LETTER 109. TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES. "Cheltenham, September 28. 1812. My dear Bankes, "When you point out to one how people can be intimate at the distance of some seventy leagues, I will plead guilty to your charge, and accept your farewell, but not wittingly, till you give me some better reason than my silence, which merely proceeded from a notion founded on your own declaration of old, that you hated writing and receiving letters. Besides, how was I to find out a man of many residences? If I had addressed you now, it had been to your borough, where I must have conjectured you were amongst your constituents. So now, in despite of Mr. N. and Lady W., you shall be as much better' as the Hexham postoffice will allow me to make you. I do assure you I am much indebted to you for thinking of me at all, and can't spare you even from amongst the superabundance of friends with whom you suppose me surrounded. You heard that Newstead' is sold the sum 140,000.; sixty to remain in mortgage on the estate for three years, paying interest, of course. Rochdale is also likely to do well so my worldly matters are mending. I have been here some time drinking the waters, simply because there are waters to drink, and they are very medicinal, and sufficiently disgusting. In a few days I set out for Lord Jersey's, but return here, where I am quite alone, go out very little, and enjoy in its fullest extent the 'dolce far niente." What you are about I cannot guess, even from your date; not dauncing to the sound of the gitourney in the Halls of the Lowthers? one of whom is here, ill, poor thing, with a phthisic. heard that you passed through here (at the sordid inn where I first alighted) the very day before I arrived in these parts. We I 14 Early in the autumn of 1812," says Mr. Dallas, “he told me that he was urged by his man of business, and that Newstead must be sold." It was accordingly brought to the hammer at Garraway's, but not, at that time, sold, only 90,000 being offered for it The private sale to which he alludes in this letter took place soon after, — Mr. Claughton, the agent for Mr. Leigh, being the purchaser. It was never, however, for reasons which we shall see, completed. 2 [The party were returning from Tintern Abbey in a pleasure boat, and were preparing to land below the bridge at Chepstow, when, on coming through the centre arch, where a barge was moored across, the rope taking the bottom of the boat, upset it. Out of the twelve of which the party consisted, seven actually perished.] A mode of signature he frequently adopted at this time. ↑ [“ Three-and-forty addresses, properly folded, sealed, 173 had a very pleasant set here; at first the Jerseys, Melbournes, Cowpers, and Hollands, but all gone; and the only persons I know are the Rawdons and Oxfords, with some later acquaintances of less brilliant descent. "But I do not trouble them much; and as for your rooms and your assemblies, they are not dreamed of in our philosophy!!'Did you read of a sad accident in the Wye t' other day? A dozen drowned; and Mr. Rossoe, a corpulent gentleman, preserved by a boat-hook or an eel-spear, begged, when he heard his wife was saved no- lost to be thrown in again!! - -as if he could not have thrown himself in, had he wished it; but this passes for a trait of sensibility. What strange beings men are, in and out of the Wye! 2 "I have to ask you a thousand pardons for not fulfilling some orders before I left town; but if you knew all the cursed entanglements I had to wade through, it would be unnecessary to beg your forgiveness. When will Parliament (the new one) meet? -in sixty days, on account of Ireland, I presume the Irish election will demand a longer period for completion than the constitutional allotment. Yours, of course, is safe, and all your side of the question. Salamanca is the ministerial watchword, and all will go well with you. I hope you will speak more frequently, I am sure at least you ought, and it will be expected. I see Portman means to stand again. night. Good marked and directed, reached the committee. The builders of the lofty pile were totally at a loss to know how to dispose of the builders of the lofty rhyme: the latter all spoke different languages, and all, to the former, equally unintelligible. The committee were alike confounded with the number of addresses, and their own debates. No such confusion of tongues had accompanied any erection since the building of Babel; nor could matters have been set to rights (unless by a miracle), if the convenient though not very candid plan of rejecting all the addresses had not occurred as a mezzotermine in which the whole committee might safely agree; and the addresses were rejected accordingly. We do not think that they deserved, in true poetical justice, a better fate : not one was excellent, two or three only were tolerable, and the rest so execrable that we wonder this committee of taste did not agree upon one of them. But, as the several bards were induced to expend their precious time their subsequent application to me, I have written a prologue, which has been received, and will be spoken. The MS. is now in the hands of Lord Holland. "I write this merely to say, that (however it is received by the audience) you will publish it in the next edition of Childe Harold; and I only beg you at present to keep my name secret till you hear further from me, and as soon as possible I wish you to have a correct copy, to do with as you think proper. P. S.-I should wish a few copies printed off before, that the newspaper copies may be correct after the delivery." LETTER 111. TO MR. MURRAY. "Cheltenham, Oct. 12. 