Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 / Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824

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Title: Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6)

Author: (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

Editor: Thomas Moore

Release Date: August 27, 2005 [EBook #16609]

Language: English

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LIFE

OF

LORD BYRON:

WITH HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS.

BY THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.

IN SIX VOLUMES.--VOL. V.

NEW EDITION.


LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1854.




CONTENTS OF VOL. V.

LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE, from
October, 1820, to November, 1822.




NOTICES

OF THE

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.




LETTER 394. TO MR. MOORE.

     "Ravenna, October 17. 1820.

     "You owe me two letters--pay them. I want to know what you are
     about. The summer is over, and you will be back to Paris. Apropos
     of Paris, it was not Sophia _Gail_, but Sophia _Gay_--the English
     word _Gay_--who was my correspondent.[1] Can you tell who she is,
     as you did of the defunct * *?

     "Have you gone on with your Poem? I have received the French of
     mine. Only think of being _traduced_ into a foreign language in
     such an abominable travesty! It is useless to rail, but one can't
     help it.

     "Have you got my Memoir copied? I have begun a continuation. Shall
     I send it you, as far as it is gone?

     "I can't say any thing to you about Italy, for the Government here
     look upon me with a suspicious eye, as I am well informed. Pretty
     fellows!--as if I, a solitary stranger, could do any mischief. It
     is because I am fond of rifle and pistol shooting, I believe; for
     they took the alarm at the quantity of cartridges I consumed,--the
     wiseacres!

     "You don't deserve a long letter--nor a letter at all--for your
     silence. You have got a new Bourbon, it seems, whom they have
     christened 'Dieu-donne;'--perhaps the honour of the present may be
     disputed. Did you write the good lines on ----, the Laker? * *

     "The Queen has made a pretty theme for the journals. Was there ever
     such evidence published? Why, it is worse than 'Little's Poems' or
     'Don Juan.' If you don't write soon, I will 'make you a speech.'
     Yours," &c.

[Footnote 1: I had mistaken the name of the lady he enquired after, and
reported her to him as dead. But, on the receipt of the above letter, I
discovered that his correspondent was Madame Sophie Gay, mother of the
celebrated poetess and beauty, Mademoiselle Delphine Gay.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 395. TO MR. MURRAY.

     "Ravenna, 8bre 25 deg., 1820.

     "Pray forward the enclosed to Lady Byron. It is on business.

     "In thanking you for the Abbot, I made four grand mistakes, Sir
     John Gordon was not of Gight, but of Bogagicht, and a son of
     Huntley's. He suffered _not_ for his loyalty, but in an
     insurrection. He had _nothing_ to do with Loch Leven, having been
     dead some time at the period of the Queen's confinement: and,
     fourthly, I am not sure that he was the Queen's paramour or no, for
     Robertson does not allude to this, though _Walter Scott does_, in
     the list he gives of her admirers (as unfortunate) at the close of
     'The Abbot.'

     "I must have made all these mistakes in recollecting my mother's
     account of the matter, although she was more accurate than I am,
     being precise upon points of genealogy, like all the aristocratical
     Scotch. She had a long list of ancestors, like Sir Lucius
     O'Trigger's, most of whom are to be found in the old Scotch
     Chronicles, Spalding, &c. in arms and doing mischief. I remember
     well passing Loch Leven, as well as the Queen's Ferry: we were on
     our way to England in 1798.

     "Yours.

     "You had better not publish Blackwood and the Roberts' prose,
     except what regards Pope;--you have let the time slip by."

       *       *       *       *       *

The Pamphlet in answer to Blackwood's Magazine, here mentioned, was
occasioned by an article in that work, entitled "Remarks on Don Juan,"
and though put to press by Mr. Murray, was never published. The writer
in the Magazine having, in reference to certain passages in Don Juan,
taken occasion to pass some severe strictures on the author's
matrimonial conduct, Lord Byron, in his reply, enters at some length
into that painful subject; and the following extracts from his
defence,--if defence it can be called, where there has never yet been
any definite charge,--will be perused with strong interest:--

     "My learned brother proceeds to observe, that 'it is in vain for
     Lord B. to attempt in any way to justify his own behaviour in that
     affair: and now that he has so _openly_ and _audaciously_ invited
     enquiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should
     not be plainly told so by the voice of his countrymen.' How far the
     'openness' of an anonymous poem, and the 'audacity' of an imaginary
     character, which the writer supposes to be meant for Lady B. may be
     deemed to merit this formidable denunciation from their 'most sweet
     voices,' I neither know nor care; but when he tells me that I
     cannot 'in any way _justify_ my own behaviour in that affair,' I
     acquiesce, because no man can '_justify_' himself until he knows of
     what he is accused; and I have never had--and, God knows, my whole
     desire has ever been to obtain it--any specific charge, in a
     tangible shape, submitted to me by the adversary, nor by others,
     unless the atrocities of public rumour and the mysterious silence
     of the lady's legal advisers may be deemed such.[2] But is not the
     writer content with what has been already said and done? Has not
     'the general voice of his countrymen' long ago pronounced upon the
     subject--sentence without trial, and condemnation without a
     charge? Have I not been exiled by ostracism, except that the shells
     which proscribed me were anonymous? Is the writer ignorant of the
     public opinion and the public conduct upon that occasion? If he is,
     I am not: the public will forget both long before I shall cease to
     remember either.

     "The man who is exiled by a faction has the consolation of thinking
     that he is a martyr; he is upheld by hope and the dignity of his
     cause, real or imaginary: he who withdraws from the pressure of
     debt may indulge in the thought that time and prudence will
     retrieve his circumstances: he who is condemned by the law has a
     term to his banishment, or a dream of its abbreviation; or, it may
     be, the knowledge or the belief of some injustice of the law or of
     its administration in his own particular: but he who is outlawed by
     general opinion, without the intervention of hostile politics,
     illegal judgment, or embarrassed circumstances, whether he be
     innocent or guilty, must undergo all the bitterness of exile,
     without hope, without pride, without alleviation. This case was
     mine. Upon what grounds the public founded their opinion, I am not
     aware; but it was general, and it was decisive. Of me or of mine
     they knew little, except that I had written what is called poetry,
     was a nobleman, had married, became a father, and was involved in
     differences with my wife and her relatives, no one knew why,
     because the persons complaining refused to state their grievances.
     The fashionable world was divided into parties, mine consisting of
     a very small minority; the reasonable world was naturally on the
     stronger side, which happened to be the lady's, as was most proper
     and polite. The press was active and scurrilous; and such was the
     rage of the day, that the unfortunate publication of two copies of
     verses rather complimentary than otherwise to the subjects, of
     both, was tortured into a species of crime, or constructive petty
     treason. I was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and
     private rancour: my name, which had been a knightly or a noble one
     since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for William the
     Norman, was tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered, and
     muttered, and murmured, was true, I was unfit for England; if
     false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew: but this was not
     enough. In other countries, in Switzerland, in the shadow of the
     Alps, and by the blue depth of the lakes, I was pursued and
     breathed upon by the same blight. I crossed the mountains, but it
     was the same; so I went a little farther, and settled myself by the
     waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the
     waters.

     "If I may judge by the statements of the few friends who gathered
     round me, the outcry of the period to which I allude was beyond all
     precedent, all parallel, even in those cases where political
     motives have sharpened slander and doubled enmity. I was advised
     not to go to the theatres, lest I should be hissed, nor to my duty
     in parliament, lest I should be insulted by the way; even on the
     day of my departure, my most intimate friend told me afterwards
     that he was under apprehensions of violence from the people who
     might be assembled at the door of the carriage. However, I was not
     deterred by these counsels from seeing Kean in his best characters,
     nor from voting according to my principles; and, with regard to the
     third and last apprehensions of my friends, I could not share in
     them, not being made acquainted with their extent till some time
     after I had crossed the Channel. Even if I had been so, I am not of
     a nature to be much affected by men's anger, though I may feel hurt
     by their aversion. Against all individual outrage, I could protect
     or redress myself; and against that of a crowd, I should probably
     have been enabled to defend myself, with the assistance of others,
     as has been done on similar occasions.

     "I retired from the country, perceiving that I was the object of
     general obloquy; I did not indeed imagine, like Jean Jacques
     Rousseau, that all mankind was in a conspiracy against me, though I
     had perhaps as good grounds for such a chimera as ever he had; but
     I perceived that I had to a great extent become personally
     obnoxious in England, perhaps through my own fault, but the fact
     was indisputable; the public in general would hardly have been so
     much excited against a more popular character, without at least an
     accusation or a charge of some kind actually expressed or
     substantiated; for I can hardly conceive that the common and
     every-day occurrence of a separation between man and wife could in
     itself produce so great a ferment. I shall say nothing of the usual
     complaints of 'being prejudged,' 'condemned unheard,' 'unfairness,'
     'partiality,' and so forth, the usual changes rung by parties who
     have had, or are to have, a trial; but I was a little surprised to
     find myself condemned without being favoured with the act of
     accusation, and to perceive in the absence of this portentous
     charge or charges, whatever it or they were to be, that every
     possible or impossible crime was rumoured to supply its place, and
     taken for granted. This could only occur in the case of a person
     very much disliked, and I knew no remedy, having already used to
     their extent whatever little powers I might possess of pleasing in
     society. I had no party in fashion, though I was afterwards told
     that there was one--but it was not of my formation, nor did I then
     know of its existence--none in literature; and in politics I had
     voted with the Whigs, with precisely that importance which a Whig
     vote possesses in these Tory days, and with such personal
     acquaintance with the leaders in both houses as the society in
     which I lived sanctioned, but without claim or expectation of
     anything like friendship from any one, except a few young men of my
     own age and standing, and a few others more advanced in life, which
     last it had been my fortune to serve in circumstances of
     difficulty. This was, in fact, to stand alone: and I recollect,
     some time after, Madame de Stael said to me in Switzerland, 'You
     should not have warred with the world--it will not do--it is too
     strong always for any individual: I myself once tried it in early
     life, but it will not do.' I perfectly acquiesce in the truth of
     this remark; but the world had done me the honour to begin the war;
     and, assuredly, if peace is only to be obtained by courting and
     paying tribute to it, I am not qualified to obtain its countenance.
     I thought, in the words of Campbell,

        "'Then wed thee to an exil'd lot,
        And if the world hath loved thee not,
          Its absence may be borne.'

     "I have heard of, and believe, that there are human beings so
     constituted as to be insensible to injuries; but I believe that the
     best mode to avoid taking vengeance is to get out of the way of
     temptation. I hope that I may never have the opportunity, for I am
     not quite sure that I could resist it, having derived from my
     mother something of the '_perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_.' I have
     not sought, and shall not seek it, and perhaps it may never come in
     my path. I do not in this allude to the party, who might be right
     or wrong; but to many who made her cause the pretext of their own
     bitterness. She, indeed, must have long avenged me in her own
     feelings, for whatever her reasons may have been (and she never
     adduced them to me at least), she probably neither contemplated nor
     conceived to what she became the means of conducting the father of
     her child, and the husband of her choice.

     "So much for 'the general voice of his countrymen:' I will now
     speak of some in particular.

