"Oh ye! who so lately were blythsome and gay, At the Butterfly's banquet carousing away; Your feasts and your revels of pleasure are fled, For the soul of the banquet, the Butterfly's dead! * * * * * And here shall the daisy and violet blow, And the lily discover her bosom of snow; While under the leaf, in the evenings of spring, Still mourning his friend, shall the grasshopper sing."

In the days of his prosperity (1799-1816), Brummell knew everybody to whose acquaintance he condescended. His Album, in which he collected 226 pieces of poetry, many by himself, others by celebrities of the day, is a curious proof of his popularity. It contains contributions from such persons as the Duchess of Devonshire, Erskine, Lord John Townshend, Sheridan, General Fitzpatrick, William Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne) and his brother George, and Byron. Lady Hester Stanhope ('Memoirs', vol. i. pp. 280-283) knew him well. She describes him "riding in Bond Street, with his bridle between his fore-finger and thumb, as if he held a pinch of snuff;" gives many instances of his audacious effrontery, and yet concludes that "the man was no fool," and that she "should like to see him again."

The story that Brummell told the Prince Regent to ring the bell was denied by him. A more probable version of the story is given in Jesse's 'Life of Beau Brummell' (vol. i. p. 255),

"that one evening, when Brummell and Lord Moira were engaged in earnest conversation at Carlton House, the prince requested the former to ring the bell, and that he replied without reflection, 'Your Royal Highness is close to it,' upon which the prince rang the bell and ordered his friend's carriage, but that Lord Moira's intervention caused the unintentional liberty to be overlooked."

The rupture between them is attributed by Jesse to Mrs. Fitzherbert's influence. Whatever the cause, the prince cut his former friend. A short time afterwards, Brummell, walking with Lord Alvanley, met the prince leaning on the arm of Lord Moira. As the prince, who stopped to speak to Lord Alvanley, was moving on, Brummell said to his companion, "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?" In the 'Twopenny Postbag' Moore makes the Regent say, in the "Parody of a Celebrated Letter":

"Neither have I resentments, or wish there should come ill To mortal—except, now I think on it, Beau Brummell, Who threatened last year, in a superfine passion, To cut me, and bring the old king into fashion."

Brummell's position withstood the loss of the Regent's friendship. He became one of the most frequent visitors to the Duke and Duchess of York, at Oatlands Park ('Journal of T. Raikes', vol. i. p. 146); and his friendship with the duchess lasted till her death.

He was ruined by gambling at Watier's Club, of which he was perpetual president. This club, which was in Piccadilly, at the corner of Bolton Street, was originally founded, in 1807, by Lord Headfort, John Madocks, and other young men, for musical gatherings. But glees and snatches soon gave way to superlative dinners and gambling at macao. Byron, Moore, and William Spencer belonged to Watier's—the only men of letters admitted within its precincts. From 1814 to 1816 Brummell lost heavily; he could obtain no further supplies, and was completely ruined. In his distress he wrote to Scrope Davies, in May, 1816:

"MY DEAR SCROPE,—Lend me two hundred pounds; the banks are shut, and all my money is in the three per cents. It shall be repaid to-morrow morning.

Yours, GEORGE BRUMMELL."

The reply illustrates Byron's remark that

"Scrope Davies is a wit, and a man of the world, and feels as much as such a character can do."

"MY DEAR GEORGE,—'Tis very unfortunate, but all my money is in the three per cents.

Yours, S. DAVIES."

On May 17,

"obliged," says Byron ('Detached Thoughts'), "by that affair of poor Meyler, who thence acquired the name of 'Dick the Dandykiller'—(it was about money and debt and all that)—to retire to France,"

Brummell took flight to Dover, and crossed to Calais. Watier's Club died a natural death, in 1819, from the ruin of most of its members.

Amongst Brummell's effects at Chesterfield Street was a screen which he was making for the Duchess of York. The sixth panel was occupied by Byron and Napoleon, placed opposite each other; the former, surrounded with flowers, had a wasp in his throat (Jesse's 'Life', vol. i. p. 361). At Calais Brummell bought a French grammar to study the language. When Scrope Davies was asked, says Byron ('Detached Thoughts'),

"what progress Brummell had made in French, he responded 'that Brummell had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by the 'Elements'' I have put this pun into 'Beppo', which is 'a fair exchange and no robbery;' for Scrope made his fortune at several dinners (as he owned himself) by repeating occasionally as his own some of the buffooneries with which I had encountered him in the morning."

Brummell died, in 1840, at Caen, after making acquaintance with the inside of the debtor's prison in that town—imbecile, and in the asylum of the 'Bon Sauveur'. He is buried in the Protestant cemetery of Caen. France has raised a more lasting monument to his fame in Barbey d'Aurevilly's 'Du Dandysme et de Georges Brummell' (1845).]

[Footnote 3: Henry James Pye (1745-1813) was, from 1790 to his death, poet laureate, in which post he succeeded Thomas Warton, and was followed by Southey. Mathias, in the 'Pursuits of Literature' (Dialogue ii. lines 69, 70), says:

"With Spartan Pye lull England to repose, Or frighten children with Lenora's woes;"

and again ('ibid'., lines 79, 80):

"Why should I faint when all with patience hear, And laureat Pye sings more than twice a year?"

His birthday odes were so full of "vocal groves and feathered choirs," that George Steevens broke out with the lines:

"When the 'pie' was opened," etc.

Pye's 'magnum opus' was 'Alfred' (1801), an epic poem in six books.]

[Footnote 4: David Mallet, or Malloch (1705-1765), is best known for his ballad of 'William and Margaret', his unsubstantiated claim to the authorship of 'Rule, Britannia', and his edition of Bolingbroke's works. He was appointed, in 1742, under-secretary to Frederick, Prince of Wales.]



* * * * *



240.—To Professor Clarke [1].

St. James's Street, June 26, 1812.

Will you accept my very sincere congratulations on your second volume, wherein I have retraced some of my old paths, adorned by you so beautifully, that they afford me double delight? The part which pleases me best, after all, is the preface, because it tells me you have not yet closed labours, to yourself not unprofitable, nor without gratification, for what is so pleasing as to give pleasure? I have sent my copy to Sir Sidney Smith, who will derive much gratification from your anecdotes of Djezzar, [1] his "energetic old man." I doat upon the Druses; but who the deuce are they with their Pantheism? I shall never be easy till I ask them the question. How much you have traversed! I must resume my seven leagued boots and journey to Palestine, which your description mortifies me not to have seen more than ever. I still sigh for the AEgean. Shall not you always love its bluest of all waves, and brightest of all skies? You have awakened all the gipsy in me. I long to be restless again, and wandering; see what mischief you do, you won't allow gentlemen to settle quietly at home. I will not wish you success and fame, for you have both, but all the happiness which even these cannot always give.



[Footnote 1: Edward Daniel Clarke (1769-1822), appointed Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge, in 1808, was the rival whose travels Hobhouse was anxious to anticipate. He is described by Miss Edgeworth, in 1813 ('Letters', vol. i. p. 205), as

"a little, square, pale, flat-faced, good-natured-looking, fussy man, with very intelligent eyes, yet great credulity of countenance, and still greater benevolence."

Byron met Clarke at Cambridge in November, 1811, discussed Greece with him, and was relieved to find that he knew "no Romaic." Clarke was an indefatigable traveller, and, as he was a botanist, mineralogist, antiquary, and numismatist, he made good use of his opportunities. The marbles, including the Eleusinian Ceres, which he brought home, are in the Fitzwilliam Museum. His mineralogical collections were purchased, after his death, by the University of Cambridge; and his coins by Payne Knight. His 'Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa' appeared at intervals, from 1810 to 1823, in six quarto volumes. The following letter was written by Clarke to Byron, after the appearance of 'Childe Harold':

"Trumpington, Wednesday morning.

"DEAR LORD BYRON,—From the eagerness which I felt to make known my opinions of your poem before others had expressed any upon the subject, I waited upon you to deliver my hasty, although hearty, commendation. If it be worthy your acceptance, take it once more, in a more deliberate form! Upon my arrival in town I found that Mathias entirely coincided with me. 'Surely,' said I to him, 'Lord Byron, at this time of life, cannot have experienced such keen anguish as those exquisite allusions to what older men may have felt seem to denote!' This was his answer: 'I fear he has—he could not else have written such a poem.' This morning I read the second canto with all the attention it so highly merits, in the peace and stillness of my study; and I am ready to confess I was never so much affected by any poem, passionately fond of poetry as I have been from my earliest youth....

"The eighth stanza, 'Yet if as holiest men,' etc., has never been surpassed. In the twenty-third, the sentiment is at variance with Dryden:

'Strange cozenage! none would live past years again.'

"And it is perhaps an instance wherein, for the first time, I found not within my own breast an echo to your thought, for I would not 'be once more a boy;' but the generality of men will agree with you, and wish to tread life's path again.

"In the twelfth stanza of the same canto, you might really add a very curious note to these lines:

'Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains,'

"by stating this fact: When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and, in moving it, a great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs, was thrown down by the work men whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe out of his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri—[Greek: Telos]! I was present at the time.

"Once more I thank you for the gratification you have afforded me.

"Believe me, ever yours most truly, "E. D. CLARKE."]

[Footnote 2: In Clarke's 'Travels' (Part II. sect. i. chap, xii., "Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land") will be found an account of Djezzar Pasha, who fortified Acre in 1775, and with Sir Sidney Smith, defended it against Buonaparte, March 16 to May 20, 1799. Clarke ('ibid'.) mentions the Druses detained by Djezzar as hostages.]



* * * * *



241.—To Walter Scott. [1]

St. James's Street, July 6, 1812.