1812. "I have a very strong objection to the engraving of the portrait, and request that it may, on no account, be prefixed; but let all the proofs be burnt, and the plate broken. I will be at the expense which has been incurred; it is but fair that I should, since I cannot permit the publication. I beg, as a particular favour, that you will lose no time in having this done, for which I have reasons that I will state when I see you. Forgive all the trouble I have occasioned you. "I have received no account of the reception of the Address, but see it is vituperated in the papers, which does not much embarrass an old author. I leave it to your own judgment to add it, or not, to your next edition when required. Pray comply strictly with my wishes as to the engraving, and believe me, &c. "P. S.-Favour me with an answer, as I shall not be easy till I hear that the proofs, &c. are destroyed. I hear that the Satirist has reviewed Childe Harold, in what manner I need not ask; but I wish to know if the old personalities are revived? I have a better reason for asking this than any that merely concerns myself; but in publica and more precious paper, by the implicit engagement on the part of the committee that the best bidder should have the contract, we think they have a right to protest against the injustice of this wholesale rejection. It was about as fair as it would be in Messrs. Bish and Carter, after they had disposed of all their lottery tickets, to acquaint the holders that there should be no drawing, but that they intended to transfer the twenty thousand pound prize to an acquaintance of their own. The committee, we readily admit, made an absurd engagement; but surely they were bound to keep it! In the dilemma to which that learned body was reduced by the rejection of all the biddings, they put themselves under the care of Lord Byron, who prescribed in their case a composition which bears the honour of his name."- Quart. Rev. vol. iii. p. 175.] A miniature by Sanders. Besides this miniature, Sanders had also painted a full-length of his Lordship, tions of that kind, others, particularly female names, are sometimes introduced." LETTER 112. TO LORD HOLLAND. "My dear Lord, "Cheltenham, Oct. 14. 1812. "I perceive that the papers, yea, even Perry's, are somewhat ruffled at the injudicious preference of the Committee. My friend Perry has, indeed, et tu Brute'-d me rather scurvily, for which I will send him, for the M. C., the next epigram I scribble, as a token of my full forgiveness. "Do the Committee mean to enter into no explanation of their proceedings? You must see there is a leaning towards a charge of partiality. You will, at least, acquit me of any great anxiety to push myself before so many elder and better anonymous, to whom the twenty guineas (which I take to be about two thousand pounds Bank currency) and the honour would have been equally welcome. 'Honour,' I see, hath skill in paragraph-writing.' "I wish to know how it went off at the second reading, and whether any one has had the grace to give it a glance of approbation. I have seen no paper but Perry's and two Sunday ones. Perry is severe, and the others silent. If, however, you and your Committee are not now dissatisfied with your own judgments, I shall not much embarrass myself about the brilliant remarks of the journals. My own opinion upon it is what it always was, perhaps pretty near that of the public. "Believe me, my dear Lord, &c. &c. "P. S. My best respects to Lady H., whose smiles will be very consolatory, even at this distance." LETTER 113. TO MR. MURRAY. "Cheltenham, Oct. 18. 1811. "Will you have the goodness to get this Parody of a peculiar kind 2 (for all the first from which the portrait prefixed to the quarto edition of this work is engraved. In reference to the latter picture, Lord Byron says, in a note to Mr. Rogers, "If you think the picture you saw at Murray's worth your acceptance, it is yours; and you may put a glove or mask on it, if you like." 2 Among the Addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Committee was one by Dr. Busby, entitled a Monologue, of which the Parody was enclosed in this letter. A short specimen of this trifle will be sufficient. The four first lines of the Doctor's Address are as follows: "When energising objects men pursue, Which verses are thus ridiculed, unnecessarily, in the ET. 24. REJECTED ADDRESSES. "Many thanks, but I must pay the damage, and will thank you to tell me the amount for the engraving. I think the Rejected Addresses by far the best thing of the kind since the Rolliad, and wish you had published them. Tell the author I forgive him, were he twenty times over our satirist;' and think his imitations not at all inferior to the famous ones of Hawkins Browne. He must be a man of very lively wit, and much less scurrilous than wits often are altogether, I very much admire the The performance, and wish it all success. Satirist has taken a new tone, as you will see we have now, I think, finished with Childe Harold's critics. I have in hand a Satire on Waltzing, which you must publish anonymously it is not long, not quite two : "When energising objects men pursue,' The Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who. See Works, p. 553. ["Rejected Addresses; or, the New Theatrum Poetarum," appeared in October, 1812. A new edition, being the eighteenth, with an original preface and notes by the authors, the accomplished brothers, James and Horace Smith, was published in 1835.] 2 ["From Sir Walter Scott, also, whose transcendent talents were only equalled by his virtues and his amiability, we received favours and notice, which it will be difficult to forget. I certainly must have written this myself!' said that fine-tempered man to one of the authors, pointing to the description of the Fire, although 175 hundred lines, but will make a very small boarded pamphlet. In a few days you shall have it. "P. S.