     "In the beginning of the year 1817, an article appeared in the
     Quarterly Review, written, I believe, by Walter Scott, doing great
     honour to him, and no disgrace to me, though both poetically and
     personally more than sufficiently favourable to the work and the
     author of whom it treated. It was written at a time when a selfish
     man would not, and a timid one dared not, have said a word in
     favour of either; it was written by one to whom temporary public
     opinion had elevated me to the rank of a rival--a proud
     distinction, and unmerited; but which has not prevented me from
     feeling as a friend, nor him from more than corresponding to that
     sentiment. The article in question was written upon the third Canto
     of Childe Harold, and after many observations, which it would as
     ill become me to repeat as to forget, concluded with 'a hope that I
     might yet return to England.' How this expression was received in
     England itself I am not acquainted, but it gave great offence at
     Rome to the respectable ten or twenty thousand English travellers
     then and there assembled. I did not visit Rome till some time
     after, so that I had no opportunity of knowing the fact; but I was
     informed, long afterwards, that the greatest indignation had been
     manifested in the enlightened Anglo-circle of that year, which
     happened to comprise within it--amidst a considerable leaven of
     Welbeck Street and Devonshire Place, broken loose upon their
     travels--several really well-born and well-bred families, who did
     not the less participate in the feeling of the hour. 'Why should he
     return to England?' was the general exclamation--I answer _why_? It
     is a question I have occasionally asked myself, and I never yet
     could give it a satisfactory reply. I had then no thoughts of
     returning, and if I have any now, they are of business, and not of
     pleasure. Amidst the ties that have been dashed to pieces, there
     are links yet entire, though the chain itself be broken. There are
     duties, and connections, which may one day require my presence--and
     I am a father. I have still some friends whom I wish to meet again,
     and, it may be, an enemy. These things, and those minuter details
     of business, which time accumulates during absence, in every man's
     affairs and property, may, and probably will, recall me to England;
     but I shall return with the same feelings with which I left it, in
     respect to itself, though altered with regard to individuals, as I
     have been more or less informed of their conduct since my
     departure; for it was only a considerable time after it that I was
     made acquainted with the real facts and full extent of some of
     their proceedings and language. My friends, like other friends,
     from conciliatory motives, withheld from me much that they could,
     and some things which they _should_ have unfolded; however, that
     which is deferred is not lost--but it has been no fault of mine
     that it has been deferred at all.

     "I have alluded to what is said to have passed at Rome merely to
     show that the sentiment which I have described was not confined to
     the English in England, and as forming part of my answer to the
     reproach cast upon what has been called my 'selfish exile,' and my
     'voluntary exile.' 'Voluntary' it has been; for who would dwell
     among a people entertaining strong hostility against him? How far
     it has been 'selfish' has been already explained."

[Footnote 2: While these sheets are passing through the press, a printed
statement has been transmitted to me by Lady Noel Byron, which the
reader will find inserted in the Appendix to this volume. (_First
Edition_.)]

       *       *       *       *       *

The following passages from the same unpublished pamphlet will be found,
in a literary point of view, not less curious.

     "And here I wish to say a few words on the present state of English
     poetry. That this is the age of the decline of English poetry will
     be doubted by few who have calmly considered the subject. That
     there are men of genius among the present poets makes little
     against the fact, because it has been well said, that 'next to him
     who forms the taste of his country, the greatest genius is he who
     corrupts it.' No one has ever denied genius to Marino, who
     corrupted not merely the taste of Italy, but that of all Europe for
     nearly a century. The great cause of the present deplorable state
     of English poetry is to be attributed to that absurd and systematic
     depreciation of Pope, in which, for the last few years, there has
     been a kind of epidemical concurrence. Men of the most opposite
     opinions have united upon this topic. Warton and Churchill began
     it, having borrowed the hint probably from the heroes of the
     Dunciad, and their own internal conviction that their proper
     reputation can be as nothing till the most perfect and harmonious
     of poets--he who, having no fault, has had REASON made his
     reproach--was reduced to what they conceived to be his level; but
     even they dared not degrade him below Dryden. Goldsmith, and
     Rogers, and Campbell, his most successful disciples; and Hayley,
     who, however feeble, has left one poem 'that will not be willingly
     let die' (the Triumphs of Temper), kept up the reputation of that
     pure and perfect style; and Crabbe, the first of living poets, has
     almost equalled the master. Then came Darwin, who was put down by a
     single poem in the Antijacobin; and the Cruscans, from Merry to
     Jerningham, who were annihilated (if _Nothing_ can be said to be
     annihilated) by Gifford, the last of the wholesome English
     satirists. * * *

     "These three personages, S * *, W * *, and C * *, had all of them a
     very natural antipathy to Pope, and I respect them for it, as the
     only original feeling or principle which they have contrived to
     preserve. But they have been joined in it by those who have joined
     them in nothing else: by the Edinburgh Reviewers, by the whole
     heterogeneous mass of living English poets, excepting Crabbe,
     Rogers, Gifford, and Campbell, who, both by precept and practice,
     have proved their adherence; and by me, who have shamefully
     deviated in practice, but have ever loved and honoured Pope's
     poetry with my whole soul, and hope to do so till my dying day. I
     would rather see all I have ever written lining the same trunk in
     which I actually read the eleventh book of a modern Epic poem at
     Malta in 1811, (I opened it to take out a change after the paroxysm
     of a tertian, in the absence of my servant, and found it lined with
     the name of the maker, Eyre, Cockspur-street, and with the Epic
     poetry alluded to,) than sacrifice what I firmly believe in as the
     Christianity of English poetry, the poetry of Pope.

     "Nevertheless, I will not go so far as * * in his postscript, who
     pretends that no great poet ever had immediate fame, which, being
     interpreted, means that * * is not quite so much read by his
     contemporaries as might be desirable. This assertion is as false
     as it is foolish. Homer's glory depended upon his present
     popularity: he recited,--and without the strongest impression of
     the moment, who would have gotten the Iliad by heart, and given it
     to tradition? Ennius, Terence, Plautus, Lucretius, Horace, Virgil,
     Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Sappho, Anacreon, Theocritus, all
     the great poets of antiquity, were the delight of their
     contemporaries.[3] The very existence of a poet, previous to the
     invention of printing, depended upon his present popularity; and
     how often has it impaired his future fame? Hardly ever. History
     informs us, that the best have come down to us. The reason is
     evident: the most popular found the greatest number of transcribers
     for their MSS.; and that the taste of their contemporaries was
     corrupt can hardly be avouched by the moderns, the mightiest of
     whom have but barely approached them. Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and
     Tasso, were all the darlings of the contemporary reader. Dante's
     poem was celebrated long before his death; and, not long after it,
     States negotiated for his ashes, and disputed for the sites of the
     composition of the Divina Commedia. Petrarch was crowned in the
     Capitol. Ariosto was permitted to pass free by the public robber
     who had read the Orlando Furioso. I would not recommend Mr. * * to
     try the same experiment with his Smugglers. Tasso, notwithstanding
     the criticisms of the Cruscanti, would have been crowned in the
     Capitol, but for his death.

     "It is easy to prove the immediate popularity of the chief poets of
     the only modern nation in Europe that has a poetical language, the
     Italian. In our own, Shakspeare, Spenser, Jonson, Waller, Dryden,
     Congreve, Pope, Young, Shenstone, Thomson, Johnson, Goldsmith,
     Gray, were all as popular in their lives as since. Gray's Elegy
     pleased instantly, and eternally. His Odes did not, nor yet do they
     please like his Elegy. Milton's politics kept him down; but the
     Epigram of Dryden, and the very sale of his work, in proportion to
     the less reading time of its publication, prove him to have been
     honoured by his contemporaries. I will venture to assert, that the
     sale of the Paradise Lost was greater in the first four years after
     its publication than that of 'The Excursion,' in the same number,
     with the difference of nearly a century and a half between them of
     time, and of thousands in point of general readers.

     "It may be asked, why, having this opinion of the present state of
     poetry in England, and having had it long, as my friends and others
     well know--possessing, or having possessed too, as a writer, the
     ear of the public for the time being--I have not adopted a
     different plan in my own compositions, and endeavoured to correct
     rather than encourage the taste of the day. To this I would answer,
     that it is easier to perceive the wrong than to pursue the right,
     and that I have never contemplated the prospect 'of filling (with
     Peter Bell, see its Preface,) permanently a station in the
     literature of the country.' Those who know me best, know this, and
     that I have been considerably astonished at the temporary success
     of my works, having flattered no person and no party, and expressed
     opinions which are not those of the general reader. Could I have
     anticipated the degree of attention which has been accorded,
     assuredly I would have studied more to deserve it. But I have lived
     in far countries abroad, or in the agitating world at home, which
     was not favourable to study or reflection; so that almost all I
     have written has been mere passion,--passion, it is true, of
     different kinds, but always passion: for in me (if it be not an
     Irishism to say so) my _indifference_ was a kind of passion, the
     result of experience, and not the philosophy of nature. Writing
     grows a habit, like a woman's gallantry: there are women who have
     had no intrigue, but few who have had but one only; so there are
     millions of men who have never written a book, but few who have
     written only one. And thus, having written once, I wrote on;
     encouraged no doubt by the success of the moment, yet by no means
     anticipating its duration, and I will venture to say, scarcely even
     wishing it. But then I did other things besides write, which by no
     means contributed either to improve my writings or my prosperity.

     "I have thus expressed publicly upon the poetry of the day the
     opinion I have long entertained and expressed of it to all who have
     asked it, and to some who would rather not have heard it; as I told
     Moore not very long ago, 'we are all wrong except Rogers, Crabbe,
     and Campbell.'[4] Without being old in years, I am in days, and do
     not feel the adequate spirit within me to attempt a work which
     should show what I think right in poetry, and must content myself
     with having denounced what is wrong. There are, I trust, younger
     spirits rising up in England, who, escaping the contagion which has
     swept away poetry from our literature, will recall it to their
     country, such as it once was and may still be.

     "In the mean time, the best sign of amendment will be repentance,
     and new and frequent editions of Pope and Dryden.

     "There will be found as comfortable metaphysics and ten times more
     poetry in the 'Essay on Man,' than in the 'Excursion.' If you
     search for passion, where is it to be found stronger than in the
     epistle from Eloisa to Abelard, or in Palamon and Arcite? Do you
     wish for invention, imagination, sublimity, character? seek them in
     the Rape of the Lock, the Fables of Dryden, the Ode on Saint
     Cecilia's Day, and Absalom and Achitophel: you will discover in
     these two poets only, _all_ for which you must ransack innumerable
     metres, and God only knows how many _writers_ of the day, without
     finding a tittle of the same qualities,--with the addition, too, of
     wit, of which the latter have none. I have not, however, forgotten
     Thomas Brown the Younger, nor the Fudge Family, nor Whistlecraft;
     but that is not wit--it is humour. I will say nothing of the
     harmony of Pope and Dryden in comparison, for there is not a living
     poet (except Rogers, Gifford, Campbell, and Crabbe) who can write
     an heroic couplet. The fact is, that the exquisite beauty of their
     versification has withdrawn the public attention from their other
     excellences, as the vulgar eye will rest more upon the splendour of
     the uniform than the quality of the troops. It is this very
     harmony, particularly in Pope, which has raised the vulgar and
     atrocious cant against him:--because his versification is perfect,
     it is assumed that it is his only perfection; because his truths
     are so clear, it is asserted that he has no invention; and because
     he is always intelligible, it is taken for granted that he has no
     genius. We are sneeringly told that he is the 'Poet of Reason,' as
     if this was a reason for his being no poet. Taking passage for
     passage, I will undertake to cite more lines teeming with
     _imagination_ from Pope than from any two living poets, be they who
     they may. To take an instance at random from a species of
     composition not very favourable to imagination--Satire: set down
     the character of Sporus, with all the wonderful play of fancy which
     is scattered over it, and place by its side an equal number of
     verses, from any two existing poets, of the same power and the same
     variety--where will you find them?