SIR,—I have just been honoured with your letter.—I feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the "evil works of my nonage," as the thing is suppressed voluntarily, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities: he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I thought the 'Lay'. He said his own opinion was nearly similar. In speaking of the others, I told him that I thought you more particularly the poet of Princes, as they never appeared more fascinating than in 'Marmion' and the 'Lady of the Lake'. He was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on the description of your Jameses as no less royal than poetical. He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of the Turks [2] and your humble servant) you were in very good company. I defy Murray to have exaggerated his Royal Highness's opinion of your powers, nor can I pretend to enumerate all he said on the subject; but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to manners, certainly superior to those of any living gentleman [3].

This interview was accidental. I never went to the levee; for having seen the courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed; and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, "no business there." To be thus praised by your Sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately and sincerely,

Your obliged and obedient servant,

BYRON.

P.S.—Excuse this scrawl, scratched in a great hurry, and just after a journey.



[Footnote 1: The correspondence which begins with this letter laid the foundation of a firm friendship between the two poets. Scott was naturally annoyed by the attack upon him in 'English Bards, etc'. (lines 171-174), made by "a young whelp of a Lord Byron." Though 'Childe Harold' seemed to him "a clever poem," it did not raise his opinion of Byron's character. Murray, hoping to heal the breach between them, wrote to Scott, June 27, 1812 ('Memoir of John Murray', vol. i. p. 213), giving Byron's account of the conversation with the Prince Regent.

"But the Prince's great delight," says Murray, "was Walter Scott, whose name and writings he dwelt upon and recurred to incessantly. He preferred him far beyond any other poet of the time, repeated several passages with fervour, and criticized them faithfully.... Lord Byron called upon me, merely to let off the raptures of the Prince respecting you, thinking, as he said, that if I were likely to have occasion to write to you, it might not be ungrateful for you to hear of his praises."

Scott's answer (July 2) enclosed the following letter from himself to Byron:

"Edinburgh, July 3d, 1812.

"MY LORD,—I am uncertain if I ought to profit by the apology which is afforded me, by a very obliging communication from our acquaintance, John Murray, of Fleet Street, to give your Lordship the present trouble. But my intrusion concerns a large debt of gratitude due to your Lordship, and a much less important one of explanation, which I think I owe to myself, as I dislike standing low in the opinion of any person whose talents rank so highly in my own, as your Lordship's most deservedly do.

"The first 'count', as our technical language expresses it, relates to the high pleasure I have received from the 'Pilgrimage of Childe Harold', and from its precursors; the former, with all its classical associations, some of which are lost on so poor a scholar as I am, possesses the additional charm of vivid and animated description, mingled with original sentiment; but besides this debt, which I owe your Lordship in common with the rest of the reading public, I have to acknowledge my particular thanks for your having distinguished by praise, in the work which your Lordship rather dedicated in general to satire, some of my own literary attempts. And this leads me to put your Lordship right in the circumstances respecting the sale of 'Marmion', which had reached you in a distorted and misrepresented form, and which, perhaps, I have some reason to complain, were given to the public without more particular inquiry. The poem, my Lord, was not written upon contract for a sum of money—though it is too true that it was sold and published in a very unfinished state (which I have since regretted), to enable me to extricate myself from some engagements which fell suddenly upon me by the unexpected misfortunes of a very near relation. So that, to quote statute and precedent, I really come under the case cited by Juvenal, though not quite in the extremity of the classic author:

'Esurit, intactam Paridi nisi vendit Agaven.'

"And so much for a mistake, into which your Lordship might easily fall, especially as I generally find it the easiest way of stopping sentimental compliments on the beauty, etc., of certain poetry, and the delights which the author must have taken in the composition, by assigning the readiest reason that will cut the discourse short, upon a subject where one must appear either conceited or affectedly rude and cynical.

"As for my attachment to literature, I sacrificed for the pleasure of pursuing it very fair chances of opulence and professional honours, at a time of life when I fully knew their value; and I am not ashamed to say, that in deriving advantages in compensation from the partial favour of the public, I have added some comforts and elegancies to a bare independence. I am sure your Lordship's good sense will easily put this unimportant egotism to the right account, for—though I do not know the motive would make me enter into controversy with a fair or an 'unfair' literary critic—I may be well excused for a wish to clear my personal character from any tinge of mercenary or sordid feeling in the eyes of a contemporary of genius. Your Lordship will likewise permit me to add that you would have escaped the trouble of this explanation, had I not understood that the satire alluded to had been suppressed, not to be reprinted. For in removing a prejudice on your Lordship's own mind, I had no intention of making any appeal by or through you to the public, since my own habits of life have rendered my defence as to avarice or rapacity rather too easy.

"Leaving this foolish matter where it lies, I have to request your Lordship's acceptance of my best thanks for the flattering communication which you took the trouble to make Mr. Murray on my behalf, and which could not fail to give me the gratification which I am sure you intended. I dare say our worthy bibliopolist overcoloured his report of your Lordship's conversation with the Prince Regent, but I owe my thanks to him nevertheless, for the excuse he has given me for intruding these pages on your Lordship. Wishing you health, spirit, and perseverance, to continue your pilgrimage through the interesting countries which you have still to pass with 'Childe Harold', I have the honour to be, my Lord,

"Your Lordship's obedient servant,

"WALTER SCOTT.

"P.S.—Will your Lordship permit me a verbal criticism on 'Childe Harold', were it only to show I have read his Pilgrimage with attention? 'Nuestra Dama de la Pena' means, I suspect, not our Lady of Crime or Punishment, but our Lady of the Cliff; the difference is, I believe, merely in the accentuation of 'pena'."

To Scott Byron replied with the letter given in the text. Scott's answer, which followed in due course, will be found in Appendix V.

The Prince Regent, it may be added, showed his appreciation of Scott's poetry by offering him, on the death of Pye, the post of poet laureate. Scott refused, on the ground, apparently, that the office had been made ridiculous by the previous holder.

"At the time when Scott and Byron were the two 'lions' of London, Hookham Frere observed, 'Great poets formerly (Homer and Milton) were blind; now they are lame'"

('Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers', P. 194).]

[Footnote 2: The Turkish ambassador and suite were at the ball.]

[Footnote 3: Byron had already written his "Stanzas to a Lady Weeping," suggested by the rumour that Princess Charlotte had burst into tears, on being told that there would be no change of Ministry when the Prince of Wales assumed the Regency. They appeared anonymously in the 'Morning Chronicle' for March 7, 1812, under the title of a "Sympathetic 'Address' to a Young Lady." They were published, as Byron's work, with 'The Corsair', in February, 1814. The verses rather betray the influence of Moore than express his own feelings at the time. In 'Don Juan' (Canto XII. stanza lxxxiv.) he thus speaks of the Regent:

"There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now) A Prince, the prince of princes at the time, With fascination in his very bow, And full of promise, as the spring of prime. Though royalty was written on his brow, He had 'then' the grace, too, rare in every clime, Of being, without alloy of fop or beau, A finish'd gentleman from top to toe."

Dallas found him, shortly after his introduction to the prince, "in a full-dress court suit of clothes, with his fine black hair in powder," prepared to attend a levee. But the levee was put off, and the subsequent avowal of the authorship of the stanzas rendered it impossible for him to go ('Recollections', p. 234).]



* * * * *



242.—To Lady Caroline Lamb.

[August, 1812?]

MY DEAREST CAROLINE, [1]—If tears which you saw and know I am not apt to shed,—if the agitation in which I parted from you,—agitation which you must have perceived through the whole of this most nervous affair, did not commence until the moment of leaving you approached,—if all I have said and done, and am still but too ready to say and do, have not sufficiently proved what my real feelings are, and must ever be towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer. God knows, I wish you happy, and when I quit you, or rather you, from a sense of duty to your husband and mother, quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what I again promise and vow, that no other in word or deed, shall ever hold the place in my affections, which is, and shall be, most sacred to you, till I am nothing. I never knew till that moment the madness of my dearest and most beloved friend; I cannot express myself; this is no time for words, but I shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can scarcely conceive, for you do not know me. I am about to go out with a heavy heart, because my appearing this evening will stop any absurd story which the event of the day might give rise to. Do you think now I am cold and stern and artful? Will even others think so? Will your mother ever—that mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much, more, much more on my part than she shall ever know or can imagine? "Promise not to love you!" ah, Caroline, it is past promising. But I shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive, and never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed, and more than can ever be known but to my own heart,—perhaps to yours. May God protect, forgive, and bless you. Ever, and even more than ever,

Your most attached,

BYRON.

P.S.—These taunts which have driven you to this, my dearest Caroline, were it not for your mother and the kindness of your connections, is there anything on earth or heaven that would have made me so happy as to have made you mine long ago? and not less now than then, but more than ever at this time. You know I would with pleasure give up all here and all beyond the grave for you, and in refraining from this, must my motives be misunderstood? I care not who knows this, what use is made of it,—it is to you and to you only that they are yourself (sic). I was and am yours freely and most entirely, to obey, to honour, love,—and fly with you when, where, and how you yourself might and may determine.



[Footnote 1: Lady Caroline's infatuation for Byron, expressed in various ways—once (in July, 1813) by a self-inflicted stab with a table-knife, or a broken glass—became the talk of society.

"Your little friend, Caro William," writes the Duchess of Devonshire, May 4, 1812, "as usual, is doing all sorts of imprudent things for him and with him."

Again she writes, six days later, of Byron:

"The ladies, I hear, spoil him, and the gentlemen are jealous of him. He is going back to Naxos, and then the husbands may sleep in peace. I should not be surprised if Caro William were to go with him, she is so wild and imprudent"

(The 'Two Duchesses', pp. 362, 364). But Lady Caroline's extravagant adoration wearied Byron, who felt that it made him ridiculous; Lady Melbourne gave him sound advice about her daughter-in-law; and he was growing attached to Miss Milbanke, and, when rejected by her, at first to Lady Oxford, and later to Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster. When Lady Bessborough endeavoured to persuade her daughter to leave London for Ireland, Lady Caroline is said to have forced herself into Byron's room, and implored him to fly with her. Byron refused, conducted her back to Melbourne House, wrote her the letter printed above, and, as she herself admits, kept the secret. In December, 1812, Lady Caroline burned Byron in effigy, with "his book, ring, and chain," at Brocket Hall. The lines which she wrote for the ceremony are preserved in Mrs. Leigh's handwriting, and given in Appendix III., 2.

