Lewis to-day, who is just returned from Oatlands, where he has been squabbling with Mad. de Staël about himself, Clarissa Harlowe, Mackintosh, and me. My homage has never been paid in that quarter, or we would have agreed still worse. I don't talk I can't flatter, and won't listen, except to a pretty or a foolish woman. She bored Lewis with praises of himself till he sickened-found out that Clarissa was perfection, and Mackintosh the first man in England. There I agree; at least, one of the first-but Lewis did not. As to Clarissa, I leave to those who can read it to judge and dispute. I could not do the one, and am, consequently, not qualified for the other. She told Lewis wisely, he being my friend, that I was affected, in the first place, and that, in the next place, I committed the heinous offence of sitting at dinner with my eyes shut, or half shut. I wonder if I really have this trick. I must cure myself of it if true. One insensibly acquires awkward habits, which should be broken in time. If this is one, I I wish I had been told of it before. It would not so much signify if one was always to be checkmated by a plain woman, but one may as well see some of one's neighbours, as well as the plate upon the table. "I should like, of all things, to have heard the Amabæan eclogue between her and Lewis-both obstinate, clever, odd, garrulous, and shrill. In fact, one could have heard nothing else. But they fell out, alas! -and now they will never quarrel again, Could not one reconcile them for the nonce?' Poor Corinne she will find that some of her fine sayings won't suit our fine ladies and gentlemen. 6 "I am getting rather into admiration of **, the youngest sister of * *. A wife would be my salvation. I am sure the wives of my acquaintances have hitherto done me little good. * * is beautiful, but very young, and, I think, a fool. But I have not seen enough to judge; besides, I hate an esprit in petticoats. That she won't love me is very probable, nor shall I love her. But, on my system, and the modern system in general, that don't signify. The business (if it came to business) would probably be arranged between papa and me. She would have her own way; I am good-humoured to women, and docile; and, if I did not fall in love with her, which I should try to prevent, we should be a very comfortable couple. As to conduct, that she must look to. But if I love, I shall be jealous; -and for that reason I will not be in love. Though, after all, I doubt my temper, and fear I should not be so patient as becomes the bienséance of a married man in my station. Divorce ruins the poor femme, and damages are a paltry compensation. I do fear my temper would lead me into some of our oriental tricks of vengeance, or, at any rate, into a summary appeal to the court of twelve paces. So I'll none on't', but e'en remain single and solitary : -though I should like to have somebody, now and then, to yawn with one. * * * * * 6 * * * * * "W. and, after him, * *, has stolen one of my buffooneries about Mde de Staël's Metaphysics and the Fog, and passed it, by speech and letter, as their own. As Gibbet says, they are the most of a gentleman of any on the road.' W. is in sad enmity with the Whigs about this Review of Fox (if he did review him ;)—all the epigrammatists and essayists are at him. I hate odds, and wish he may beat them. As for me, by the blessing of indifference, I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery, all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another. I shall adhere to my party, because it would not be honourable to act otherwise; but, as to opinions, I don't think politics worth an opinion. Conduct is another thing :—if you begin with a party, go on with them. I have no consistency, except in politics; and that probably arises from my indifference on the subject altogether." I must here be permitted to interrupt, for a while, the progress of this Journal,-which extends through some months of the succeeding year,-for the purpose of noticing, without infringement of chronological order, such parts of the poet's literary history and correspondence as belong properly to the date of the year 1813. At the beginning, as we have seen of the month of December, the Bride of Abydos was published,— having been struck off, like its predecessor, the Giaour, in one of those paroxysms of passion and imagination, which adventures such as the poet was now engaged in were, in a temperament like his, calculated to excite. As the mathematician of old required but a spot to stand upon, to be able, as he boasted, to move the world, so a certain degree of foundation in fact seemed necessary to Byron, before that lever which he knew how to apply to the world of the passions could be wielded by him. So