     "I merely mention one instance of many in reply to the injustice
     done to the memory of him who harmonised our poetical language. The
     attorneys clerks, and other self-educated genii, found it easier to
     distort themselves to the new models than to toil after the
     symmetry of him who had enchanted their fathers. They were besides
     smitten by being told that the new school were to revive the
     language of Queen Elizabeth, the true English; as every body in the
     reign of Queen Anne wrote no better than French, by a species of
     literary treason.

     "Blank verse, which, unless in the drama, no one except Milton ever
     wrote who could rhyme, became the order of the day,--or else such
     rhyme as looked still blanker than the verse without it. I am aware
     that Johnson has said, after some hesitation, that he could not
     'prevail upon himself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer.' The
     opinions of that truly great man, whom it is also the present
     fashion to decry, will ever be received by me with that deference
     which time will restore to him from all; but, with all humility, I
     am not persuaded that the Paradise Lost would not have been more
     nobly conveyed to posterity, not perhaps in heroic couplets,
     although even _they_ could sustain the subject if well balanced,
     but in the stanza of Spenser, or of Tasso, or in the terza rima of
     Dante, which the powers of Milton could easily have grafted on our
     language. The Seasons of Thomson would have been better in rhyme,
     although still inferior to his Castle of Indolence; and Mr.
     Southey's Joan of Arc no worse, although it might have taken up six
     months instead of weeks in the composition. I recommend also to the
     lovers of lyrics the perusal of the present laureate's odes by the
     side of Dryden's on Saint Cecilia, but let him be sure to read
     _first_ those of Mr. Southey.

     "To the heaven-born genii and inspired young scriveners of the day
     much of this will appear paradox; it will appear so even to the
     higher order of our critics; but it was a truism twenty years ago,
     and it will be a re-acknowledged truth in ten more. In the mean
     time, I will conclude with two quotations, both intended for some
     of my old classical friends who have still enough of Cambridge
     about them to think themselves honoured by having had John Dryden
     as a predecessor in their college, and to recollect that their
     earliest English poetical pleasures were drawn from the 'little
     nightingale' of Twickenham.

     "The first is from the notes to a Poem of the 'Friends[5],' pages
     181, 182.

     "'It is only within the last twenty or thirty years that those
     notable discoveries in criticism have been made which have taught
     our recent versifiers to undervalue this energetic, melodious, and
     moral poet. The consequences of this want of due esteem for a
     writer whom the good sense of our predecessors had raised to his
     proper station have been NUMEROUS AND DEGRADING ENOUGH. This is not
     the place to enter into the subject, even as far as it _affects our
     poetical numbers alone_, and there is matter of more importance
     that requires present reflection.'

     "The second is from the volume of a young person learning to write
     poetry, and beginning by teaching the art. Hear him[6]:

                        "'But ye were dead
        To things ye knew not of--were closely wed
        To musty laws lined out with wretched rule
        And compass vile; so that ye taught a school[7]
        Of _dolts_ to _smooth_, _inlay_, and _chip_, and _fit_,
        Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit,
        _Their verses tallied. Easy was the task:_
        A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask
        Of poesy. Ill-fated, impious race,
        That blasphemed the bright lyrist to his face,
        And did not know it; no, they went about
        Holding a poor _decrepit_ standard out
        Mark'd with most flimsy mottos, and in large
        The name of _one_ Boileau.'

     "A little before the manner of Pope is termed

                        "'A _scism_[8],
        Nurtured by _foppery_ and barbarism,
        Made great Apollo blush for this his land.'

     "I thought '_foppery_' was a consequence of _refinement_; but
     _n'importe_.

     "The above will suffice to show the notions entertained by the new
     performers on the English lyre of him who made it most tunable,
     and the great improvements of their own _variazioni_.

     "The writer of this is a tadpole of the Lakes, a young disciple of
     the six or seven new schools, in which he has learnt to write such
     lines and such sentiments as the above. He says, 'easy was the
     task' of imitating Pope, or it may be of equalling him, I presume.
     I recommend him to try before he is so positive on the subject, and
     then compare what he will have _then_ written and what he has _now_
     written with the humblest and earliest compositions of Pope,
     produced in years still more youthful than those of Mr. K. when he
     invented his new 'Essay on Criticism,' entitled 'Sleep and Poetry'
     (an ominous title), from whence the above canons are taken. Pope's
     was written at nineteen, and published at twenty-two.

     "Such are the triumphs of the new schools, and such their scholars.
     The disciples of Pope were Johnson, Goldsmith, Rogers, Campbell,
     Crabbe, Gifford, Matthias, Hayley, and the author of the Paradise
     of Coquettes; to whom may be added Richards, Heber, Wrangham,
     Bland, Hodgson, Merivale, and others who have not had their full
     fame, because 'the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle
     to the strong,' and because there is a fortune in fame as in all
     other things. Now of all the new schools--I say _all_, for, 'like
     Legion, they are many'--has there appeared a single scholar who has
     not made his master ashamed of him? unless it be * *, who has
     imitated every body, and occasionally surpassed his models. Scott
     found peculiar favour and imitation among the fair sex: there was
     Miss Holford, and Miss Mitford, and Miss Francis; but with the
     greatest respect be it spoken, none of his imitators did much
     honour to the original except Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, until the
     appearance of 'The Bridal of Triermain,' and 'Harold the
     Dauntless,' which in the opinion of some equalled if not surpassed
     him; and lo! after three or four years they turned out to be the
     Master's own compositions. Have Southey, or Coleridge, or
     Wordsworth, made a follower of renown? Wilson never did well till
     he set up for himself in the 'City of the Plague.' Has Moore, or
     any other living writer of reputation, had a tolerable imitator, or
     rather disciple? Now it is remarkable that almost all the followers
     of Pope, whom I have named, have produced beautiful and standard
     works, and it was not the number of his imitators who finally hurt
     his fame, but the despair of imitation, and the _ease_ of _not_
     imitating him sufficiently. This, and the same reason which induced
     the Athenian burgher to vote for the banishment of Aristides,
     'because he was tired of always hearing him called _the Just_,'
     have produced the temporary exile of Pope from the State of
     Literature. But the term of his ostracism will expire, and the
     sooner the better; not for him, but for those who banished him, and
     for the coming generation, who

        "Will blush to find their fathers were his foes."

[Footnote 3: As far as regards the poets of ancient times, this
assertion is, perhaps, right; though, if there be any truth in what
AElian and Seneca have left on record, of the obscurity, during their
lifetime, of such men as Socrates and Epicurus, it would seem to prove
that, among the ancients, contemporary fame was a far more rare reward
of literary or philosophical eminence than among us moderns. When the
"Clouds" of Aristophanes was exhibited before the assembled deputies of
the towns of Attica, these personages, as AElian tells us, were
unanimously of opinion, that the character of an unknown person, called
Socrates, was uninteresting upon the stage; and Seneca has given the
substance of an authentic letter of Epicurus, in which that philosopher
declares that nothing hurt him so much, in the midst of all his
happiness, as to think that Greece,--"illa nobilis Graecia,"--so far
from knowing him, had scarcely even heard of his existence.--Epist. 79.]

[Footnote 4: I certainly ventured to differ from the judgment of my
noble friend, no less in his attempts to depreciate that peculiar walk
of the art in which he himself so grandly trod, than in the
inconsistency of which I thought him guilty, in condemning all those who
stood up for particular "schools" of poetry, and yet, at the same time,
maintaining so exclusive a theory of the art himself. How little,
however, he attended to either the grounds or degrees of my dissent from
him, will appear by the following wholesale report of my opinion, in his
"Detached Thoughts:"

"One of my notions different from those of my contemporaries, is, that
the present is not a high age of English poetry. There are _more_ poets
(soi-disant) than ever there were, and proportionally _less_ poetry.

"This _thesis_ I have maintained for some years, but, strange to say, it
meeteth not with favour from my brethren of the shell. Even Moore shakes
his head, and firmly believes that it is the grand age of British
poesy."]

[Footnote 5: Written by Lord Byron's early friend, the Rev. Francis
Hodgson.]

[Footnote 6: The strange verses that follow are from a poem by
Keats.--In a manuscript note on this passage of the pamphlet, dated
November 12. 1821, Lord Byron says, "Mr. Keats died at Rome about a year
after this was written, of a decline produced by his having burst a
blood-vessel on reading the article on his 'Endymion' in the Quarterly
Review. I have read the article before and since; and, although it is
bitter, I do not think that a man should permit himself to be killed by
it. But a young man little dreams what he must inevitably encounter in
the course of a life ambitious of public notice. My indignation at Mr.
Keats's depreciation of Pope has hardly permitted me to do justice to
his own genius, which, malgre all the fantastic fopperies of his style,
was undoubtedly of great promise. His fragment of 'Hyperion' seems
actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as AEschylus. He is a
loss to our literature; and the more so, as he himself, before his
death, is said to have been persuaded that he had not taken the right
line, and was reforming his style upon the more classical models of the
language."]

[Footnote 7: "It was at least a _grammar_ 'school.'"]

[Footnote 8: "So spelt by the author."]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 396. TO MR. MURRAY.

     "Ravenna, 9bre 4. 1820.

     "I have received from Mr. Galignani the enclosed letters,
     duplicates and receipts, which will explain themselves.[9] As the
     poems are your property by purchase, right, and justice, _all
     matters of publication, &c. &c. are for you to decide upon_. I know
     not how far my compliance with Mr. Galignani's request might be
     legal, and I doubt that it would not be honest. In case you choose
     to arrange with him, I enclose the permits to you, and in so doing
     I wash my hands of the business altogether. I sign them merely to
     enable you to exert the power you justly possess more properly. I
     will have nothing to do with it farther, except, in my answer to
     Mr. Galignani, to state that the letters, &c. &c. are sent to you,
     and the causes thereof.

     "If you can check these foreign pirates, do; if not, put the
     permissive papers in the fire. I can have no view nor object
     whatever, but to secure to you your property.

     "Yours, &c.

     "P.S. I have read part of the Quarterly just arrived: Mr. Bowles
     shall be answered:--he is not quite correct in his statement about
     English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. They support Pope, I see, in
     the Quarterly; let them continue to do so: it is a sin, and a
     shame, and a _damnation_ to think that _Pope!!_ should require
     it--but he does. Those miserable mountebanks of the day, the poets,
     disgrace themselves and deny God in running down Pope, the most
     _faultless_ of poets, and almost of men."

[Footnote 9: Mr. Galignani had applied to Lord Byron with the view of
procuring from him such legal right over those works of his Lordship of
which he had hitherto been the sole publisher in France, as would enable
him to prevent others, in future, from usurping the same privilege.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 397. TO MR. MOORE.

     "Ravenna, November 5. 1820.