From Ireland Lady Caroline continued the siege, threatening to follow him into Herefordshire, demanding interviews, and writing about him to Lady Oxford. At length Byron sent her the letter, probably in November, 1812, which she professes to publish in 'Glenarvon' (vol. iii. chap. ix.). The words are acknowledged by Byron to have formed part at least of the real document, which is here quoted as printed in the novel:

"Mortanville Priory, November the 9th.

"LADY AVONDALE,—I am no longer your lover; and since you oblige me to confess it, by this truly unfeminine persecution, ... learn, that I am attached to another; whose name it would, of course, be dishonourable to mention. I shall ever remember with gratitude the many instances I have received of the predilection you have shown in my favour. I shall ever continue your friend, if your ladyship will permit me so to style myself; and, as a first proof of my regard, I offer you this advice, correct your vanity, which is ridiculous; exert your absurd caprices upon others; and leave me in peace.

"Your most obedient servant,

"GLENARVON."

The first effect of this letter and her unrequited passion was, as she told Lady Morgan, to deprive her temporarily of reason, and it may be added that, when she was a child, her grandmother was so alarmed by her eccentricities as to consult a doctor on the state of her mind. The second effect was to render her temper so ungovernable that William Lamb decided on a separation. All preliminaries were arranged; the solicitor arrived with the documents; but the old charm reasserted itself, and she was found seated by her husband, "feeding him with tiny scraps of transparent bread and butter" (Torrens, 'Memoirs of Lord Melbourne', vol. i. p. 112). The separation did not take place till 1825.

Throughout 1812-14 Lady Caroline continued to write to Byron, at first asking for interviews. Two of her last letters to him, written apparently on the eve of his leaving England, in 1816, are worth printing, though they increase the mystery of 'Glenarvon'. (See Appendix III., 4 and 5.)

In Isaac Nathan's 'Fugitive Pieces' (1829), a section is devoted to "Poetical Effusions, Letters, Anecdotes, and Recollections of Lady Caroline Lamb."

Lady Caroline wrote three novels: 'Glenarvon' (1816); 'Graham Hamilton' (1822); and 'Ada Reis; a Tale' (1823). 'Glenarvon', apart from its biographical interest, is unreadable.

"I do not know," writes C. Lemon to Lady H. Frampton ('Journal of Mary Frampton', pp. 286, 287), "all the characters in 'Glenarvon', but I will tell you all I do know. I am not surprised at your being struck with a few detached passages; but before you have read one volume, I think you will doubt at which end of the book you began. There is no connection between any two ideas in the book, and it seems to me to have been written as the sages of Laputa composed their works. 'Glenarvon' is Lord Byron; 'Lady Augusta,' the late Duchess of Devonshire; 'Lady Mandeville'—I think it is Lady Mandeville, but the lady who dictated Glearvon's farewell letter to Calantha—is Lady Oxford. This letter she really dictated to Lord Byron to send to Lady Caroline Lamb, and is now very much offended that she has treated the matter so lightly as to introduce it into her book. The best character in it is the 'Princess of Madagascar' (Lady Holland), with all her Reviewers about her. The young Duke of Devonshire is in the book, but I forget under what name. I need not say that the heroine is Lady Caroline's own self."

In July, 1824, she was out riding, when she accidentally met Byron's funeral on its way to Newstead. "I am sure," she wrote to Murray, July 13, 1824, "I am very sorry I ever said one unkind word against him." Her mind never recovered the shock, and she died in January, 1828, in the presence of her husband, at Melbourne House. (See also Appendix III., 6.)]



* * * * *



243.—To John Murray.

High Street, Cheltenham, Sept. 5, 1812.

DEAR SIR,—Pray have the goodness to send those despatches, and a No. of the E.R. with the rest. I hope you have written to Mr. Thompson, thanked him in my name for his present, and told him that I shall be truly happy to comply with his request.—How do you go on? and when is the graven image, "with bays and wicked rhyme upon't," to grace, or disgrace, some of our tardy editions?

Send me "Rokeby" [1] who the deuce is he?—no matter, he has good connections, and will be well introduced. I thank you for your inquiries: I am so so, but my thermometer is sadly below the poetical point. What will you give me or mine for a poem [2] of six cantos, (when complete—no rhyme, no recompense,) as like the last two as I can make them? I have some ideas which one day may be embodied, and till winter I shall have much leisure.

Believe me, yours very sincerely,

BYRON.

P. S.—My last question is in the true style of Grub Street; but, like Jeremy Diddler [3], I only "ask for information."—Send me Adair on Diet and Regimen, just republished by Ridgway [4].



[Footnote 1: 'Rokeby', completed December 31, 1812, was published in the following year, with a dedication to John Morritt, to whom Rokeby belonged. It was, as Scott admits in the Preface to the edition of 1830, comparatively a failure. In the popularity of Byron he finds the chief cause of the small success which his poem obtained.

"To have kept his ground at the crisis when 'Rokeby' appeared," he writes, "its author ought to have put forth his utmost strength, and to have possessed all his original advantages, for a mighty and unexpected rival was advancing on the stage—a rival not in poetical powers only, but in that art of attracting popularity, in which the present writer had hitherto preceded better men than himself. The reader will easily see that Byron is here meant, who, after a little velitation of no great promise, now appeared as a serious candidate, in the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold'."

On this rivalry Byron wrote the passage in his Diary for November 17, 1813. A further cause for the cold reception of 'Rokeby' was its inferiority both to the 'Lay' and to 'Marmion'. In Letter vii. of the 'Twopenny Post-bag', Moore writes thus of 'Rokeby'

"Should you feel any touch of 'poetical' glow, We've a Scheme to suggest—Mr. Sc—tt, you must know, (Who, we're sorry to say it, now works for the 'Row') Having quitted the Borders, to seek new renown, Is coming by long Quarto stages, to Town; And beginning with Rokeby (the job's sure to pay) Means to 'do' all the Gentlemen's Seats on the way. Now the Scheme is (though none of our hackneys can beat him) To start a fresh Poet through Highgate to 'meet' him; Who, by means of quick proofs—no revises—long coaches— May do a few Villas before Sc—tt approaches— Indeed, if our Pegasus be not curst shabby, He'll reach, without found'ring, at least Woburn Abbey."]

[Footnote 2: 'The Giaour', published in 1813, for which Murray paid, not Byron, but Dallas, 500 guineas.]

[Footnote 3: Kenney's 'Raising the Wind', act i. sc. 1:

"'Diddler'. O Sam, you haven't got such a thing as tenpence about you, have you?

"'Sam'. Yes. 'And I mean to keep it about me, you see'.

"'Diddler'. Oh, aye, certainly. I only asked for information."]

[Footnote 4: James MacKittrick (1728-1802), who assumed the name of Adair, published, in 1804, 'An Essay on Diet and Regimen, as indispensable to the Recovery and Preservation of Firm Health, especially to Indolent, Studious, Delicate and Invalid; with appropriate cases'.]



* * * * *



244.—To Lord Holland.

Cheltenham, September 10, 1812.

My Dear Lord,—The lines which I sketched off on your hint are still, or rather were, in an unfinished state, for I have just committed them to a flame more decisive than that of Drury [1].

Under all circumstances, I should hardly wish a contest with Philodrama—Philo-Drury—Asbestos, H——, and all the anonymes and synonymes of Committee candidates. Seriously, I think you have a chance of something much better; for prologuising is not my forte, and, at all events, either my pride or my modesty won't let me incur the hazard of having my rhymes buried in next month's Magazine, under "Essays on the Murder of Mr. Perceval." and "Cures for the Bite of a Mad Dog," as poor Goldsmith complained of the fate of far superior performances [2].

I am still sufficiently interested to wish to know the successful candidate; and, amongst so many, I have no doubt some will be excellent, particularly in an age when writing verse is the easiest of all attainments.

I cannot answer your intelligence with the "like comfort," unless, as you are deeply theatrical, you may wish to hear of Mr. Betty [3], whose acting is, I fear, utterly inadequate to the London engagement into which the managers of Covent Garden have lately entered. His figure is fat, his features flat, his voice unmanageable, his action ungraceful, and, as Diggory [4] says, "I defy him to extort that damned muffin face of his into madness." I was very sorry to see him in the character of the "Elephant on the slack rope;" for, when I last saw him, I was in raptures with his performance. But then I was sixteen—an age to which all London condescended to subside. After all, much better judges have admired, and may again; but I venture to "prognosticate a prophecy" (see the 'Courier') that he will not succeed.

So, poor dear Rogers has stuck fast on "the brow of the mighty Helvellyn" [5]—I hope not for ever. My best respects to Lady H.:—her departure, with that of my other friends, was a sad event for me, now reduced to a state of the most cynical solitude.

"By the waters of Cheltenham I sat down and drank, when I remembered thee, oh Georgiana Cottage! As for our harps, we hanged them up upon the willows that grew thereby. Then they said, Sing us a song of Drury Lane," etc.;

—but I am dumb and dreary as the Israelites. The waters have disordered me to my heart's content—you were right, as you always are.

Believe me, ever your obliged and affectionate servant,

BYRON.



[Footnote 1: Drury Lane Theatre was reopened, after the fire of February 24, 1809, on Saturday, October 10, 1812. In the previous August the following advertisement was issued:

"'Rebuilding of Drury-Lane Theatre.'