small, however, was, in many instances, the connexion with reality which satisfied him, that to aim at tracing through his stories these links with his own fate and fortunes, which were, after all, perhaps, visible but to his own fancy, would be a task as uncertain as unsafe;—and this remark applies not only to the Bride of Abydos, but to the Corsair, Lara, and all the other beautiful fictions that followed, in which, though the emotions expressed by the poet may be, in general, regarded as vivid recollections of what had, at different times, agitated his own bosom, there are but little grounds, however he might himself, occasionally, encourage such a supposition,-for connecting him personally with the groundwork or incidents of the stories. While yet uncertain about the fate of his own new poem, the following observations on the work of an ingenious follower in the same track were written. LETTER CXLIII. TO MR MURRAY. "December 4th, 1813. "I have redde through your Persian Tales, * and Poems by Mr Galley Knight, of which Mr Murray had transmitted the MS. to Lord Byron, without, however, communicating the name of the author. have taken the liberty of making some remarks on the blank pages. There are many beautiful passages, and an interesting story; and I cannot give you a stronger proof that such is my opinion than by the date of the hour-two o'clock, till which it has kept me awake without a yawn. The conclusion is not quite correct in costume: there is no Mussulman suicide on record-at least for love. But this matters not. The tale must have been written by some one who has been on the spot, and I wish him, and he deserves, success. Will you apologise to the author for the liberties I have taken with his MS.? Had I been less awake to, and interested in, his theme, I had been less obtrusive; but you know I always take this in good part, and I hope he will. It is difficult to say what will succeed, and still more to pronounce what will not. I am at this moment in that uncertainty (on our own score), and it is no small proof of the author's powers to be able to charm and fix a mind's attention on similar subjects and climates in such a predicament. That he may have the same effect upon all his readers is very sincerely the wish, and hardly the doubt, of yours truly, "B." To the Bride of Abydos he made additions, in the course of printing, amounting altogether to near two hundred lines; and, as usual, among the passages thus added were some of the happiest and most brilliant in the whole Poem. The opening lines, "Know ye the land," &c.—supposed to have been suggested to him by a song of Goethe's *-were among the number of these new insertions, as were also those fine verses, "Who hath not proved how feebly words essay," &c. Of one of the most popular lines in this latter passage, it is not only curious, but instructive, to trace the progress to its present state of finish. Having, at first, written Mind on her lip and music in her face, he afterwards altered it to The mind of music breathing in her face. But, this not satisfying him, the next step of correction brought the line to what it is at present The mind, the music breathing from her face.t But the longest, as well as most splendid, of those passages, with which the perusal of his own strains, during revision, inspired him, was that rich flow of eloquent feeling which follows the couplet, "Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my bark," &c.—a strain * Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen blühn, &c. † Among the imputed plagiarisms so industriously hunted out in his writings, this line has been, with somewhat more plausibility than is frequent in such charges, included,-the lyric poct Lovelace having, it seems, written, The melody and music of her face. Sir Thomas Brown, too, in his Religio Medici, says"There is music even in beauty," &c. The coincidence, no doubt, is worth observing, and the task of "tracking" thus a favourite writer" in the snow (as Dryden expresses it) of others" is sometimes not unamusing; but to those who found upon such resemblances a general charge of plagiarism, we may apply what Sir Walter Scott says, in that most agreeable work, his Lives of the Novelists:-" It is a favourite theme of laborious dulness to trace such coincidences, because they appear to reduce genius of the higher order to the usual standard of humanity, and of course to bring the author nearer to a level with his critics." of poetry which, for energy and tenderness of thought, for music of versification, and selectness of diction, has, throughout the greater portion of it, but few rivals in either ancient or modern song. All this passage was sent, in successive scraps, to the printer,correction following