     "Thanks for your letter, which hath come somewhat costively; but
     better late than never. Of it anon. Mr. Galignani, of the Press,
     hath, it seems, been sup-planted and sub-pirated by another
     Parisian publisher, who has audaciously printed an edition of
     L.B.'s Works, at the ultra-liberal price of ten francs, and (as
     Galignani piteously observes) eight francs only for booksellers!
     'horresco referens.' Think of a man's _whole_ works producing so
     little!

     "Galignani sends me, post haste, a permission _for him, from me,_
     to publish, &c. &c. which _permit_ I have signed and sent to Mr.
     Murray of Albemarle Street. Will you explain to G. _that I_ have no
     right to dispose of Murray's works without his leave? and therefore
     I must refer him to M. to get the permit out of his claws--no easy
     matter, I suspect. I have written to G. to say as much; but a word
     of mouth from a 'great brother author' would convince him that I
     could not honestly have complied with his wish, though I might
     legally. What I could do, I have done, viz. signed the warrant and
     sent it to Murray. Let the dogs divide the carcass, if it is
     killed to their liking.

     "I am glad of your epigram. It is odd that we should both let our
     wits run away with our sentiments; for I am sure that we are both
     Queen's men at bottom. But there is no resisting a clinch--it is so
     clever! Apropos of that--we have a 'diphthong' also in this part of
     the world--not a _Greek_, but a _Spanish_ one--do you understand
     me?--which is about to blow up the whole alphabet. It was first
     pronounced at Naples, and is spreading; but we are nearer the
     Barbarians; who are in great force on the Po, and will pass it,
     with the first legitimate pretext.

     "There will be the devil to pay, and there is no saying who will or
     who will not be set down in his bill. If 'honour should come
     unlooked for' to any of your acquaintance, make a Melody of it,
     that his ghost, like poor Yorick's, may have the satisfaction of
     being plaintively pitied--or still more nobly commemorated, like
     'Oh breathe not his name.' In case you should not think him worth
     it, here is a Chant for you instead--

        "When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
          Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
        Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
          And get knock'd on the head for his labours.

        "To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
          And is always as nobly requited;
        Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
          And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted.

     "So you have gotten the letter of 'Epigrams'--I am glad of it. You
     will not be so, for I shall send you more. Here is one I wrote for
     the endorsement of 'the Deed of Separation' in 1816; but the
     lawyers objected to it, as superfluous. It was written as we were
     getting up the signing and sealing. * * has the original.

     "_Endorsement to the Deed of Separation, in the April of 1816._

        "A year ago you swore, fond she!
          'To love, to honour, and so forth:
        Such was the vow you pledged to me,
          And here's exactly what 'tis worth.

     "For the anniversary of January 2. 1821, I have a small grateful
     anticipation, which, in case of accident, I add--

     "_To Penelope, January 2. 1821._

        "This day, of all our days, has done
          The worst for me and you:--
        'Tis just _six_ years since we were _one_,
          And _five_ since we were _two_.

     "Pray excuse all this nonsense; for I must talk nonsense just now,
     for fear of wandering to more serious topics, which, in the present
     state of things, is not safe by a foreign post.

     "I told you in my last, that I had been going on with the
     'Memoirs,' and have got as far as twelve more sheets. But I suspect
     they will be interrupted. In that case I will send them on by post,
     though I feel remorse at making a friend pay so much for postage,
     for we can't frank here beyond the frontier.

     "I shall be glad to hear of the event of the Queen's concern. As
     to the ultimate effect, the most inevitable one to you and me (if
     they and we live so long) will be that the Miss Moores and Miss
     Byrons will present us with a great variety of grandchildren by
     different fathers.

     "Pray, where did you get hold of Goethe's Florentine
     husband-killing story? Upon such matters, in general, I may say,
     with Beau Clincher, in reply to Errand's wife--

     "'Oh the villain, he hath murdered my poor Timothy!'

     "'_Clincher_. Damn your Timothy!--I tell you, woman, your husband
     has _murdered me_--he has carried away my fine jubilee clothes.'

     "So Bowles has been telling a story, too ('tis in the Quarterly),
     about the woods of 'Madeira,' and so forth. I shall be at Bowles
     again, if he is not quiet. He mis-states, or mistakes, in a point
     or two. The paper is finished, and so is the letter.

     "Yours," &c.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 393. TO MR. MURRAY.

     "Ravenna, 9bre 9 deg., 1820.

     "The talent you approve of is an amiable one, and might prove a
     'national service,' but unfortunately I must be angry with a man
     before I draw his real portrait; and I can't deal in '_generals_,'
     so that I trust never to have provocation enough to make a
     _Gallery_. If '_the_ parson' had not by many little dirty sneaking
     traits provoked it, I should have been silent, though I _had
     observed_ him. Here follows an alteration: put--

        Devil with _such_ delight in damning,
        That if at the resurrection
        Unto him the free election
        Of his future could be given,
        'Twould be rather Hell than Heaven;

     that is to say, if these two new lines do not too much lengthen out
     and weaken the amiability of the original thought and expression.
     You have a discretionary power about showing. I should think that
     Croker would not disrelish a sight of these light little humorous
     things, and may be indulged now and then.

     "Why, I do like one or two vices, to be sure; but I can back a
     horse and fire a pistol 'without thinking or blinking' like Major
     Sturgeon; I have fed at times for two months together on sheer
     biscuit and water (without metaphor); I can get over seventy or
     eighty miles a day _riding_ post, and _swim five_ at a stretch, as
     at Venice, in 1818, or at least I _could do_, and have done it
     ONCE.

     "I know Henry Matthews: he is the image, to the very voice, of his
     brother Charles, only darker--his laugh his in particular. The
     first time I ever met him was in Scrope Davies's rooms after his
     brother's death, and I nearly dropped, thinking that it was his
     ghost. I have also dined with him in his rooms at King's College.
     Hobhouse once purposed a similar Memoir; but I am afraid that the
     letters of Charles's correspondence with me (which are at Whitton
     with my other papers) would hardly do for the public: for our
     lives were not over strict, and our letters somewhat lax upon most
     subjects.[10]

     "Last week I sent you a correspondence with Galignani, and some
     documents on your property. You have now, I think, an opportunity
     of _checking_, or at least _limiting_, those _French
     republications_. You may let all your authors publish what they
     please _against me_ and _mine_. A publisher is not, and cannot be,
     responsible for all the works that issue from his printer's.

     "The 'White Lady of Avenel' is not quite so good as a _real well
     authenticated_ ('Donna Bianca') White Lady of Colalto, or spectre
     in the Marca Trivigiana, who has been repeatedly seen. There is a
     man (a huntsman) now alive who saw her also. Hoppner could tell you
     all about her, and so can Rose, perhaps. I myself have _no doubt_
     of the fact, historical and spectral.[11] She always appeared on
     particular occasions, before the deaths of the family, &c. &c. I
     heard Madame Benzoni say, that she knew a gentleman who had seen
     her cross his room at Colalto Castle. Hoppner saw and spoke with
     the huntsman who met her at the chase, and never _hunted_
     afterwards. She was a girl attendant, who, one day dressing the
     hair of a Countess Colalto, was seen by her mistress to smile upon
     her husband in the glass. The Countess had her shut up in the wall
     of the castle, like Constance de Beverley. Ever after, she haunted
     them and all the Colaltos. She is described as very beautiful and
     fair. It is well authenticated."

[Footnote 10: Here follow some details respecting his friend Charles S.
Matthews, which have already been given in the first volume of this
work.]

[Footnote 11: The ghost-story, in which he here professes such serious
belief, forms the subject of one of Mr. Rogers's beautiful Italian
sketches.--See "Italy," p. 43. edit. 1830.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 399. TO MR. MURRAY.

     "Ravenna, 9bre 18 deg., 1820.

     "The death of Waite is a shock to the--teeth, as well as to the
     feelings of all who knew him. Good God, he and _Blake_[12] both
     gone! I left them both in the most robust health, and little
     thought of the national loss in so short a time as five years. They
     were both as much superior to Wellington in rational greatness, as
     he who preserves the hair and the teeth is preferable to 'the
     bloody blustering warrior' who gains a name by breaking heads and
     knocking out grinders. Who succeeds him? Where is tooth-powder
     _mild_ and yet efficacious--where is _tincture_--where are clearing
     _roots_ and _brushes_ now to be obtained? Pray obtain what
     information you can upon these '_Tusc_ulan questions.' My jaws ache
     to think on't. Poor fellows! I anticipated seeing both again; and
     yet they are gone to that place where both teeth and hair last
     longer than they do in this life. I have seen a thousand graves
     opened, and always perceived, that whatever was gone, the _teeth_
     and _hair_ remained with those who had died with them. Is not this
     odd? They go the very first things in _youth_, and yet last the
     longest in the dust, if people will but _die_ to preserve them! It
     is a queer life, and a queer death, that of mortals.

     "I knew that Waite had married, but little thought that the other
     decease was so soon to overtake him. Then he was such a delight,
     such a coxcomb, such a jewel of a man! There is a tailor at Bologna
     so like him! and also at the top of his profession. Do not neglect
     this commission. _Who_ or _what_ can replace him? What says the
     public?

     "I remand you the Preface. _Don't forget_ that the Italian extract
     from the Chronicle must _be translated_. With regard to what you
     say of retouching the Juans and the Hints, it is all very well; but
     I can't _furbish_. I am like the tiger (in poesy), if I miss the
     first spring, I go growling back to my jungle. There is no second;
     I can't correct; I can't, and I won't. Nobody ever succeeds in it,
     great or small. Tasso remade the whole of his Jerusalem; but who
     ever reads that version? all the world goes to the first. Pope
     _added_ to 'The Rape of the Lock,' but did not reduce it. You must
     take my things as they happen to be. If they are not likely to
     suit, reduce their _estimate_ accordingly. I would rather give them
     away than hack and hew them. I don't say that you are not right: I
     merely repeat that I cannot better them. I must 'either make a
     spoon, or spoil a horn;' and there's an end.

     "Yours.

     "P.S. Of the praises of that little * * * Keats. I shall observe as
     Johnson did when Sheridan the actor got a _pension_: 'What! has
     _he_ got a pension? Then it is time that I should give up _mine_!'
     Nobody could be prouder of the praise of the Edinburgh than I was,
     or more alive to their censure, as I showed in English Bards and
     Scotch Reviewers. At present _all the men_ they have ever praised
     are degraded by that insane article. Why don't they review and
     praise 'Solomon's Guide to Health?' it is better sense and as much
     poetry as Johnny Keats.

     "Bowles must be _bowled_ down. 'Tis a sad match at cricket if he
     can get any notches at Pope's expense. If he once get into
     '_Lord's_ ground,' (to continue the pun, because it is foolish,) I
     think I could beat him in one innings. You did not know, perhaps,
     that I was once (_not metaphorically_, but _really_,) a good
     cricketer, particularly in _batting_, and I played in the Harrow
     match against the Etonians in 1805, gaining more notches (as one of
     our chosen eleven) than any, except Lord Ipswich and Brookman, on
     our side."

[Footnote 12: A celebrated hair-dresser.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 400. TO MR. MURRAY.

     "Ravenna, 9bre 23 deg., 1820.