-The editor of the Satirist almost ought to be thanked for his revocation; it is done handsomely, after five years' warfare." LETTER 115. TO MR. MURRAY. "Oct. 23. 1812. "Thanks, as usual. You go on boldly; but have a care of glutting the public, who have by this time had enough of Childe Harold. Waltzing' shall be prepared. It is rather above two hundred lines, with an introductory Letter to the Publisher. I think of publishing, with Childe Harold, the opening lines of the Curse of Minerva,' as far as the first speech of Pallas, - because some of the readers like that part better than any I have ever written; and as it contains nothing to affect the subject of the subsequent portion, it will find a place as a Descriptive Fragment. 66 The plate is broken? between ourselves, it was unlike the picture; and besides, upon the whole, the frontispiece of an author's visage is but a paltry exhibition. At all events, this would have been no recommendation to the book. I am sure Sanders would not have survived the engraving. By the by, the picture may remain with you or him (which you please), till my return. The one of two remaining copies is at your service till I can give you a better; the other must be burned peremptorily. Again, do not forget that I have an account with you, and that this is included. I give you too much trouble to allow you to incur expense also. "You best know how far this Address Riot' will affect the future sale of Childe Harold. I like the volume of Rejected Addresses' better and better. The other parody which Perry has received is mine also (I believe). It is Dr. Busby's speech I forget upon what occasion.' Lydia White, a literary lady, who was prone to feed the lions of the day, invited one of us to dinner; but, recollecting afterwards that William Spencer formed one of the party, wrote to the latter to put him off; telling him that a man was to be at her table whom he would not like to meet.'' Pray who is this whom I should not like to meet?' inquired the poet. O' answered the lady, one of those men who have made that shameful attack upon you !' The very man upon earth I should like to know!' rejoined the lively and careless bard. The two individuals accordingly met, and have continued fast friends ever since. One criticism of a Liecestershire clergyman may be pronounced unique: I do not see why they should have been rejected, observed the matter-of-fact annotator; 'I think some of them very good."-Preface to Rejected Addresses, ed. 1835, p. xviii.] he thought right to put forth, found ready who had visited Athens soon after it hapcredence: : LETTER 120. TO MR. MURRAY. April 21. 1813. "I shall be in town by Sunday next, and will call and have some conversation on the subject of Westall's designs. I am to sit to him for a picture at the request of a friend of mine; and as Sanders's is not a good one, you will probably prefer the other. I wish you to have Sanders's taken down and sent to my lodgings immediately- before my arrival. I hear that a certain malicious publication on Waltzing is attributed to me. This report, I suppose, you will take care to contradict, as the author, I am sure, will not like that I should wear his cap and bells. Mr. Hobhouse's quarto will be out immediately; pray send to the author for an early copy, which I wish to take abroad with me. P. S.-I see the Examiner threatens some observations upon you next week. What can you have done to share the wrath which has heretofore been principally expended upon the Prince? I presume all your Scribleri will be drawn up in battle array in defence of the modern Tonson - Mr. Bucke, In the month of May appeared his wild and beautiful Fragment," The Giaour;and though, in its first flight from his hands, some of the fairest feathers of its wing were yet wanting, the public hailed this new offspring of his genius with wonder and delight. The idea of writing a poem in fragments had been suggested to him by the Columbus of Mr. Rogers; and, whatever objections may lie against such a plan in general, it must be allowed to have been well suited to the impatient temperament of Byron, as enabling him to overleap those mechanical difficulties, which, in a regular narrative, embarrass, if not chill, the poet, leaving it to the imagination of his readers to fill up the intervals between those abrupt bursts of passion in which his chief power lay. The story, too, of the poem possessed that stimulating charm for him, almost indispensable to his fancy, of being in some degree connected with himself, an event in which he had been personally concerned, while on his travels, having supplied the groundwork on which the fiction was founded. After the appearance of The Giaour, some incorrect statement of this romantic incident having got into circulation, the noble author requested of his friend, the Marquis of Sligo, pened, to furnish him with his recollections on the subject; and the following is the answer which Lord Sligo returned : — "My dear Byron, Albany, Monday, August 31. 