"The Committee are desirous of promoting a fair and free competition for an Address, to be spoken upon the opening of the Theatre, which will take place on the 10th of October next: They have therefore thought fit to announce to the Public, that they will be glad to receive any such Compositions, addressed to their Secretary at the Treasury Office in Drury Lane, on or before the 10th of September, sealed up, with a distinguishing word, number, or motto, on the cover, corresponding with the inscription, on a separate sealed paper, containing the name of the Author, which will not be opened, unless containing the name of the successful Candidate. Theatre Royal, Drury-Lane, August 13, 1812.

"Owing to an accidental delay in the publication of the above Advertisement, the Committee have thought proper to extend the time for receiving Addresses, from the last day of August to the 10th of September."

Byron, on the suggestion of Lord Holland, intended to send in an 'Address' in competition with other similar productions. He afterwards changed his mind, and refused to compete. After all the 'Addresses' had been received and rejected, the Committee applied to him to write an 'Address'. This he consented to do.]

[Footnote 2:

"The public were more importantly employed, than to observe the easy simplicity of my style, or the harmony of my periods. Sheet after sheet was thrown off to oblivion. My essays were buried among the essays upon liberty, Eastern tales, and cures for the bite of a mad dog."

'Vicar of Wakefield', chap. xx.]

[Footnote 3: See 'Letters', vol. i. p. 63, 'note' 2.[Footnote 2 of Letter 24]]

[Footnote 4: "Diggory," one of Liston's parts, a character in Jackman's 'All the World's a Stage', asks (act i. sc. 2), "But how can you extort that damned pudding-face of yours to madness?"]

[Footnote 5: Rogers had gone for a tour in the North. Byron alludes to Scott's poem 'Helvellyn':

"I climb'd the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn," etc., etc.

The poem was occasioned, as Scott's note states, by the death of "a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition," who was killed on the mountain in 1805.]



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245.—To John Murray.

Cheltenham, Sept. 14, 1812.

DEAR SIR,—The parcels contained some letters and verses, all (but one) anonymous and complimentary, and very anxious for my conversion from certain infidelities into which my good-natured correspondents conceive me to have fallen. The books were presents of a convertible kind also,—'Christian Knowledge' and the 'Bioscope' [1], a religious Dial of Life explained:—to the author of the former (Cadell, publisher,) I beg you will forward my best thanks for his letter, his present, and, above all, his good intentions. The 'Bioscope' contained an MS. copy of very excellent verses, from whom I know not, but evidently the composition of some one in the habit of writing, and of writing well. I do not know if he be the author of the 'Bioscope' which accompanied them; but whoever he is, if you can discover him, thank him from me most heartily. The other letters were from ladies, who are welcome to convert me when they please; and if I can discover them, and they be young, as they say they are, I could convince them perhaps of my devotion. I had also a letter from Mr. Walpole on matters of this world, which I have answered.

So you are Lucien's publisher! [2] I am promised an interview with him, and think I shall ask you for a letter of introduction, as "the gods have made him poetical." From whom could it come with a better grace than from his publisher and mine? Is it not somewhat treasonable in you to have to do with a relative of the "direful foe," as the 'Morning Post' calls his brother?

But my book on 'Diet and Regimen', where is it? I thirst for Scott's 'Rokeby'; let me have y'e first-begotten copy. The 'Anti-Jacobin Review' [3] is all very well, and not a bit worse than the 'Quarterly', and at least less harmless. By the by, have you secured my books? I want all the Reviews, at least the Critiques, quarterly, monthly, etc., Portuguese and English, extracted, and bound up in one volume for my old age; and pray, sort my Romaic books, and get the volumes lent to Mr. Hobhouse—he has had them now a long time. If any thing occurs, you will favour me with a line, and in winter we shall be nearer neighbours.

Yours very truly,

BYRON.

P.S.—I was applied to to write the Address for Drury Lane, but the moment I heard of the contest, I gave up the idea of contending against all Grub Street, and threw a few thoughts on the subject into the fire. I did this out of respect to you, being sure you would have turned off any of your authors who had entered the lists with such scurvy competitors; to triumph would have been no glory, and to have been defeated—'sdeath!—I would have choked myself, like Otway, with a quartern loaf [4]; so, remember I had, and have, nothing to do with it, upon my Honour!



[Footnote 1: Granville Penn (1761-1844) was the author of numerous works on religious subjects. 'The Bioscope, or Dial of Life Explained' appeared in 1812. The other work referred to by Byron is probably Penn's 'Christian's Survey of all the Primary Events and Periods of the World' (1811), of which a second edition was published in 1812.]

[Footnote 2: Lucien Buonaparte (1775-1840), Prince of Canino, since 1810 a landed proprietor in Shropshire, wrote an epic poem, 'Charlemagne, ou l'Eglise delivree'. It was translated (1815) by Dr. Butler of Shrewsbury and Francis Hodgson.]

[Footnote 3: 'The Anti-Jacobin Review' criticized 'Childe Harold' in August, 1812; the 'Quarterly', in March, 1812.]

[Footnote 4: Otway died April, 1685, at the age of thirty-three, from a fever contracted by drinking water when heated by running after an assassin (Spence's 'Anecdotes', p. 44). Theophilus Cibber ('Lives of the Poets', ed. 1753, vol. ii. pp. 333, 334) gives another account of his death, viz. that he begged a shilling of a gentleman, and, being given a guinea, bought a roll, with which he was choked.]



* * * * *



246.—To Lord Holland.

September 22, 1812.

My Dear Lord,—In a day or two I will send you something which you will still have the liberty to reject if you dislike it. I should like to have had more time, but will do my best,—but too happy if I can oblige you, though I may offend a hundred scribblers and the discerning public.

Ever yours.

Keep my name a secret; or I shall be beset by all the rejected, and, perhaps, damned by a party.



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247.—To Lord Holland.

Cheltenham, September 23, 1812.

Ecco!—I have marked some passages with double readings—choose between them—cut—add—reject—or destroy—do with them as you will—I leave it to you and the Committee—you cannot say so called "a non committendo." What will they do (and I do) with the hundred and one rejected Troubadours? [1]

"With trumpets, yea, and with shawms," will you be assailed in the most diabolical doggerel. I wish my name not to transpire till the day is decided. I shall not be in town, so it won't much matter; but let us have a good deliverer. I think Elliston [2] should be the man, or Pope [3]; not Raymond [4], I implore you, by the love of Rhythmus!

The passages marked thus = =, above and below, are for you to choose between epithets, and such like poetical furniture. Pray write me a line, and believe me

Ever, etc.

My best remembrances to Lady H. Will you be good enough to decide between the various readings marked, and erase the other; or our deliverer may be as puzzled as a commentator, and belike repeat both. If these versicles won't do, I will hammer out some more endecasyllables.

P.S.—Tell Lady H. I have had sad work to keep out the Phoenix—I mean the Fire Office of that name. It has insured the theatre, and why not the Address?



[Footnote 1: The genuine rejected addresses were advertised for by B. McMillan, of Bow Street, Covent Garden, and forty-two of them were published by him in November, 1812, with the following title: 'The Genuine Rejected Addresses presented to the Committee of Management for Drury Lane Theatre; preceded by that written by Lord Byron and adopted by the Committee'.

The youngest competitor was "Anna, a young lady in the fifteenth year of her age."

The actual number sent in was 112, and sixty-nine of the competitors invoked the Phoenix. Among the competitors were Peter Pindar, whose 'Address' was printed in 1813; Whitbread, the manager, who gave the "poulterer's description" of the Phoenix; and Horace Smith, who published his 'Address without a Phoenix', By S. T. P., in 'Rejected Addresses'.]

[Footnote 2: Robert William Elliston (1774-1831), according to Genest ('English Stage', vol. ix. p. 338), made his first appearance at Bath in April, 1791, as "Tressel" in 'Richard III'., and from 1796 to 1803 Bath remained his head-quarters. An excellent actor both in tragedy and comedy, he became in 1803 a member of the Haymarket Company. From 1804 to 1809, and again from 1812 to 1815, he acted at Drury Lane. Byron's Prologue was spoken by him on October 10, 1812, at the reopening of the new theatre. It was at Drury Lane in April, 1821, while he was lessee (1819-26), that Byron's 'Marino Faliero' was acted. His last appearance was as "Sheva" in 'The Jew', at the Surrey Theatre, of which (1826-31) he was lessee. In spite of his drunken habits, he won the enthusiastic praise of Charles Lamb as the "joyousest of once embodied spirits" (see 'Essays of Elia', "To the Shade of Elliston" and "Ellistoniana").]

[Footnote 3: Alexander Pope (1763-1835), miniaturist, 'gourmand', and actor, was for years the principal tragedian at Covent Garden. Opinion was divided as to his merits as an actor. He owed much to his voice, which had a "mellow richness ... superior to any other performer on the stage." Genest, who quotes the above (vol. ix. p. 377), adds that "in his better days he had more pathos about him than any other actor." He made his first appearance in Cork as "Oroonoko," and subsequently (January, 1785) at Covent Garden in the same part. He ceased acting at Covent Garden in June, 1827.]

[Footnote 4: In the cast for 'Hamlet', with which Drury Lane reopened, Raymond played the Ghost. Raymond was also the stage manager of the theatre.]



* * * * *



248.—To Lord Holland.

September 24.

I send a recast of the four first lines of the concluding paragraph.

This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd, The drama's homage by her Herald paid, Receive our welcome too, whose every tone Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own. The curtain rises, etc., etc.

And do forgive all this trouble. See what it is to have to do even with the genteelest of us.

Ever, etc.



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249.—To Lord Holland.

Cheltenham, Sept. 25, 1812.

Still "more matter for a May morning." [1] Having patched the middle and end of the Address, I send one more couplet for a part of the beginning, which, if not too turgid, you will have the goodness to add. After that flagrant image of the Thames (I hope no unlucky wag will say I have set it on fire, though Dryden [2], in his Annus Mirabilis, and Churchill [3], in his Times, did it before me), I mean to insert this:

As flashing far the new Volcano shone {meteors} And swept the skies with {lightnings} not their own, While thousands throng'd around the burning dome, Etc., etc.