     "The 'Hints,' Hobhouse says, will require a good deal of slashing
     to suit the times, which will be a work of time, for I don't feel
     at all laborious just now. Whatever effect they are to have would
     perhaps be greater in a separate form, and they also must have my
     name to them. Now, if you publish them in the same volume with Don
     Juan, they identify Don Juan as mine, which I don't think worth a
     Chancery suit about my daughter's guardianship, as in your present
     code a facetious poem is sufficient to take away a man's rights
     over his family.

     "Of the state of things here it would be difficult and not very
     prudent to speak at large, the Huns opening all letters. I wonder
     if they can read them when they have opened them; if so, they may
     see, in my MOST LEGIBLE HAND, THAT I THINK THEM DAMNED SCOUNDRELS
     AND BARBARIANS, and THEIR EMPEROR a FOOL, and themselves more fools
     than he; all which they may send to Vienna for any thing I care.
     They have got themselves masters of the Papal police, and are
     bullying away; but some day or other they will pay for all: it may
     not be very soon, because these unhappy Italians have no
     consistency among themselves; but I suppose that Providence will
     get tired of them at last, * *

     "Yours," &c.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 401. TO MR. MOORE.

     "Ravenna, Dec. 9. 1820.

     "Besides this letter, you will receive _three_ packets, containing,
     in all, 18 more sheets of Memoranda, which, I fear, will cost you
     more in postage than they will ever produce by being printed in the
     next century. Instead of waiting so long, if you could make any
     thing of them _now_ in the way of _reversion_, (that is, after _my_
     death,) I should be very glad,--as, with all due regard to your
     progeny, I prefer you to your grandchildren. Would not Longman or
     Murray advance you a certain sum _now_, pledging themselves _not_
     to have them published till after _my_ decease, think you?--and
     what say you?

     "Over these latter sheets I would leave you a discretionary
     power[13]; because they contain, perhaps, a thing or two which is
     too sincere for the public. If I consent to your disposing of their
     reversion _now_, where would be the harm? Tastes may change. I
     would, in your case, make my essay to dispose of them, _not_
     publish, now; and if _you_ (as is most likely) survive me, add what
     you please from your own knowledge; and, _above all, contradict_
     any thing, if I have _mis_-stated; for my first object is the
     truth, even at my own expense.

     "I have some knowledge of your countryman Muley Moloch, the
     lecturer. He wrote to me several letters upon Christianity, to
     convert me: and, if I had not been a Christian already, I should
     probably have been now, in consequence. I thought there was
     something of wild talent in him, mixed with a due leaven of
     absurdity,--as there must be in all talent, let loose upon the
     world, without a martingale.

     "The ministers seem still to persecute the Queen * * * but they
     _won't_ go out, the sons of b----es. Damn Reform--I want a
     place--what say you? You must applaud the honesty of the
     declaration, whatever you may think of the intention.

     "I have quantities of paper in England, original and
     translated--tragedy, &c. &c. and am now copying out a fifth Canto
     of Don Juan, 149 stanzas. So that there will be near _three thin_
     Albemarle, or _two thick_ volumes of all sorts of my Muses. I mean
     to plunge thick, too, into the contest upon Pope, and to lay about
     me like a dragon till I make manure of * * * for the top of
     Parnassus.

     "These rogues are right--_we do_ laugh at _t'others_--eh?--don't
     we?[14] You shall see--you shall see what things I'll say, an' it
     pleases Providence to leave us leisure. But in these parts they are
     all going to war; and there is to be liberty, and a row, and a
     constitution--when they can get them. But I won't talk politics--it
     is low. Let us talk of the Queen, and her bath, and her
     bottle--that's the only _motley_ nowadays.

     "If there are any acquaintances of mine, salute them. The priests
     here are trying to persecute me,--but no matter. Yours," &c.

[Footnote 13: The power here meant is that of omitting passages that
might be thought objectionable. He afterwards gave me this, as well as
every other right, over the whole of the manuscript.]

[Footnote 14: He here alludes to a humorous article, of which I had told
him, in Blackwood's Magazine, where the poets of the day were all
grouped together in a variety of fantastic shapes, with "Lord Byron and
little Moore laughing behind, as if they would split," at the rest of
the fraternity.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 402. TO MR. MOORE.

     "Ravenna, Dec. 9. 1820.

     "I open my letter to tell you a fact, which will show the state of
     this country better than I can. The commandant of the troops is
     _now_ lying _dead_ in my house. He was shot at a little past eight
     o'clock, about two hundred paces from my door. I was putting on my
     great-coat to visit Madame la Contessa G. when I heard the shot. On
     coming into the hall, I found all my servants on the balcony,
     exclaiming that a man was murdered. I immediately ran down, calling
     on Tita (the bravest of them) to follow me. The rest wanted to
     hinder us from going, as it is the custom for every body here, it
     seems, to run away from 'the stricken deer.'

     "However, down we ran, and found him lying on his back, almost, if
     not quite, dead, with five wounds, one in the heart, two in the
     stomach, one in the finger, and the other in the arm. Some soldiers
     cocked their guns, and wanted to hinder me from passing. However,
     we passed, and I found Diego, the adjutant, crying over him like a
     child--a surgeon, who said nothing of his profession--a priest,
     sobbing a frightened prayer--and the commandant, all this time, on
     his back, on the hard, cold pavement, without light or assistance,
     or any thing around him but confusion and dismay.

     "As nobody could, or would, do any thing but howl and pray, and as
     no one would stir a finger to move him, for fear of consequences, I
     lost my patience--made my servant and a couple of the mob take up
     the body--sent off two soldiers to the guard--despatched Diego to
     the Cardinal with the news, and had the commandant carried up
     stairs into my own quarter. But it was too late, he was gone--not
     at all disfigured--bled inwardly--not above an ounce or two came
     out.

     "I had him partly stripped--made the surgeon examine him, and
     examined him myself. He had been shot by cut balls, or slugs. I
     felt one of the slugs, which had gone through him, all but the
     skin. Every body conjectures why he was killed, but no one knows
     how. The gun was found close by him--an old gun, half filed down.

     "He only said, 'O Dio!' and 'Gesu!' two or three times, and
     appeared to have suffered little. Poor fellow! he was a brave
     officer, but had made himself much disliked by the people. I knew
     him personally, and had met him often at conversazioni and
     elsewhere. My house is full of soldiers, dragoons, doctors,
     priests, and all kinds of persons,--though I have now cleared it,
     and clapt sentinels at the doors. To-morrow the body is to be
     moved. The town is in the greatest confusion, as you may suppose.

     "You are to know that, if I had not had the body moved, they would
     have left him there till morning in the street, for fear of
     consequences. I would not choose to let even a dog die in such a
     manner, without succour--and, as for consequences, I care for none
     in a duty. Yours, &c.

     "P.S. The lieutenant on duty by the body is smoking his pipe with
     great composure.--A queer people this."

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 403. TO MR. MOORE.

     "Ravenna, Dec. 25. 1820.

     "You will or ought to have received the packet and letters which I
     remitted to your address a fortnight ago (or it may be more days),
     and I shall be glad of an answer, as, in these times and places,
     packets per post are in some risk of not reaching their
     destination.

     "I have been thinking of a project for you and me, in case we both
     get to London again, which (if a Neapolitan war don't suscitate)
     may be calculated as possible for one of us about the spring of
     1821. I presume that you, too, will be back by that time, or never;
     but on that you will give me some index. The project, then, is for
     you and me to set up jointly a _newspaper_--nothing more nor
     less--weekly, or so, with some improvement or modifications upon
     the plan of the present scoundrels, who degrade that
     department,--but a _newspaper_, which we will edite in due form,
     and, nevertheless, with some attention.

     "There must always be in it a piece of poesy from one or other of
     us _two_, leaving room, however, for such dilettanti rhymers as may
     be deemed worthy of appearing in the same column; but _this_ must
     be a _sine qua non_; and also as much prose as we can compass. We
     will take an _office_--our names _not_ announced, but
     suspected--and, by the blessing of Providence, give the age some
     new lights upon policy, poesy, biography, criticism, morality,
     theology, and all other _ism_, _ality_, and _ology_ whatsoever.

     "Why, man, if we were to take to this in good earnest, your debts
     would be paid off in a twelvemonth, and by dint of a little
     diligence and practice, I doubt not that we could distance the
     common-place blackguards, who have so long disgraced common sense
     and the common reader. They have no merit but practice and
     impudence, both of which we may acquire; and, as for talent and
     culture, the devil's in't if such proofs as we have given of both
     can't furnish out something better than the 'funeral baked meats'
     which have coldly set forth the breakfast table of all Great
     Britain for so many years. Now, what think you? Let me know; and
     recollect that, if we take to such an enterprise, we must do so in
     good earnest. Here is a hint,--do you make it a plan. We will
     modify it into as literary and classical a concern as you please,
     only let us put out our powers upon it, and it will most likely
     succeed. But you must _live_ in London, and I also, to bring it to
     bear, and _we must keep it a secret_.

     "As for the living in London, I would make that not difficult to
     you (if you would allow me), until we could see whether one means
     or other (the success of the plan, for instance) would not make it
     quite easy for you, as well as your family; and, in any case, we
     should have some fun, composing, correcting, supposing, inspecting,
     and supping together over our lucubrations. If you think this worth
     a thought, let me know, and I will begin to lay in a small literary
     capital of composition for the occasion.

     "Yours ever affectionately,

     "B.

     "P.S. If you thought of a middle plan between a _Spectator_ and a
     newspaper, why not?--only not on a _Sunday_. Not that Sunday is not
     an excellent day, but it is engaged already. We will call it the
     'Tenda Rossa,' the name Tassoni gave an answer of his in a
     controversy, in allusion to the delicate hint of Timour the Lame,
     to his enemies, by a 'Tenda' of that colour, before he gave battle.
     Or we will call it 'Gli,' or 'I Carbonari,' if it so please you--or
     any other name full of 'pastime and prodigality,' which you may
     prefer. Let me have an answer. I conclude poetically, with the
     bellman, 'A merry Christmas to you!'"

       *       *       *       *       *

The year 1820 was an era signalised, as will be remembered, by the many
efforts of the revolutionary spirit which, at that time, broke forth,
like ill-suppressed fire, throughout the greater part of the South of
Europe. In Italy, Naples had already raised the Constitutional standard,
and her example was fast operating through the whole of that country.
Throughout Romagna, secret societies, under the name of Carbonari, had
been organised, which waited but the word of their chiefs to break out
into open insurrection. We have seen from Lord Byron's Journal in 1814,
what intense interest he took in the last struggles of Revolutionary
France under Napoleon; and his exclamations, "Oh for a
Republic!--'Brutus, thou sleepest!'" show the lengths to which, in
theory at least, his political zeal extended. Since then, he had but
rarely turned his thoughts to politics; the tame, ordinary vicissitude
of public affairs having but little in it to stimulate a mind like his,
whose sympathies nothing short of a crisis seemed worthy to interest.
This the present state of Italy gave every promise of affording him;
and, in addition to the great national cause itself, in which there was
every thing that a lover of liberty, warm from the pages of Petrarch and
Dante, could desire, he had also private ties and regards to enlist him
socially in the contest. The brother of Madame Guiccioli, Count Pietro
Gamba, who had been passing some time at Rome and Naples, was now
returned from his tour; and the friendly sentiments with which,
notwithstanding a natural bias previously in the contrary direction, he
at length learned to regard the noble lover of his sister, cannot better
be described than in the words of his fair relative herself.