correction, and thought reinforced by thought. We have here, too, another example of that retouching process, by which some of his most exquisite effects were attained. Every reader remembers the four beautiful lines Or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife, Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life! The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray! In the first copy of this passage sent to the publisher, the last line was written thus The following note being annexed :-" Mr Murray,— Chuse which of the two epithets, 'fancied, or aíry,' may be the best; or, if neither will do, tell me, and I will dream another." The poet's dream was, it must be owned, lucky,-"prophetic" being the word, of all others, for his purpose.* I shall select but one more example, from the additions to this Poem, as a proof that his eagerness and facility, in producing, was sometimes almost equalled by his anxious care in correcting. In the long passage, just referred to, the six lines beginning "Blest as the Muezzin's strain," &c., having been dispatched to the printer too late for insertion, were, by his desire, added in an errata page; the first couplet, in its original form, being as follows: Soft as the Mecca-Muezzin's strains invite Him who hath journey'd far to join the rite. In a few hours after, another scrap was sent off, containing the lines thus Blest as the Muezzin's strains from Mecca's dome, Which welcomes Faith to view her Prophet's tomb. With the following note to Mr Murray : "December 3d, 1813. "Look out in the Encyclopedia, article Mecca, whether it is there or at Medina the Prophet is entombed. If at Medina, the first lines of my alteration must run Blest as the call which from Medina's dome If at Mecca, the lines may stand as before. Page 45, "You will find this out either by article Mecca, Medina, or Mohammed. I have no book of reference by me. Immediately after succeeded another note: "Did you look out? Is it Medina or Mecca that contains the Holy Sepulchre? Don't make me blaspheme by your negligence. I have no book of It will be seen, however, from a subsequent letter to Mr Murray, that he himself was at first unaware of the peculiar felicity of this epithet; and it is therefore probable, that, after all, the merit of the choice may have be longed to Mr Gifford. reference, or I would save you the trouble. I blush, Blest as the Muezzin's strain from Mecca's wall In addition to his own watchfulness over the birth of his new Poem, he also, as will be seen from the following letter, invoked the veteran taste of Mr Gifford on the occasion. "I hope you will consider. when I venture on any request, that it is the reverse of a certain Dedication, and is addressed, not to The Editor of the Quarterly 6 Review,' but to Mr Gifford. You will understand this, and on that point I need trouble you no farther. "You have been good enough to look at a thing of mine in MS.—a Turkish story, and I should feel gratified if you would do it the same favour in its probationary state of printing. It was written, I cannot say for amusement, nor obliged by hunger and request of friends,' but in a state of mind, from circumstances which occasionally occur to youth,' that rendered it necessary for me to apply my mind to something, any thing but reality; and under this not very brilliant inspiration it was composed. Being done, and having at least diverted me from myself, I thought you would not perhaps be offended if Mr Murray forwarded it to you. He has done so, and to apologise for his doing so a second time is the object of my present letter. us LETTER CXLV. TO MR MURRAY. "Nov. 12th, 1813. "Two friends of mine (Mr Rogers and Mr Sharpe) have advised me not to risk at present any single publication separately, for various reasons. As they have not seen the one in question, they can have no bias for or against the merits (if it has any) or the faults of the present subject of our conversation. You say all the last of the 'Giaour' are gone-at least out of your hands. Now, if you think of publishing any new edition with the last additions which have not yet been before the reader (I mean distinct from the two-volume publication), we can add the Bride of Abydos,' which will thus steal quietly into the world: if liked, we can then throw off some copies for the purchasers of former publication. What think you? I really am no judge 'Giaours; and, if not, I can omit it in any future of those things, and with all my natural partiality for one's own productions, I would rather follow any one's judgment than my own. "P. S.