I think "thousands" less flat than "crowds collected"—but don't let me plunge into the bathos, or rise into Nat. Lee's Bedlam metaphors [4].

By the by, the best view of the said fire (which I myself saw from a house-top in Covent-garden) was at Westminster Bridge, from the reflection on the Thames.

Perhaps the present couplet had better come in after "trembled for their homes," the two lines after;—as otherwise the image certainly sinks, and it will run just as well.

The lines themselves, perhaps, may be better thus—("choose," or "refuse"—but please yourself, and don't mind "Sir Fretful" [5]):

As flash'd the volumed blaze, and {sadly/ghastly} shone The skies with lightnings awful as their own.

The last runs smoothest, and, I think, best; but you know better than best. "Lurid" is also a less indistinct epithet than "livid wave," and, if you think so, a dash of the pen will do.

I expected one line this morning; in the mean time, I shall remodel and condense, and, if I do not hear from you, shall send another copy.

I am ever, etc.



[Footnote 1: 'Twelfth Night', act iii. sc. 4.]

[Footnote 2: Dryden's 'Annus Mirabilis', stanza 231:

"A key of fire ran all along the shore, And lightened all the river with a blaze; The wakened tides began again to roar, And wondering fish in shining waters gaze."]

[Footnote 3: Churchill's 'Times', lines 701, 702:

"Bidding in one grand pile this Town expire, Her towers in dust, her Thames a Lake of fire."]

[Footnote 4: Nathaniel Lee (circ. 1653-1692), the dramatist, wrote 'The Rival Queens' (1677), in which occurs the line:

"When Greek join'd Greek then was the tug of war."

He collaborated with Dryden in 'OEdipus' (1679) and 'The Duke of Guise' (1682). His numerous dramas were distinguished, in his own day, for extravagance and bombast. His mind failing, he was confined from 1684 to 1688 in Bethlehem Hospital, where he is said to have composed a tragedy in 25 acts.]

[Footnote 5: 'The Critic', act i. sc. I. "Sneer," speaking of "Sir Fretful Plagiary," says,

"He is as envious as an old maid verging on the desperation of six and thirty; and then the insidious humility with which he seduces you to give a free opinion on any of his works can be exceeded only by the petulant arrogance with which he is sure to reject your observations."]



* * * * *



250.—To Lord Holland.

September 26, 1812.

You will think there is no end to my villanous emendations. The fifth and sixth lines I think to alter thus:

Ye who beheld—oh sight admired and mourn'd, Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd;

because "night" is repeated the next line but one; and, as it now stands, the conclusion of the paragraph, "worthy him (Shakspeare) and you," appears to apply the "you" to those only who were out of bed and in Covent Garden market on the night of conflagration, instead of the audience or the discerning public at large, all of whom are intended to be comprised in that comprehensive and, I hope, comprehensible pronoun.

By the by, one of my corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom:

When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write.

Ceasing to live is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first; therefore I will let the old couplet stand, with its half rhymes "sought" and "wrote." [1]

Second thoughts in every thing are best, but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss. I am very anxious on this business, and I do hope that the very trouble I occasion you will plead its own excuse, and that it will tend to show my endeavour to make the most of the time allotted. I wish I had known it months ago, for in that case I had not left one line standing on another. I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as much as I can, but never sufficiently; and, latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning. When I began Childe Harold, I had never tried Spenser's measure, and now I cannot scribble in any other.

After all, my dear Lord, if you can get a decent Address elsewhere, don't hesitate to put this aside [2].

Why did you not trust your own Muse? I am very sure she would have been triumphant, and saved the Committee their trouble—"'tis a joyful one" to me, but I fear I shall not satisfy even myself. After the account you sent me, 'tis no compliment to say you would have beaten your candidates; but I mean that, in that case, there would have been no occasion for their being beaten at all.

There are but two decent prologues in our tongue—Pope's to 'Cato' [3]—Johnson's to Drury-Lane [4].

These, with the epilogue to 'The Distrest Mother' [5] and, I think, one of Goldsmith's [6], and a prologue of old Colman's to Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Philaster' [7], are the best things of the kind we have.

P.S.—I am diluted to the throat with medicine for the stone; and Boisragon wants me to try a warm climate for the winter—but I won't.



[Footnote 1:

"Such are the names that here your plaudits sought, When Garrick acted, and when Brinsley wrote."

At present the couplet stands thus:

"Dear are the days that made our annals bright, Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to write."]

[Footnote 2:

"I am almost ashamed," writes Lord Holland to Rogers, October 22, 1812 (Clayden's 'Rogers and his Contemporaries', vol. i. p. 115), "of having induced Lord Byron to write on so ungrateful a theme (ungrateful in all senses) as the opening of a theatre; he was so good-humoured, took so much pains, corrected so good-humouredly, and produced, as I thought and think, a prologue so superior to the common run of that sort of trumpery, that it is quite vexatious to see him attacked for it. Some part of it is a little too much laboured, and the whole too long; but surely it is good and poetical.... You cannot imagine how I grew to like Lord Byron in my critical intercourse with him, and how much I am convinced that your friendship and judgment have contributed to improve both his understanding and his happiness."]

[Footnote 3: Pope wrote the Prologue to Addison's 'Cato' when it was acted at Drury Lane, April 13, 1713.]

[Footnote 4: Johnson wrote the Prologue when Garrick opened Drury Lane, September 15, 1747, with 'The Merchant of Venice'. "It is," says Genest ('English Stage', vol. iv. p. 231), "the best Prologue that was ever written." Johnson wrote the Prologue to Milton's 'Comus', played at Drury Lane, April 5, 1750; to Goldsmith's 'Good-Natured Man', played at Covent Garden, January 29, 1769; and to Hugh Kelly's 'A Word to the Wise', played at Drury Lane, March 3, 1770.]

[Footnote 5: 'The Distrest Mother', adapted from Racine by Ambrose Philips, was first played at Drury Lane, March 17, 1712. Addison is supposed (Genest, 'English Stage', vol. ii. p. 496) to have written the epilogue.]

[Footnote 6: It is impossible to say to which of Goldsmith's epilogues Byron refers. A previous editor of Moore's 'Life, etc'., identified it with his epilogue to Charlotte Lennox's unsuccessful comedy, 'The Sister', which was once played at Covent Garden, February 18, 1769, and then withdrawn.]

[Footnote 7: George Colman the Elder, who edited an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher (10 vols., 1778), wrote the prologue to 'Philaster', when it was produced at Drury Lane, October 8, 1763.]



* * * * *



251.—To Lord Holland.

Sept. 27, 1812.

I believe this is the third scrawl since yesterday—all about epithets. I think the epithet "intellectual" won't convey the meaning I intend; and though I hate compounds, for the present I will try (col' permesso) the word "genius gifted patriots of our line" [1] instead. Johnson has "many coloured life," a compound——but they are always best avoided. However, it is the only one in ninety lines [2], but will be happy to give way to a better. I am ashamed to intrude any more remembrances on Lady H. or letters upon you; but you are, fortunately for me, gifted with patience already too often tried by

Your etc., etc.,

BYRON.



[Footnote 1: This, as finally altered, stood thus:

"Immortal names emblazon'd on our line."]

[Footnote 2: Reduced to seventy-three lines.]



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252.—To Lord Holland.

September 27, 1812.

I have just received your very kind letter, and hope you have met with a second copy corrected and addressed to Holland House, with some omissions and this new couplet,

As glared each rising flash, [1] and ghastly shone The skies with lightnings awful as their own.

As to remarks, I can only say I will alter and acquiesce in any thing. With regard to the part which Whitbread [2] wishes to omit, I believe the 'Address' will go off quicker without it, though, like the agility of the Hottentot, at the expense of its vigour. I leave to your choice entirely the different specimens of stucco-work; and a brick of your own will also much improve my Babylonish turret. I should like Elliston to have it, with your leave. "Adorn" and "mourn" are lawful rhymes in Pope's 'Death of the Unfortunate Lady'.—Gray has "forlorn" and "mourn"—and "torn" and "mourn" are in Smollett's famous 'Tears of Scotland' [3].

As there will probably be an outcry amongst the rejected, I hope the Committee will testify (if it be needful) that I sent in nothing to the congress whatever, with or without a name, as your Lordship well knows. All I have to do with it is with and through you; and though I, of course, wish to satisfy the audience, I do assure you my first object is to comply with your request, and in so doing to show the sense I have of the many obligations you have conferred upon me.

Yours ever, B.



[Footnote 1: At present:

"As glared the volumed blaze."]

[Footnote 2: Samuel Whitbread (1758-1815) married, in 1789, Elizabeth, daughter of General Sir Charles Grey, created (1806) Earl Grey, and sister of the second Earl Grey, of Reform Bill fame. The son of a wealthy brewer, whose fortune he inherited, he entered Parliament as M.P. for Bedford in 1790. Raikes, in his 'Journal' (vol. iv. PP. 50, 51), speaks of him, at the outset of his career, as a staunch Foxite, and "much remarked in society." Comparing him with his brother-in-law Grey, he says,

"Mr. Whitbread was a more steady character; his appearance was heavy; he was fond of agriculture, and was very plain and simple in his tastes. Both were reckoned good debaters in the House, but Grey was the most eloquent."

An independent Whig, and an advocate for peace with France, Whitbread supported Fox against Pitt throughout the Napoleonic War, strongly opposed its renewal after the return of the emperor from Elba, and interested himself in such measures as moderate Parliamentary reform, the amendment of the poor law, national education, and retrenchment of public expenditure. On April 8, 1805, he moved the resolutions which ended in the impeachment of Lord Melville, and took the lead in the inquiries, which were made, March, 1809, into the conduct of the Duke of York. He was a plain, business-like speaker, and a man of such unimpeachable integrity that Mr., afterwards Lord, Plunket, in a speech on the Roman Catholic claims, February 28, 1821, called him "the incorruptible sentinel of the constitution."