"At this time," says Madame Guiccioli, "my beloved brother, Pietro,
returned to Ravenna from Rome and Naples. He had been prejudiced by some
enemies of Lord Byron against his character, and my intimacy with him
afflicted him greatly; nor had my letters succeeded in entirely
destroying the evil impression which Lord Byron's detractors had
produced. No sooner, however, had he seen and known him, than he became
inspired with an interest in his favour, such as could not have been
produced by mere exterior qualities, but was the result only of that
union he saw in him of all that is most great and beautiful, as well in
the heart as mind of man. From that moment every former prejudice
vanished, and the conformity of their opinions and studies contributed
to unite them in a friendship, which only ended with their lives."[15]

The young Gamba, who was, at this time, but twenty years of age, with a
heart full of all those dreams of the regeneration of Italy, which not
only the example of Naples, but the spirit working beneath the surface
all around him, inspired, had, together with his father, who was still
in the prime of life, become enrolled in the secret bands now organising
throughout Romagna, and Lord Byron was, by their intervention, admitted
also among the brotherhood. The following heroic Address to the
Neapolitan Government (written by the noble poet in Italian,[16] and
forwarded, it is thought, by himself to Naples, but intercepted on the
way,) will show how deep, how earnest, and expansive was his zeal in
that great, general cause of Political Freedom, for which he soon after
laid down his life among the marshes of Missolonghi.

"An Englishman, a friend to liberty, having understood that the
Neapolitans permit even foreigners to contribute to the good cause, is
desirous that they should do him the honour of accepting a thousand
louis, which he takes the liberty of offering. Having already, not long
since, been an ocular witness of the despotism of the Barbarians in the
States occupied by them in Italy, he sees, with the enthusiasm natural
to a cultivated man, the generous determination of the Neapolitans to
assert their well-won independence. As a member of the English House of
Peers, he would be a traitor to the principles which placed the reigning
family of England on the throne, if he were not grateful for the noble
lesson so lately given both to people and to kings. The offer which he
desires to make is small in itself, as must always be that presented
from an individual to a nation; but he trusts that it will not be the
last they will receive from his countrymen. His distance from the
frontier, and the feeling of his personal incapacity to contribute
efficaciously to the service of the nation, prevents him from proposing
himself as worthy of the lowest commission, for which experience and
talent might be requisite. But if, as a mere volunteer, his presence
were not a burden to whomsoever he might serve under, he would repair to
whatever place the Neapolitan Government might point out, there to obey
the orders and participate in the dangers of his commanding officer,
without any other motive than that of sharing the destiny of a brave
nation, defending itself against the self-called Holy Alliance, which
but combines the vice of hypocrisy with despotism."[17]

It was during the agitation of this crisis, while surrounded by rumours
and alarms, and expecting, every moment, to be summoned into the field,
that Lord Byron commenced the Journal which I am now about to give; and
which it is impossible to peruse, with the recollection of his former
Diary of 1814 in our minds, without reflecting how wholly different, in
all the circumstances connected with them, were the two periods at which
these records of his passing thoughts were traced. The first he wrote at
a time which may be considered, to use his own words, as "the most
poetical part of his whole life,"--_not_ certainly, in what regarded the
powers of his genius, to which every succeeding year added new force and
range, but in all that may be said to constitute the poetry of
character,--those fresh, unworldly feelings of which, in spite of his
early plunge into experience, he still retained the gloss, and that
ennobling light of imagination, which, with all his professed scorn of
mankind, still followed in the track of his affections, giving a lustre
to every object on which they rested. There was, indeed, in his
misanthropy, as in his sorrows, at that period, to the full as much of
fancy as of reality; and even those gallantries and loves in which he at
the same time entangled himself partook equally, as I have endeavoured
to show, of the same imaginative character. Though brought early under
the dominion of the senses, he had been also early rescued from this
thraldom by, in the first place, the satiety such excesses never fail to
produce, and, at no long interval after, by this series of half-fanciful
attachments which, though in their moral consequences to society,
perhaps, still more mischievous, had the varnish at least of refinement
on the surface, and by the novelty and apparent difficulty that invested
them served to keep alive that illusion of imagination from which such
pursuits derive their sole redeeming charm.

With such a mixture, or rather predominance, of the ideal in his loves,
his hates, and his sorrows, the state of his existence at that period,
animated as it was, and kept buoyant, by such a flow of success, must be
acknowledged, even with every deduction for the unpicturesque
associations of a London life, to have been, in a high degree, poetical,
and to have worn round it altogether a sort of halo of romance, which
the events that followed were but too much calculated to dissipate. By
his marriage, and its results, he was again brought back to some of
those bitter realities of which his youth had had a foretaste. Pecuniary
embarrassment--that ordeal, of all others, the most trying to delicacy
and high-mindedness--now beset him with all the indignities that usually
follow in its train; and he was thus rudely schooled into the advantages
of _possessing_ money, when he had hitherto thought but of the generous
pleasure of _dispensing_ it. No stronger proof, indeed, is wanting of
the effect of such difficulties in tempering down even the most
chivalrous pride, than the necessity to which he found himself reduced
in 1816, not only of departing from his resolution never to profit by
the sale of his works, but of accepting a sum of money, for copyright,
from his publisher, which he had for some time persisted in refusing
for himself, and, in the full sincerity of his generous heart, had
destined for others.

The injustice and malice to which he soon after became a victim had an
equally fatal effect in disenchanting the dream of his existence. Those
imaginary, or, at least, retrospective sorrows, in which he had once
loved to indulge, and whose tendency it was, through the medium of his
fancy, to soften and refine his heart, were now exchanged for a host of
actual, ignoble vexations, which it was even more humiliating than
painful to encounter. His misanthropy, instead of being, as heretofore,
a vague and abstract feeling, without any object to light upon, and
losing therefore its acrimony in diffusion, was now, by the hostility he
came in contact with, condensed into individual enmities, and narrowed
into personal resentments; and from the lofty, and, as it appeared to
himself, philosophical luxury of hating mankind in the gross, he was now
brought down to the self-humbling necessity of despising them in detail.

By all these influences, so fatal to enthusiasm of character, and
forming, most of them, indeed, a part of the ordinary process by which
hearts become chilled and hardened in the world, it was impossible but
that some material change must have been effected in a disposition at
once so susceptible and tenacious of impressions. By compelling him to
concentre himself in his own resources and energies, as the only stand
now left against the world's injustice, his enemies but succeeded in
giving to the principle of self-dependence within him a new force and
spring which, however it added to the vigour of his character, could not
fail, by bringing Self so much into action, to impair a little its
amiableness. Among the changes in his disposition, attributable mainly
to this source, may be mentioned that diminished deference to the
opinions and feelings of others which, after this compulsory rally of
all his powers of resistance, he exhibited. Some portion, no doubt, of
this refractoriness may be accounted for by his absence from all those
whose slightest word or look would have done more with him than whole
volumes of correspondence; but by no cause less powerful and revulsive
than the struggle in which he had been committed could a disposition
naturally diffident as his was, and diffident even through all this
excitement, have been driven into the assumption of a tone so
universally defying, and so full, if not of pride in his own pre-eminent
powers, of such a contempt for some of the ablest among his
contemporaries, as almost implied it. It was, in fact, as has been more
than once remarked in these pages, a similar stirring up of all the best
and worst elements of his nature, to that which a like rebound against
injustice had produced in his youth;--though with a difference in point
of force and grandeur, between the two explosions, almost as great as
between the outbreaks of a firework and a volcano.

Another consequence of the spirit of defiance now roused in him, and one
that tended, perhaps, even more fatally than any yet mentioned, to sully
and, for a time, bring down to earth the romance of his character, was
the course of life to which, outrunning even the licence of his youth,
he abandoned himself at Venice. From this, as from his earlier excesses,
the timely warning of disgust soon rescued him; and the connection with
Madame Guiccioli which followed, and which, however much to be
reprehended, had in it all of marriage that his real marriage wanted,
seemed to place, at length, within reach of his affectionate spirit that
union and sympathy for which, through life, it had thirsted. But the
treasure came too late;--the pure poetry of the feeling had vanished;
and those tears he shed so passionately in the garden at Bologna flowed
less, perhaps, from the love which he felt at that moment, than from the
saddening consciousness how differently he could have felt formerly. It
was, indeed, wholly beyond the power, even of an imagination like his,
to go on investing with its own ideal glories a sentiment which,--more
from daring and vanity than from any other impulse,--he had taken such
pains to tarnish and debase in his own eyes. Accordingly, instead of
being able, as once, to elevate and embellish all that interested him,
to make an idol of every passing creature of his fancy, and mistake the
form of love, which he so often conjured up, for its substance, he now
degenerated into the wholly opposite and perverse error of depreciating
and making light of what, intrinsically, he valued, and, as the reader
has seen, throwing slight and mockery upon a tie in which it was evident
some of the best feelings of his nature were wrapped up. That foe to all
enthusiasm and romance, the habit of ridicule, had, in proportion as he
exchanged the illusions for the realities of life, gained further empire
over him; and how far it had, at this time, encroached upon the loftier
and fairer regions of his mind may be seen in the pages of Don
Juan,--that diversified arena, on which the two Genii, good and evil,
that governed his thoughts, hold, with alternate triumph, their
ever-powerful combat.

Even this, too, this vein of mockery,--in the excess to which, at last,
he carried it,--was but another result of the shock his proud mind had
received from those events that had cast him off, branded and
heart-stricken, from country and from home. As he himself touchingly
says,

    "And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
    'Tis that I may not weep."

This laughter,--which, in such temperaments, is the near neighbour of
tears,--served as a diversion to him from more painful vents of
bitterness; and the same philosophical calculation which made the poet
of melancholy, Young, declare that "he preferred laughing at the world
to being angry with it," led Lord Byron also to settle upon the same
conclusion; and to feel, in the misanthropic views he was inclined to
take of mankind, that mirth often saved him the pain of hate.

That, with so many drawbacks upon all generous effusions of sentiment,
he should still have preserved so much of his native tenderness and
ardour as is conspicuous, through all disguises, in his unquestionable
love for Madame Guiccioli, and in the still more undoubted zeal with
which he now entered, heart and soul, into the great cause of human
freedom, wheresoever or by whomsoever asserted[18],--only shows how rich
must have been the original stores of sensibility and enthusiasm which
even a career such as his could so little chill or exhaust. Most
consoling, too, is it to reflect that the few latter years of his life
should have been thus visited with a return of that poetic lustre,
which, though it never had ceased to surround the bard, had but too much
faded away from the character of the man; and that while
Love,--reprehensible as it was, but still Love,--had the credit of
rescuing him from the only errors that disgraced his maturer years, for
Liberty was reserved the proud but mournful triumph of calling the last
stage of his glorious course her own, and lighting him, amidst the
sympathies of the world, to his grave.

Having endeavoured, in this comparison between his present and former
self, to account, by what I consider to be their true causes, for the
new phenomena which his character, at this period, exhibited, I shall
now lay before the reader the Journal by which these remarks were more
immediately suggested, and from which I fear they will be thought to
have too long detained him.