-Pray let me have the proofs I sent all tonight. I have some alterations that I have thought of that I wish to make speedily. I hope the proof will be on separate pages, and not all huddled together on a mile-long ballad-singing sheet, as those of the Giaour sometimes are; for then I can't read them distinctly." "B. "In the last MS. lines sent, instead of living heart,' convert to 'quivering heart.' It is in line 9th of the MS. passage. "Ever yours again, TO MR MURRAY. "Alteration of a line in Canto second. Instead of And tints to-morrow with a fancied ray, Print "B. " And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray. "BYRON." gilds And tints the hope of morning with its ray; Or And gilds to-morrow's hope with heavenly ray. "I wish you would ask Mr Gifford which of them MS. Will you, pray, give him a hint of accuracy? I is best, or rather not worst. have reinserted the two, but they were in the manu script, I can swear. "Ever, etc. "You can send the request contained in this at the same time with the revise, after I have seen the said revise." TO MR MURRAY. "Nov. 13, 1813. LETTER CXLVII. TO MR MURRAY. «November 17, 1813. "That you and I may distinctly understand each other on a subject, which, like the dreadful reckoning when men smile no more,' makes conversation not very pleasant, I think it as well to write a few lines on the topic. Before I left town for Yorkshire, you said that you were ready and willing to give five hundred guineas for the copyright of The Giaour;' and my answer was-from which I do not mean to "Certainly. Do you suppose that no one but the Galileans are acquainted with Adum, and Eve, and Cain, and Noah ?-Surely, I might have had Solomon, and Abraham, and David, and even Moses. When you know that Zuleika is the Persian poetical name for Potiphar's wife, on whom and Joseph there is a long poem, in the Persian, this will not surprise you. If you want authority, look at Jones, D'Her-recede-that we would discuss the point at Christmas. belot, Vathek, or the notes to the Arabian Nights; and, if you think it necessary, model this into a «November 15th, 1813. "Mr Hodgson has looked over and stopped, or rather pointed, this revise, which must be the one to print from. He has also made some suggestions, with most of which I have complied, as he has always, for these then years, been a very sincere, and by no means (at times) flattering, intimate of mine. He likes it (you will think flatteringly, in this instance) better than the Giaour, but doubts (and so do I) its being so popular; but, contrary to some others, advises a separate publication. On this we can easily decide. I confess I like the double form better. Hodgson says, it is better versified than any of the others; which is odd, if true, as it has cost me less time (though more hours at a time) than any attempt I ever made. “P. S.—Do attend to the punctuation : I can't, for I don't know a comma-at least where to place : The new story may or may not succeed; the probability, under present circumstances, seems to be, that it may at least pay its expenses-but even that remains to be proved, and till it is proved one way or another, we will say nothing about it. Thus then be it I will postpone all arrangement about it, and the Giaour also, till Easter, 1814; and you shall then, according to your own notions of fairness, make your own offer for the two. At the same time, I do not rate the last in my own estimation at half the Giaour; and according to your own notions of its worth and its success within the time mentioned, be the addition or deduction to or from whatever sum may be your proposal for the first, which has already had its suc cess. "The pictures of Phillips I consider as mine, all three; and the one (not the Arnaout) of the two best is much at your service, if you will accept it as a present. "P. S.-The expense of engraving from the miniature send me in my account, as it was destroyed by my desire; and have the goodness to burn that detestable print from it immediately. "To make you some amends for eternally pestering you with alterations, I send you Cobbett, to confirm your orthodoxy. "One more alteration of a into the in the MS. ; it must be- The heart whose softness,' &c. "Remember-and in the inscription to the Right Honourable Lord Holland,' without the previous names, Henry, &c." TO MR MURRAY. "November 20, 1813. "More work for the Row. I am doing my best to beat the Giaour,'-no difficult task for any one but the author." TO MR MURRAY. «November 22, 1813. "I have no time to cross-investigate, but I believe and hope all is right. I care less than you will believe about its success, but I can't survive a single misprint it chokes me to see words misused by the printers. Pray look over, in case of some eyesore escaping me. "P. S.-Send the earliest copies to Mr Frere, Mr Canning, Mr Heber, Mr Gifford, Lord Holland, Lord Melbourne (Whitehall), Lady Caroline Lamb (Broc |