When he moved the articles of impeachment against Lord Melville, Canning scribbled the following impromptu parody of his speech ('Anecdotal History of the British Parliament', p. 222):

"I'm like Archimedes for science and skill; I'm like a young prince going straight up a hill; I'm like—(with respect to the fair be it said)— I'm like a young lady just bringing to bed. If you ask why the 11th of June I remember Much better than April, or May, or November, On that day, my lords, with truth I assure ye, My sainted progenitor set up his brewery; On that day, in the morn, he began brewing beer; On that day, too, commenced his connubial career;] On that day he received and he issued his bills; On that day he cleared out all the cash from his tills; On that day he died, having finished his summing, And the angels all cried, 'Here's old Whitbread a-coming!' So that day still I hail with a smile and a sigh, For his beer with an E, and his bier with an I; And still on that day, in the hottest of weather, The whole Whitbread family dine all together.— So long as the beams of this house shall support The roof which o'ershades this respectable Court, Where Hastings was tried for oppressing the Hindoos; So long as that sun shall shine in at those windows, My name shall shine bright as my ancestor's shines, 'Mine' recorded in journals, 'his' blazoned on signs!"

An active member of Parliament, a large landed proprietor, the manager of his immense brewery in Chiswell Street, Whitbread also found time to reduce to order the chaotic concerns of Drury Lane Theatre. He was, with Lord Holland and Harvey Combe, responsible for the request to Byron to write an address, having first rejected his own address with its "poulterer's description of the Phoenix." He was fond of private theatricals, and Dibdin ('Reminiscences', vol. ii. pp. 383, 384) gives the play-bill of an entertainment given by him at Southill. In the first play, 'The Happy Return', he took the part of "Margery;" and in the second, 'Fatal Duplicity', that of "Eglantine," a very young lady, loved by "Sir Buntybart" and "Sir Brandywine." In his capacity as manager of Drury Lane, Whitbread is represented by the author of 'Accepted Addresses' (1813) as addressing "the M—s of H—d"—

"My LORD,—

"As I now have the honour to be By 'Man'ging' a 'Playhouse' a double M.P., In this my address I think fit to complain Of certain encroachments on great Drury Lane," etc., etc.

Whitbread strongly supported the cause of the Princess of Wales. Miss Berry ('Journal', vol. iii. p. 25) says that he dictated the letters which the Princess wrote to the Queen, who had desired that she should not attend the two drawing-rooms to be held in June, 1814. "They were good," she adds, "but too long, and sometimes marked by Whitbread's want of taste."

The strain of his multifarious activities affected both his health and his mind, and he committed suicide July 6, 1815.]

[Footnote 3:

"By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd."

(Pope.)

"Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn, Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn."

(Gray.)

"Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn."

(Smollett.)]



* * * * *



253.—To John Murray.

Cheltenham, September 27, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I sent in no 'Address' whatever to the Committee; but out of nearly one hundred (this is confidential), none have been deemed worth acceptance; and in consequence of 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.

I am, yours very truly, BYRON.

P.S.—I should wish a few copies printed off before, that the Newspaper copies may be correct after the delivery.



* * * * *



254.—To Lord Holland.

September 28, 1812.

Will this do better? The metaphor is more complete.

Till slowly ebb'd the {lava of the/spent volcanic} wave, And blackening ashes mark'd the Muse's grave.

If not, we will say "burning wave," and instead of "burning clime," in the line some couplets back, have "glowing."

Is Whitbread determined to castrate all my cavalry lines [1]? I don't see why t'other house should be spared; besides it is the public, who ought to know better; and you recollect Johnson's was against similar buffooneries of Rich's—but, certes, I am not Johnson. [2]

Instead of "effects," say "labours"—"degenerate" will do, will it? Mr. Betty is no longer a babe, therefore the line cannot be personal. Will this do?

Till ebb'd the lava of {the burning}/{that molten} wave [3]

with "glowing dome," in case you prefer "burning" added to this "wave" metaphorical. The word "fiery pillar" was suggested by the "pillar of fire" in the book of Exodus, which went before the Israelites through the Red Sea. I once thought of saying "like Israel's pillar," and making it a simile, but I did not know,—the great temptation was leaving the epithet "fiery" for the supplementary wave. I want to work up that passage, as it is the only new ground us prologuizers can go upon—

This is the place where, if a poet Shined in description, he might show it.

If I part with the possibility of a future conflagration, we lessen the compliment to Shakspeare. However, we will e'en mend it thus:

Yes, it shall be—the magic of that name, That scorns the scythe of Time, the torch of Flame, On the same spot, etc., etc.

There—the deuce is in it, if that is not an improvement to Whitbread's content. Recollect, it is the "name," and not the "magic," that has a noble contempt for those same weapons. If it were the "magic," my metaphor would be somewhat of the maddest—so the "name" is the antecedent. But, my dear Lord, your patience is not quite so immortal—therefore, with many and sincere thanks, I am,

Yours ever most affectionately.

P.S.—I foresee there will be charges of partiality in the papers; but you know I sent in no Address; and glad both you and I must be that I did not, for, in that case, their plea had been plausible. I doubt the Pit will be testy; but conscious innocence (a novel and pleasing sensation) makes me bold.



[Footnote 1: The lines which were omitted by the Committee ran thus:

"'Nay, lower still, the Drama yet deplores That late she deigned to crawl upon all-fours. When Richard roars in Bosworth for a horse, If you command, the steed must come in course. If you decree, the Stage must condescend' To soothe the sickly taste we dare not mend. Blame not our judgment should we acquiesce, And gratify you more by showing less. Oh, since your Fiat stamps the Drama's laws, Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause; That public praise be ne'er again disgraced, From {brutes to man recall}/{babes and brutes redeem} a nation's taste; Then pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers, When Reason's voice is echoed back by ours."

The last couplet but one was altered in a subsequent copy, thus:

"'The past reproach let present scenes refute, Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute'."

On February 18, 1811, at Covent Garden, a troop of horses were introduced in 'Bluebeard'. For the manager, Juvenal's words, "Lucri bonus est odor ex re Qualibet" ('Sat'. xiv. 204) may have been true; but, as the dressing-room of the equine comedians was under the orchestra, the stench on the first night was to the audience intolerable. At the same theatre, April 29, 1811, the horses were again brought on the stage in Lewis's 'Timour the Tartar'. At the same theatre, on the following December 26, a live elephant appeared. The novelty had, however, been anticipated in the Dublin Theatre during the season of 1771-72 (Genest's 'English Stage', vol. viii. p. 287). At the Haymarket, and Drury Lane, the introduction of live animals was ridiculed. 'The Quadrupeds of Quedlinburgh' was given at the Haymarket, July 26, 1811, as a burlesque on 'Timour the Tartar' and the horses. The Prologue, by Colman the Younger, attacks the passion for German plays and animal actors:

"Your taste, recover'd half from foreign quacks, Takes airings, now, on English horses' backs; While every modern bard may raise his name, If not on lasting praise, on stable fame."

At the Lyceum, during the season 1811-12, 'Quadrupeds, or the Manager's Last Kick', in which the tailors were mounted on asses and mules, was given by the Drury Lane Company with success. It was this introduction of animal performers which Byron wished to attack.]

[Footnote 2: The following are the lines in Johnson's 'Prologue' to which Byron refers:

"Then crush'd by rules, and weaken'd as refined, For years the power of Tragedy declined; From bard to bard the frigid caution crept, Till Declamation roared, whilst Passion slept. Yet still did Virtue deign the stage to tread, Philosophy remained though Nature fled. But forced, at length, her ancient reign to quit, She saw great Faustus lay the ghost of Wit; Exulting Folly hailed the joyous Day, And Pantomime and Song confirmed her sway. But who the coming changes can presage, And mark the future periods of the Stage? Perhaps if skill could distant times explore, New Behns, new Durfeys, yet remain in store; Perhaps, where Lear has raved, and Hamlet died, On flying cars new sorcerers may ride; Perhaps (for who can guess th' effects of chance?) Here Hunt may box, or Mahomet may dance."

John Rich (circ. 1682-1761) was the creator of pantomime in England, which he introduced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in April, 1716, and in which, under the stage name of Lun, he played the part of Harlequin. At Lincoln's Inn Fields, January 29, 1728, he produced 'The Beggar's Opera', which, after being refused at Drury Lane, made "Gay 'rich', and Rich 'gay'." "Great Faustus" probably alludes to the war between the two theatres, and the rival productions of 'Harlequin Dr. Faustus' at Drury Lane in 1723, and of 'The Necromancer, or the History of Dr. Faustus' at Lincoln's Inn Fields in December of the same year. On December 7, 1732, Rich opened the new theatre at Covent Garden, of which he remained manager till his death in 1761.]

[Footnote 3: The form of this couplet, as printed, is as follows:

"Till blackening ashes and lonely wall Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall."]



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255.—To Lord Holland.

September 28.

I have altered the middle couplet, so as I hope partly to do away with W.'s objection. I do think, in the present state of the stage, it had been unpardonable to pass over the horses and Miss Mudie [1], etc. As Betty is no longer a boy, how can this be applied to him? He is now to be judged as a man. If he acts still like a boy, the public will but be more ashamed of their blunder. I have, you see, now taken it for granted that these things are reformed. I confess, I wish that part of the Address to stand; but if W. is inexorable, e'en let it go. I have also new-cast the lines, and softened the hint of future combustion, and sent them off this morning. Will you have the goodness to add, or insert, the approved alterations as they arrive? They "come like shadows, so depart," [2] occupy me, and, I fear, disturb you.

Do not let Mr. W. put his Address into Elliston's hands till you have settled on these alterations. E. will think it too long:—much depends on the speaking. I fear it will not bear much curtailing, without chasms in the sense.

It is certainly too long in the reading; but if Elliston exerts himself, such a favourite with the public will not be thought tedious. I should think it so, if he were not to speak it.

Yours ever, etc.