[Footnote 15: "In quest' epoca venne a Ravenna di ritorno da Roma e
Napoli il mio diletto fratello Pietro. Egli era stato prevenuto da dei
nemeci di Lord Byron contro il di lui carattere; molto lo affligeva la
mia intimita con lui, e le mie lettere non avevano riuscito a bene
distruggere la cattiva impressione ricevuta dei detrattori di Lord
Byron. Ma appena lo vidde e lo conobbe egli pure ricevesse quella
impressione che non puo essere prodotta da dei pregi esteriori, ma
solamente dall unione di tuttocio che vi e di piu bello e di piu grande
nel cuore e nella mente dell uomo. Svani ogni sua anteriore prevenzione
contro di Lord Byron, e la conformita della loro idee e dei studii loro
contribui a stringerli in quella amicizia che non doveva avere fine che
colla loro vita."]

[Footnote 16: A draft of this Address, in his own handwriting, was found
among his papers. He is supposed to have intrusted it to a professed
agent of the Constitutional Government of Naples, who had waited upon
him secretly at Ravenna, and, under the pretence of having been waylaid
and robbed, induced his Lordship to supply him with money for his
return. This man turned out afterwards to have been a spy, and the above
paper, if confided to him, fell most probably into the hands of the
Pontifical Government.]

[Footnote 17: "Un Inglese amico della liberta avendo sentito che i
Napolitani permettono anche agli stranieri di contribuire alia buona
causa, bramerebbe l'onore di vedere accettata la sua offerta di mille
luigi, la quale egli azzarda di fare. Gia testimonio oculare non molto
fa della tirannia dei Barbari negli stati da loro occupati nell' Italia,
egli vede con tutto l'entusiasmo di un uomo ben nato la generosa
determinazione dei Napolitani per confermare la loro bene acquistata
indipendenza. Membro della Camera dei Pari della nazione Inglese egli
sarebbe un traditore ai principii che hanno posto sul trono la famiglia
regnante d'Inghilterra se non riconoscesse la bella lezione di bel nuovo
data ai popoli ed ai Re. L'offerta che egli brama di presentare e poca
in se stessa, come bisogna che sia sempre quella di un individuo ad una
nazione, ma egli spera che non sara l'ultima dalla parte dei suoi
compatriotti. La sua lontananza dalle frontiere, e il sentimento della
sua poca capacita personale di contribuire efficacimente a servire la
nazione gl' impedisce di proporsi come degno della piu piccola
commissione che domanda dell' esperienza e del talento. Ma, se come
semplice volontario la sua presenza non fosse un incomodo a quello che
l'accetasse egli riparebbe a qualunque luogo indicato dal Governo
Napolitano, per ubbidire agli ordini e participare ai pericoli del suo
superiore, senza avere altri motivi che quello di dividere il destino di
una brava nazione resistendo alla se dicente Santa Allianza la quale
aggiunge l'ippocrisia al despotismo."]

[Footnote 18: Among his "Detached Thoughts" I find this general passion
for liberty thus strikingly expressed. After saying, in reference to his
own choice of Venice as a place of residence, "I remembered General
Ludlow's domal inscription, 'Omne solum forti patria,' and sat down free
in a country which had been one of slavery for centuries," he adds, "But
there is _no_ freedom, even for _masters_, in the midst of slaves. It
makes my blood boil to see the thing. I sometimes wish that I was the
owner of Africa, to do at once what Wilberforce will do in time, viz.
sweep slavery from her deserts, and look on upon the first dance of
their freedom.

"As to political slavery, so general, it is men's own fault: if they
_will_ be slaves, let them! Yet it is but 'a word and a blow.' See how
England formerly, France, Spain, Portugal, America, Switzerland, freed
themselves! There is no one instance of a long contest in which men did
not triumph over systems. If Tyranny misses her _first_ spring, she is
cowardly as the tiger, and retires to be hunted."]

       *       *       *       *       *

EXTRACTS FROM A DIARY OF LORD BYRON. 1821.

"Ravenna, January 4. 1821.

"'A sudden thought strikes me.' Let me begin a Journal once more. The
last I kept was in Switzerland, in record of a tour made in the Bernese
Alps, which I made to send to my sister in 1816, and I suppose that she
has it still, for she wrote to me that she was pleased with it. Another,
and longer, I kept in 1813-1814, which I gave to Thomas Moore in the
same year.

"This morning I gat me up late, as usual--weather bad--bad as
England--worse. The snow of last week melting to the sirocco of to-day,
so that there were two d----d things at once. Could not even get to ride
on horseback in the forest. Stayed at home all the morning--looked at
the fire--wondered when the post would come. Post came at the Ave Maria,
instead of half-past one o'clock, as it ought, Galignani's Messengers,
six in number--a letter from Faenza, but none from England. Very sulky
in consequence (for there ought to have been letters), and ate in
consequence a copious dinner; for when I am vexed, it makes me swallow
quicker--but drank very little.

"I was out of spirits--read the papers--thought what _fame_ was, on
reading, in a case of murder, that 'Mr. Wych, grocer, at Tunbridge, sold
some bacon, flour, cheese, and, it is believed, some plums, to some
gipsy woman accused. He had on his counter (I quote faithfully) a
_book_, the Life of _Pamela_, which he was _tearing_ for _waste_ paper,
&c. &c. In the cheese was found, &c. and a _leaf_ of _Pamela wrapt round
the bacon._' What would Richardson, the vainest and luckiest of _living_
authors (_i.e._ while alive)--he who, with Aaron Hill, used to prophesy
and chuckle over the presumed fall of Fielding (the prose Homer of human
nature) and of Pope (the most beautiful of poets)--what would he have
said, could he have traced his pages from their place on the French
prince's toilets (see Boswell's Johnson) to the grocer's counter and the
gipsy-murderess's bacon!!!

"What would he have said? what can any body say, save what Solomon said
long before us? After all, it is but passing from one counter to
another, from the bookseller's to the other tradesman's--grocer or
pastry-cook. For my part, I have met with most poetry upon trunks; so
that I am apt to consider the trunk-maker as the sexton of authorship.

"Wrote five letters in about half an hour, short and savage, to all my
rascally correspondents. Carriage came. Heard the news of three murders
at Faenza and Forli--a carabinier, a smuggler, and an attorney--all last
night. The two first in a quarrel, the latter by premeditation.

"Three weeks ago--almost a month--the 7th it was--I picked up the
commandant, mortally wounded, out of the street; he died in my house;
assassins unknown, but presumed political. His brethren wrote from Rome
last night to thank me for having assisted him in his last moments. Poor
fellow! it was a pity; he was a good soldier, but imprudent. It was
eight in the evening when they killed him. We heard the shot; my
servants and I ran out, and found him expiring, with five wounds, two
whereof mortal--by slugs they seemed. I examined him, but did not go to
the dissection next morning.

"Carriage at 8 or so--went to visit La Contessa G.--found her playing on
the piano-forte--talked till ten, when the Count, her father, and the no
less Count, her brother, came in from the theatre. Play, they said,
Alfieri's Filippo--well received.

"Two days ago the King of Naples passed through Bologna on his way to
congress. My servant Luigi brought the news. I had sent him to Bologna
for a lamp. How will it end? Time will show.

"Came home at eleven, or rather before. If the road and weather are
comfortable, mean to ride to-morrow. High time--almost a week at this
work--snow, sirocco, one day--frost and snow the other--sad climate for
Italy. But the two seasons, last and present, are extraordinary. Read a
Life of Leonardo da Vinci by Rossi--ruminated--wrote this much, and will
go to bed.


"January 5. 1821.

"Rose late--dull and drooping--the weather dripping and dense. Snow on
the ground, and sirocco above in the sky, like yesterday. Roads up to
the horse's belly, so that riding (at least for pleasure) is not very
feasible. Added a postscript to my letter to Murray. Read the
conclusion, for the fiftieth time (I have read all W. Scott's novels at
least fifty times), of the third series of 'Tales of my
Landlord,'--grand work--Scotch Fielding, as well as great English
poet--wonderful man! I long to get drunk with him.

"Dined versus six o' the clock. Forgot that there was a plum-pudding, (I
have added, lately, _eating_ to my 'family of vices,') and had dined
before I knew it. Drank half a bottle of some sort of spirits--probably
spirits of wine; for what they call brandy, rum, &c. &c. here is nothing
but spirits of wine, coloured accordingly. Did _not_ eat two apples,
which were placed by way of dessert. Fed the two cats, the hawk, and the
tame (but _not tamed_) _crow_. Read Mitford's History of
Greece--Xenophon's Retreat of the Ten Thousand. Up to this present
_moment writing, 6 minutes before eight o' the clock_--French hours, not
Italian.

"Hear the carriage--order pistols and great coat, as usual--necessary
articles. Weather cold--carriage open, and inhabitants somewhat
savage--rather treacherous and highly inflamed by politics. Fine
fellows, though, good materials for a nation. Out of chaos God made a
world, and out of high passions comes a people.

"Clock strikes--going out to make love. Somewhat perilous, but not
disagreeable. Memorandum--a new screen put up to-day. It is rather
antique, but will do with a little repair.

"Thaw continues--hopeful that riding may be practicable to-morrow. Sent
the papers to Alli.--grand events coming.

"11 o' the clock and nine minutes. Visited La Contessa G. Nata G.G.
Found her beginning my letter of answer to the thanks of Alessio del
Pinto of Rome for assisting his brother the late Commandant in his last
moments, as I had begged her to pen my reply for the purer Italian, I
being an ultra-montane, little skilled in the set phrase of Tuscany. Cut
short the letter--finish it another day. Talked of Italy, patriotism,
Alfieri, Madame Albany, and other branches of learning. Also Sallust's
Conspiracy of Catiline, and the War of Jugurtha. At 9 came in her
brother, Il Conte Pietro--at 10, her father, Conte Ruggiero.

"Talked of various modes of warfare--of the Hungarian and Highland modes
of broad-sword exercise, in both whereof I was once a moderate 'master
of fence.' Settled that the R. will break out on the 7th or 8th of
March, in which appointment I should trust, had it not been settled that
it was to have broken out in October, 1820. But those Bolognese shirked
the Romagnuoles.

"'It is all one to Ranger.' One must not be particular, but take
rebellion when it lies in the way. Come home--read the 'Ten Thousand'
again, and will go to bed.

"Mem.--Ordered Fletcher (at four o'clock this afternoon) to copy out
seven or eight apophthegms of Bacon, in which I have detected such
blunders as a school-boy might detect rather than commit. Such are the
sages! What must they be, when such as I can stumble on their mistakes
or misstatements? I will go to bed, for I find that I grow cynical.


"January 6. 1821.

"Mist--thaw--slop--rain. No stirring out on horseback. Read Spence's
Anecdotes. Pope a fine fellow--always thought him so. Corrected blunders
in _nine_ apophthegms of Bacon--all historical--and read Mitford's
Greece. Wrote an epigram. Turned to a passage in Guinguene--ditto in
Lord Holland's Lope de Vega. Wrote a note on Don Juan.

"At eight went out to visit. Heard a little music--like music. Talked
with Count Pietro G. of the Italian comedian Vestris, who is now at
Rome--have seen him often act in Venice--a good actor--very. Somewhat of
a mannerist; but excellent in broad comedy, as well as in the
sentimental pathetic. He has made me frequently laugh and cry, neither
of which is now a very easy matter--at least, for a player to produce in
me.