1813. You have requested me to tell you all that I heard at Athens about the affair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there; you have asked me to mention every circumstance, in the remotest degree relating to it, which I heard. In compliance with your wishes, I write to you all I heard, and I cannot imagine it to be very far from the fact, as the circumstance happened only a day or two before I arrived at Athens, and, consequently, was a matter of common conversation at the time. The new governor, unaccustomed to have the same intercourse with the Christians as his predecessor, had of course the barbarous Turkish ideas with regard to women. In consequence, and in compliance with the strict letter of the Mahommedan law, he ordered this girl to be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the sea, — as is, indeed, quite customary at Constantinople. As you were returning from bathing in the Piræus, you met the procession going down to execute the sentence of the Waywode on this unfortunate girl. Report continues to say, that on finding out what the object of their journey was, and who was the miserable sufferer, you immediately interfered; and on some delay in obeying your orders, you were obliged to inform the leader of the escort, that force should make him comply; that, on farther hesitation, you drew a pistol, and told him, that if he did not immediately obey your orders, and come back with you to the Aga's house, you would shoot him dead. On this the man turned about and went with you to the governor's house; here you succeeded, partly by personal threats, and partly by bribery and entreaty, in procuring her pardon, on condition of her leaving Athens. I was told that you then conveyed her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night to Thebes, where she found a safe asylum. Such is the story I heard, as nearly as I can recollect it at present. Should you wish to ask me any further questions about it, I shall be very ready and willing to answer them. I remain, my dear Byron, "Yours, very sincerely, SLIGO. "I am afraid you will hardly be able to read this scrawl; but I am so hurried with Of the prodigal flow of his fancy, when its sources were once opened on any subject, The Giaour affords one of the most remarkable instances, this poem having accumulated under his hand, both in printing and through successive editions, till from four hundred lines, of which it consisted in his first copy, it at present amounts to nearly fourteen hundred. The plan, indeed, which he had adopted, of a series of fragments, - a set of "orient pearls at random strung," left him free to introduce, without reference to more than the general complexion of his story, whatever sentiments or images his fancy, in its excursions, could collect; and how little fettered he was by any regard to connection in these additions, appears from a note which accompanied his own copy of the paragraph commencing "Fair clime, where every season smiles," in which he says, "I have not yet fixed the place of insertion for the following lines, but will, when I see you - as I have no copy." Even into this new passage, rich as it was at first, his fancy afterwards poured a fresh infusion, the whole of its most picturesque portion, from the line "For there, the Rose o'er crag or vale," down to " And turns to groans his roundelay," having been suggested to him during revision. In order to show, however, that though so rapid in the first heat of composition, he formed no exception to that law which imposes labour as the price of perfection, I shall here extract a few verses from his original draft of this paragraph, by comparing which with the form they wear at present, we may learn to appreciate the value of these after-touches of the master. "Fair clime! where ceaseless summer smiles ["It is a 'fragment,' it is true; but it reads like one of those old woful tragic ballads, in which the hiatus seem caused by the falling away of all needless stanzas, and the stream of suffering leaps darkly and foamingly over each chasm in the rocks."- WILSON.] The following are the lines in their present shape, and it will be seen that there is not a single alteration in which the music of the verse has not been improved as well as the thought: "Fair clime! where every season smiles Benignant o'er those blessed isles, Which, seen from far Colonna's height, That wakes and wafts the fragrance there." 66 179 Among the other passages added to this edition (which was either the third or fourth, and between which and the first there intervened but about six weeks) was that most beautiful and melancholy illustration of the lifeless aspect of Greece, beginning “ He who hath bent him o'er the dead," of which the most gifted critic of our day 3 has justly pronounced, that "it contains an image more true, more mournful, and more exquisitely finished, than any we can recollect in the whole compass of poetry." To the same edition also were added, among other accessions of wealth, those lines, "The cygnet proudly walks the water," and the impassioned verses, "My memory now is but the tomb." On my rejoining him in town this spring, I found the enthusiasm about his writings and himself, which I left so prevalent, both in the world of literature and in society, grown, if any thing, still more general and intense. In the immediate circle, perhaps, around him, familiarity of intercourse might have begun to produce its usual disenchanting effects. His own liveliness and unreserve on a more intimate acquaintance, would not be long in dispelling that charm of poetic sadness, which to the eyes of distant observers hung about him; while the romantic notions, connected by some of his fair readers with those past and nameless loves alluded to in his poems, ran some risk And if at times a transient reeze That wakes and wafts the odours there!" 3 Mr. Jeffrey. 4 In Dallaway's Constantinople, a book which Lord Byron is not unlikely to have consulted, I find a passage quoted from Gillies's History of Greece, which contains, perhaps, the first seed of the thought thus expanded into full perfection by genius:-" The present state of Greece compared to the ancient is the silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with the vivid lustre of active life." 5 Among the recorded instances of such happy afterthoughts in poetry may be mentioned, as one of the most memorable, Denham's four lines, "Oh could I flow like thee," &c., which were added in the second edition of his poem. |