P.S.—On looking again, I doubt my idea of having obviated W.'s objection. To the other House allusion is non sequitur—but I wish to plead for this part, because the thing really is not to be passed over. Many afterpieces of the Lyceum by the same company have already attacked this "Augean Stable"—and Johnson, in his prologue against "Lunn" (the harlequin manager, Rich),—"Hunt,"—"Mahomet," etc. is surely a fair precedent. [3]



[Footnote 1: For the horses, see p. 156, 'note' 1. Miss Mudie, another "Phenomenon," with whom the Covent Garden manager hoped to rival the success of Master Betty, was announced in the 'Morning Post', July 29, 1805, as the "Young Roscia of the Dublin Stage." She appeared at Covent Garden, November 23, 1805, in the part of "Peggy" in 'The Country Girl', Miss Brunton being "Alithea," C. Kemble "Harcourt," and Moody "Murray." Being hissed by the audience, she walked with great composure to the front of the stage, and said, as reported in the 'Morning Post' (November 25, 1805)

"Ladies and gentlemen,—I know nothing I have done to offend you, and has set ('sic') those who are sent here to hiss me; I will be very much obliged to you to turn them out."

This unfortunate speech made matters worse; the audience refused to hear her, and her part was finished by Miss Searle.

Miss Mudie was said to be only eight years old. But J. Kemble, being asked if she were really such a child, answered, "'Child'! Why, sir, when I was a very young actor in the York Company, that little creature kept an inn at Tadcaster, and had a large family" (Clark Russell's 'Representative Actors', p. 363, 'note' 2). The 'Morning Post' (April 5, 1806) says that Miss Mudie afterwards joined a children's troupe in Leicester Place, where, "though deservedly discountenanced at a great theatre, she will, no doubt, prove an acquisition to the infant establishment" (Ashton's 'Dawn of the XIXth Century in England', pp. 333-336).]

[Footnote 2: Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1.]

[Footnote 3: For Lun, or Rich, see p. 157, end of 'note' 1. Hunt, in the notes to Johnson's 'Prologue' (Gilfillan's edition of Johnson's 'Poestical Works', p. 38), is said to be "a famous stage-boxer, Mahomet, a rope-dancer."]



* * * * *



256.—To 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 post-office 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 [1] is sold—the sum L140,000; 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 [2], 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. I heard that you passed through here (at the sordid inn where I first alighted) the very day before I arrived in these parts. We had a very pleasant set here; at first the Jerseys, Melbournes [3], Cowpers [4], and Hollands, but all gone; and the only persons I know are the Rawdons [5] and Oxfords [6], 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 [7]? 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!

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 [8]?—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. Good night.

Ever yours most affectionately,

[Greek: Mpairon.]



[Footnote 1: Newstead was put up at Garraway's in the autumn of 1812; but only L90,000 were bid, and the property was therefore withdrawn. Subsequently it was privately sold to a Mr. Claughton, who found himself unable to complete the purchase, and forfeited L25,000 on the contract. Newstead was eventually sold, in November, 1817, to Colonel Wildman, Byron's Harrow schoolfellow, for L94,500.]

[Footnote 2: For Lady Jersey, see p. 112, 'note' 1 [Footnote 1 of Letter 230]. The following passage, from Byron's 'Detached Thoughts', gives an account of the party at Middleton:

"In 1812 at Middelton (Lord Jersey's), amongst a goodly company of Lords, Ladies, and wits, etc., there was poor old Vice Leach, the lawyer, attempting to play off the fine gentleman. His first exhibition, an attempt on horseback, I think, to escort the women—God knows where—in the month of November, ended in a fit of the Lumbago—as Lord Ogleby says, 'a grievous enemy to Gallantry and address'—and if he could have but heard Lady Jersey quizzing him (as I did) next day for the cause of his malady, I don't think that he would have turned a 'Squire of dames' in a hurry again. He seemed to me the greatest fool (in that line) I ever saw. This was the last I saw of old Vice Leach, except in town, where he was creeping into assemblies, and trying to look young—and gentlemanly.

"Erskine too!—Erskine was there—good but intolerable. He jested, he talked, he did everything admirably, but then he 'would' be applauded for the same thing twice over. He would read his own verses, his own paragraphs, and tell his own story again and again; and then 'the trial by Jury!!!'—I almost wished it abolished, for I sate next him at dinner, and, as I had read his published speeches, there was no occasion to repeat them to me. Chester (the fox-hunter), surnamed 'Cheek Chester,' and I sweated the Claret, being the only two who did so. Cheek, who loves his bottle, and had no notion of meeting with a 'bonvivant' in a scribbler, in making my eulogy to somebody one evening, summed it up in 'by G-d, he 'drinks like a Man'!'"]

[Footnote 3: Sir Peniston Lamb, created an Irish baron as Lord Melbourne in 1770, an Irish viscount in 1780, and an English peer in 1815, married, in 1769, Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, of Halnaby, Yorkshire, one of the cleverest and most beautiful women of the day. Horace Walpole, writing to Mason, May 12, 1778, mentions her when she was at the height of her beauty.

"On Tuesday," he says, "I supped, after the opera, at Mrs. Meynel's with a set of the most fashionable company, which, take notice, I very seldom do now, as I certainly am not of the age to mix often with young people. Lady Melbourne was standing before the fire, and adjusting her feathers in the glass. Says she, 'Lord, they say the stocks will blow up! That will be very comical.'"

Greville ('Memoirs', ed. 1888, vol. vi. p. 248) associates her name with that of Lord Egremont. Reynolds painted her with her eldest son in his well-known picture 'Maternal Affection'. Her second son, William, afterwards Prime Minister, used to say,

"Ah! my mother was a most remarkable woman; not merely clever and engaging, but the most sagacious woman I ever knew"

('Memoirs of Viscount Melbourne', vol. i. p. 135). Lady Melbourne, whom Byron spoke of as

"the best, the kindest, and ablest female I have ever known, old or young,"

died in 1818, her husband in 1828. He thus described her to Lady Blessington ('Conversations', p. 225):

"Lady M., who might have been my mother, excited an interest in my feelings that few young women have been able to awaken. She was a charming person—a sort of modern Aspasia, uniting the energy of a man's mind with the delicacy and tenderness of a woman's. She wrote and spoke admirably, because she felt admirably. Envy, malice, hatred, or uncharitableness, found no place in her feelings. She had all of philosophy, save its moroseness, and all of nature, save its defects and general 'faiblesse'; or if some portion of 'faiblesse' attached to her, it only served to render her more forbearing to the errors of others. I have often thought, that, with a little more youth, Lady M. might have turned my head, at all events she often turned my heart, by bringing me back to mild feelings, when the demon passion was strong within me. Her mind and heart were as fresh as if only sixteen summers had flown over her, instead of four times that number."]

[Footnote 4: Peter, fifth Earl Cowper (1778-1837), married, in 1805 Emily Mary Lamb, daughter of Lord Melbourne; she married, secondly, in 1839, Lord Palmerston.]

[Footnote 5: Francis Rawdon, second Earl of Moira (1754-1826), created Lord Rawdon (1783), and Marquis of Hastings (1817), married, in 1804, the Countess of Loudoun.]

[Footnote 6: Edward Harley (1773-1848) succeeded his uncle as fifth Earl of Oxford in 1790, and married, in 1794, Jane Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. James Scott, Vicar of Itchin, Hants. It is probably of Lady Oxford, whose picture was painted by Hoppner, that Byron spoke to Lady Blessington ('Conversations', p. 255),

"Even now the autumnal charms of Lady——are remembered by me with more than admiration. She resembled a landscape by Claude Lorraine, with a setting sun, her beauties enhanced by the knowledge that they were shedding their last dying beams, which threw a radiance around. A woman... is only grateful for her 'first' and 'last' conquest. The first of poor dear Lady——'s was achieved before I entered on this world of care; but the 'last', I do flatter myself, was reserved for me, and a 'bonne bouche' it was."

The following passage certainly relates to Lady Oxford:

"There was a lady at that time," said Byron (Medwin's 'Conversations', pp. 93, 94), "double my own age, the mother of several children who were perfect angels, with whom I had formed a 'liaison' that continued without interruption for eight months. The autumn of a beauty like her's is preferable to the spring in others. She told me she was never in love till she was thirty; and I thought myself so with her when she was forty. I never felt a stronger passion; which she returned with equal ardour.... She had been sacrificed, almost before she was a woman, to one whose mind and body were equally contemptible in the scale of creation; and on whom she bestowed a numerous family, to which the law gave him the right to be called father. Strange as it may seem, she gained (as all women do) an influence over me so strong, that I had great difficulty in breaking with her, even when I knew she had been inconstant to me: and once was on the point of going abroad with her, and narrowly escaped this folly."

To be near the Oxfords at Eywood, in Herefordshire, Byron took Kinsham Court, a dower-house of the family, where Bishop Harley died in 1788. At one time, as is evident from his correspondence with Hanson, he was bent on going abroad with Lady Oxford. In the end he only accompanied her to Portsmouth. Of Lady Oxford, Uvedale Price wrote thus to Rogers (Clayden, 'Rogers and his Contemporaries', vol. i. pp. 397, 398):

"This is a melancholy subject"—[the death, by consumption of Lord Aberdeen's children]—"and I must go to another. Poor Lady Oxford! I had heard with great concern of her dangerous illness, but hoped she might get through it, and was much, very much grieved to hear that it had ended fatally. I had, as you know, lived a great deal with her from the time she came into this country, immediately after her marriage; but for some years past, since she went abroad, had scarcely had any correspondence or intercourse with her, till I met her in town last spring. I then saw her twice, and both times she seemed so overjoyed to see an old friend, and expressed her joy so naturally and cordially, that I felt no less overjoyed at seeing her after so long an absence. She talked, with great satisfaction, of our meeting for a longer time this next spring, little thinking of an eternal separation. There could not, in all respects, be a more ill-matched pair than herself and Lord Oxford, or a stronger instance of the cruel sports of Venus, or, rather, of Hymen—

'Cui placet impares Formas atque animos sub juga ahenea Saevo mittere cum joco.'

"It has been said that she was, in some measure, forced into the match. Had she been united to a man whom she had loved, esteemed, and respected, she herself might have been generally respected and esteemed, as well as loved; but in her situation, to keep clear of all misconduct required a strong mind or a cold heart; perhaps both, and she had neither. Her failings were in no small degree the effect of circumstances; her amiable qualities all her own. There was something about her, in spite of her errors, remarkably attaching, and that something was not merely her beauty. 'Kindness has resistless charms,' and she was full of affectionate kindness to those she loved, whether as friends or as lovers. As a friend, I always found her the same, never at all changeful or capricious. As I am not a very rigid moralist, and am extremely open to kindness, 'I could have better spared a better woman.'"]



[Footnote 7: An account of the accident is given in the Chronicle of the 'Annual Register', September 21, 1812. The party consisted of ten people, three of whom were saved. Among those rescued was Mr. Rothery—not Rossoe, as Byron gives it.]

[Footnote 8: The new Parliament met November 30, 1812. Wellington won the battle of Salamanca on the previous July 22.]



* * * * *



257.—To Lord Holland.

September 29, 1812.

Shakespeare certainly ceased to reign in one of his kingdoms, as George III. did in America, and George IV. [1] may in Ireland? Now, we have nothing to do out of our own realms, and when the monarchy was gone, his majesty had but a barren sceptre. I have cut away, you will see, and altered, but make it what you please; only I do implore, for my own gratification, one lash on those accursed quadrupeds—"a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love me." [2] I have altered "wave," etc., and the "fire," and so forth for the timid.

Let me hear from you when convenient, and believe me, etc.

P.S.—Do let that stand, and cut out elsewhere. I shall choke, if we must overlook their damned menagerie.



[Footnote 1: Some objection, it appears, had been made to the passage, "and Shakspeare ceased to reign."]

[Footnote 2: Bob Acres, in 'The Rivals' (act v. se. 3), says, "A long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love me."]



* * * * *



258.—To Lord Holland.

September 30, 1812.

I send you the most I can make of it; for I am not so well as I was, and find I "pull in resolution." [1]

I wish much to see you, and will be at Tetbury by twelve on Saturday; and from thence I go on to Lord Jersey's. It is impossible not to allude to the degraded state of the Stage, but I have lightened it, and endeavoured to obviate your other objections. There is a new couplet for Sheridan, allusive to his Monody [2]. All the alterations I have marked thus ],—as you will see by comparison with the other copy. I have cudgelled my brains with the greatest willingness, and only wish I had more time to have done better.

You will find a sort of clap-trap laudatory couplet inserted for the quiet of the Committee [3], and I have added, towards the end, the couplet you were pleased to like. The whole Address is seventy-three lines, still perhaps too long; and, if shortened, you will save time, but, I fear, a little of what I meant for sense also.

With myriads of thanks, I am ever, etc.

My sixteenth edition of respects to Lady H.—How she must laugh at all this!

I wish Murray, my publisher, to print off some copies as soon as your Lordship returns to town—it will ensure correctness in the papers afterwards.



[Footnote 1: 'Macbeth', act v. sc. 5.]

[Footnote 2: Sheridan's 'Monody on Garrick'.]

[Footnote 3: The Committee of Selection consisted, says the 'Satirist' (November 1, 1812, p. 395),

"of one peer and two commoners, one poet and two prosers, one Lord and two Brewers; and the only points in which they coincided were in being all three parliament men, all three politicians, all three in opposition to the Government of the country. Their names, as we understand, were Vassal Holland, Samuel Whitbread, and Harvey Christian Combe."]



* * * * *



259.—To Lord Holland.

Far be from him that hour which asks in vain Tears such as flow for Garrick in his strain;

or,

Far be that hour that vainly asks in turn Such verse for him as {crown'd his/wept o'er} Garrick's urn.

September 30, 1812.

Will you choose between these added to the lines on Sheridan [1]?

I think they will wind up the panegyric, and agree with the train of thought preceding them.

Now, one word as to the Committee—how could they resolve on a rough copy of an Address never sent in, unless you had been good enough to retain in memory, or on paper, the thing they have been good enough to adopt? By the by, the circumstances of the case should make the Committee less avidus gloriae, for all praise of them would look plaguy suspicious. If necessary to be stated at all, the simple facts bear them out. They surely had a right to act as they pleased. My sole object is one which, I trust, my whole conduct has shown; viz. that I did nothing insidious—sent in no Address whatever—but, when applied to, did my best for them and myself; but, above all, that there was no undue partiality, which will be what the rejected will endeavour to make out. Fortunately—most fortunately—I sent in no lines on the occasion. For I am sure that had they, in that case, been preferred, it would have been asserted that I was known, and owed the preference to private friendship. This is what we shall probably have to encounter; but, if once spoken and approved, we sha'n't be much embarrassed by their brilliant conjectures; and, as to criticism, an old author, like an old bull, grows cooler (or ought) at every baiting.

The only thing would be to avoid a party on the night of delivery—afterwards, the more the better, and the whole transaction inevitably tends to a good deal of discussion. Murray tells me there are myriads of ironical Addresses [2] ready—some, in imitation of what is called my style. If they are as good as the 'Probationary Odes' [3], or Hawkins's 'Pipe of Tobacco' [4], it will not be bad fun for the imitated.

Ever, etc.



[Footnote 1: These added lines, as may be seen by reference to the printed Address, were not retained.]

[Footnote 2: Probably the reference is to 'Rejected Addresses, or the New Theatrum Poetarum' (1812), by James (1775-1839) and Horace (1779-1849) Smith. "Cui Bono?" the parody on Byron, is the joint composition of James and Horace. The manuscript was offered to Murray for L20, but declined by him. It was afterwards published by John Miller, of Bow Street, Covent Garden, who also published 'Horace in London'.]

[Footnote 3: 'Probationary Odes', which generally forms, with 'Political Eclogues', the third portion of the 'Rolliad', is really distinct from that work. It is the result of an imaginary contest for the laureate-ship. Each candidate was to deliver a "Probationary Birthday Ode," and among the candidates are Dr. Pretyman, Archbishop Markham, Thomas and Joseph Warton, Sir Cecil Wray, Sir Joseph Mawbey, Henry Dundas, Lord Thurlow, and other Tories of the day. The plan of the work is said to have been suggested by Joseph Richardson (1755-1803), who wrote Odes iv. (Sir Richard Hill) and xix. (Lord Mountmorres).]

[Footnote 4: 'In Praise of a Pipe of Tobacco' (1736), written by Isaac Hawkins Browne (1705-1760), was an ode in imitation of Swift, Pope, Thomson, and other contemporary poets. Browne represented Wenlock in the Whig interest in the Parliaments of 1744 and 1747. Johnson spoke of him (Boswell, 'Johnson', April 5, 1775) as "one of the first wits of this country," who "got into Parliament, and never opened his mouth."]



* * * * *



260.—To Lord Holland.

October 2, 1812.

A copy of this still altered is sent by the post, but this will arrive first. It must be "humbler"—"yet aspiring" does away the modesty, and, after all, truth is truth. Besides, there is a puff direct altered, to please your plaguy renters.

I shall be at Tetbury by 12 or 1—but send this for you to ponder over. There are several little things marked thus / altered for your perusal. I have dismounted the cavalry, and, I hope, arranged to your general satisfaction.

Ever, etc.

At Tetbury by noon.—I hope, after it is sent, there will be no more elisions. It is not now so long—73 lines—two less than allotted. I will alter all Committee objections, but I hope you won't permit Elliston to have any voice whatever,—except in speaking it.



* * * * *



261.—To John Murray.

Cheltenham, Oct. 12, 1812.

DEAR SIR,—I have a very strong objection to the engraving of the portrait [1], 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 [2], 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, etc.

Yours very truly,

BYRON.

P.S.—Favour me with an answer, as I shall not be easy until I hear that the proofs, etc., are destroyed. I hear that the Satirist has reviewed Childe Harold [3], 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 publications of that kind, others, particularly female names, are sometimes introduced.



[Footnote 1: A miniature by Sanders. Besides this miniature, Sanders had also painted a full-length of Byron, from which the portrait prefixed to the quarto edition of Moore's 'Life' is engraved. In reference to the latter picture, Byron says, in a note to 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" (Moore).]

[Footnote 2: On Saturday, October 10, Drury Lane reopened with 'The Devil to Pay' and 'Hamlet'. Then, after the whole body of actors had sung "God save the King" and "Rule, Britannia," Elliston delivered Byron's address.]

[Footnote 3: 'The Satirist, a Monthly Meteor' (see 'Letters', vol. i. p. 321, 'note' 3 [Footnote 3 of Letter 159]), ran from October, 1807, to 1814. Up to 1812 it was the property of George Manners, who sold it in that year to W. Jerdan. It reviewed 'Childe Harold' in October, 1812 (pp. 344-358); and again in December of the same year (pp. 542-550). In the first of the two notices, the 'Satirist' quotes the "judgment of our predecessors," that unless Byron "improved wonderfully, he could never be a poet," and continues thus:

"It is with unaffected satisfaction we find that he has improved wonderfully, and that he is a poet. Indeed, when we consider the comparatively short interval which has elapsed, and contrast the character of his recent with that of his early work, we confess ourselves astonished at the intellectual progress which Lord Byron has made, and are happy to hold him up as another example of the extraordinary effects of study and cultivation, 'even' on minds apparently of the most unpromising description."

The reviewer severely condemns the morbid bitterness of the poet's thought and feeling, but yet affirms that the poems

"abound with beautiful imagery, clothed in a diction free, forcible, and various. 'Childe Harold', although avowedly a fragment, contains many fragments which would do honour to any poet, of any period, in any country."]