"Thought of the state of women under the ancient Greeks--convenient
enough. Present state a remnant of the barbarism of the chivalry and
feudal ages--artificial and unnatural. They ought to mind home--and be
well fed and clothed--but not mixed in society. Well educated, too, in
religion--but to read neither poetry nor politics--nothing but books of
piety and cookery. Music--drawing--dancing--also a little gardening and
ploughing now and then. I have seen them mending the roads in Epirus
with good success. Why not, as well as hay-making and milking?

"Came home, and read Mitford again, and played with my mastiff--gave him
his supper. Made another reading to the epigram, but the turn the same.
To-night at the theatre, there being a prince on his throne in the last
scene of the comedy,--the audience laughed, and asked him for a
_Constitution_. This shows the state of the public mind here, as well as
the assassinations. It won't do. There must be an universal
republic,--and there ought to be.

"The crow is lame of a leg--wonder how it happened--some fool trod upon
his toe, I suppose. The falcon pretty brisk--the cats large and
noisy--the monkeys I have not looked to since the cold weather, as they
suffer by being brought up. Horses must be gay--get a ride as soon as
weather serves. Deuced muggy still--an Italian winter is a sad thing,
but all the other seasons are charming.

"What is the reason that I have been, all my lifetime, more or less
_ennuye?_ and that, if any thing, I am rather less so now than I was at
twenty, as far as my recollection serves? I do not know how to answer
this, but presume that it is constitutional,--as well as the waking in
low spirits, which I have invariably done for many years. Temperance and
exercise, which I have practised at times, and for a long time together
vigorously and violently, made little or no difference. Violent passions
did;--when under their immediate influence--it is odd, but--I was in
agitated, but _not_ in depressed, spirits.

"A dose of salts has the effect of a temporary inebriation, like light
champagne, upon me. But wine and spirits make me sullen and savage to
ferocity--silent, however, and retiring, and not quarrelsome, if not
spoken to. Swimming also raises my spirits,--but in general they are
low, and get daily lower. That is _hopeless_; for I do not think I am so
much _ennuye_ as I was at nineteen. The proof is, that then I must game,
or drink, or be in motion of some kind, or I was miserable. At present,
I can mope in quietness; and like being alone better than any
company--except the lady's whom I serve. But I feel a something, which
makes me think that, if I ever reach near to old age, like Swift, 'I
shall die at top' first. Only I do not dread idiotism or madness so much
as he did. On the contrary, I think some quieter stages of both must be
preferable to much of what men think the possession of their senses.


"January 7. 1821, Sunday.

"Still rain--mist--snow--drizzle--and all the incalculable combinations
of a climate where heat and cold struggle for mastery. Head Spence, and
turned over Roscoe, to find a passage I have not found. Read the fourth
vol. of W. Scott's second series of 'Tales of my Landlord.' Dined. Read
the Lugano Gazette. Read--I forget what. At eight went to conversazione.
Found there the Countess Geltrude, Betti V. and her husband, and others.
Pretty black-eyed woman that--_only_ nineteen--same age as Teresa, who
is prettier, though.

"The Count Pietro G. took me aside to say that the Patriots have had
notice from Forli (twenty miles off) that to-night the government and
its party mean to strike a stroke--that the Cardinal here has had orders
to make several arrests immediately, and that, in consequence, the
Liberals are arming, and have posted patroles in the streets, to sound
the alarm and give notice to fight for it.

"He asked me 'what should be done?' I answered, 'Fight for it, rather
than be taken in detail;' and offered, if any of them are in immediate
apprehension of arrest, to receive them in my house (which is
defensible), and to defend them, with my servants and themselves (we
have arms and ammunition), as long as we can,--or to try to get them
away under cloud of night. On going home, I offered him the pistols
which I had about me--but he refused, but said he would come off to me
in case of accidents.

"It wants half an hour of midnight, and rains;--as Gibbet says, 'a fine
night for their enterprise--dark as hell, and blows like the devil.' If
the row don't happen _now_, it must soon. I thought that their system of
shooting people would soon produce a re-action--and now it seems coming.
I will do what I can in the way of combat, though a little out of
exercise. The cause is a good one.

"Turned over and over half a score of books for the passage in question,
and can't find it. Expect to hear the drum and the musquetry momently
(for they swear to resist, and are right,)--but I hear nothing, as yet,
save the plash of the rain and the gusts of the wind at intervals. Don't
like to go to bed, because I hate to be waked, and would rather sit up
for the row, if there is to be one.

"Mended the fire--have got the arms--and a book or two, which I shall
turn over. I know little of their numbers, but think the Carbonari
strong enough to beat the troops, even here. With twenty men this house
might be defended for twenty-four hours against any force to be brought
against it, now in this place, for the same time; and, in such a time,
the country would have notice, and would rise,--if ever they _will_
rise, of which there is some doubt. In the mean time, I may as well read
as do any thing else, being alone.


"January 8. 1821, Monday.

"Rose, and found Count P.G. in my apartments. Sent away the servant.
Told me that, according to the best information, the Government had not
issued orders for the arrests apprehended; that the attack in Forli had
not taken place (as expected) by the Sanfedisti--the opponents of the
Carbonari or Liberals--and that, as yet, they are still in apprehension
only. Asked me for some arms of a better sort, which I gave him. Settled
that, in case of a row, the Liberals were to assemble _here_ (with me),
and that he had given the word to Vincenzo G. and others of the _Chiefs_
for that purpose. He himself and father are going to the chase in the
forest; but V.G. is to come to me, and an express to be sent off to him,
P.G., if any thing occurs. Concerted operations. They are to seize--but
no matter.

"I advised them to attack in detail, and in different parties, in
different _places_ (though at the _same_ time), so as to divide the
attention of the troops, who, though few, yet being disciplined, would
beat any body of people (not trained) in a regular fight--unless
dispersed in small parties, and distracted with different assaults.
Offered to let them assemble here, if they choose. It is a strongish
post--narrow street, commanded from within--and tenable walls.

"Dined. Tried on a new coat. Letter to Murray, with corrections of
Bacon's Apophthegms and an epigram--the _latter not_ for publication. At
eight went to Teresa, Countess G. At nine and a half came in Il Conte P.
and Count P.G. Talked of a certain proclamation lately issued. Count
R.G. had been with * * (the * *), to sound him about the arrests. He,
* *, is a _trimmer_, and deals, at present, his cards with both hands.
If he don't mind, they'll be full. * * pretends (_I_ doubt him--_they_
don't,--we shall see) that there is no such order, and seems staggered
by the immense exertions of the Neapolitans, and the fierce spirit of
the Liberals here. The truth is, that * * cares for little but his place
(which is a good one), and wishes to play pretty with both parties. He
has changed his mind thirty times these last three moons, to my
knowledge, for he corresponds with me. But he is not a bloody
fellow--only an avaricious one.

"It seems that, just at this moment (as Lydia Languish says), there will
be no elopement after all. I wish that I had known as much last
night--or, rather, this morning--I should have gone to bed two hours
earlier. And yet I ought not to complain; for, though it is a sirocco,
and heavy rain, I have not _yawned_ for these two days.

"Came home--read History of Greece--before dinner had read Walter
Scott's Rob Roy. Wrote address to the letter in answer to Alessio del
Pinto, who has thanked me for helping his brother (the late Commandant,
murdered here last month) in his last moments. Have told him I only did
a duty of humanity--as is true. The brother lives at Rome.

"Mended the fire with some 'sgobole' (a Romagnuole word), and gave the
falcon some water. Drank some Seltzer-water. Mem.--received to-day a
print, or etching, of the story of Ugolino, by an Italian
painter--different, of course, from Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and I think
(as far as recollection goes) _no worse_, for Reynolds's is not good in
history. Tore a button in my new coat.

"I wonder what figure these Italians will make in a regular row. I
sometimes think that, like the Irishman's gun (somebody had sold him a
crooked one), they will only do for 'shooting round a corner;' at least,
this sort of shooting has been the late tenor of their exploits. And
yet, there are materials in this people, and a noble energy, if well
directed. But who is to direct them? No matter. Out of such times heroes
spring. Difficulties are the hotbeds of high spirits, and Freedom the
mother of the few virtues incident to human nature.


"Tuesday, January 9. 1821.

"Rose--the day fine. Ordered the horses; but Lega (my _secretary_, an
Italianism for steward or chief servant) coming to tell me that the
painter had finished the work in fresco, for the room he has been
employed on lately, I went to see it before I set out. The painter has
not copied badly the prints from Titian, &c. considering all things.

"Dined. Read Johnson's 'Vanity of Human Wishes,'--all the examples and
mode of giving them sublime, as well as the latter part, with the
exception of an occasional couplet. I do not so much admire the opening.
I remember an observation of Sharpe's, (the _Conversationist_, as he was
called in London, and a very clever man,) that the first line of this
poem was superfluous, and that Pope (the best of poets, _I_ think) would
have begun at once, only changing the punctuation--

    "'Survey mankind from China to Peru.'

The former line, 'Let observation,' &c. is certainly heavy and useless.
But 'tis a grand poem--and _so true!_--true as the 10th of Juvenal
himself. The lapse of ages _changes_ all things--time--language--the
earth--the bounds of the sea--the stars of the sky, and every thing
'about, around, and underneath' man, _except man himself_, who has
always been, and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety
of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to
disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been made have
multiplied little but existence. An extirpated disease is succeeded by
some new pestilence; and a discovered world has brought little to the
old one, except the p---- first and freedom afterwards--the _latter_ a
fine thing, particularly as they gave it to Europe in exchange for
slavery. But it is doubtful whether 'the Sovereigns' would not think the
_first_ the best present of the two to their subjects.

"At eight went out--heard some news. They say the King of Naples has
declared, by couriers from Florence, to the _Powers_ (as they call now
those wretches with crowns) that his Constitution was compulsive, &c.
&c. and that the Austrian barbarians are placed again on _war_ pay, and
will march. Let them--'they come like sacrifices in their trim,' the
hounds of hell! Let it still be a hope to see their bones piled like
those of the human dogs at Morat, in Switzerland, which I have seen.

"Heard some music. At nine the usual visiters--news, _war_, or rumours
of war. Consulted with P.G. &c. &c. They mean to _insurrect_ here, and
are to honour me with a call thereupon. I shall not fall back; though I
don't think them in force or heart sufficient to make much of it. But,
_onward!_--it is now the time to act, and what signifies _self_, if a
single spark of that which would be worthy of the past can be bequeathed
unquenchedly to the future? It is not one man, nor a million, but the
_spirit_ of liberty which must be spread. The waves which dash upon the
shore are, one by one, broken, but yet the _ocean_ conquers,
nevertheless. It overwhelms the Armada, it wears the rock, and, if the
_Neptunians_ are to be believed, it has not only destroyed, but made a
world. In like manner, whatever the sacrifice of individuals, the great
cause will gather strength, sweep down what is rugged, and fertilise
(for _sea-weed_ is _manure_) what is cultivable. And so, the mere
selfish calculation ought never to be made on such occasions; and, at
present, it shall not be computed by me. I was never a good
arithmetician of chances, and shall not commence now.


"January 10. 1821.

"Day fine--rained only in the morning. Looked over accounts. Read
Campbell's Poets--marked errors of Tom (the author) for correction.
Dined--went out--music--Tyrolese air, with variations. Sustained the
cause of the original simple air against the variations of the Italian
school.

"Politics somewhat tempestuous, and cloudier daily. To-morrow being
foreign post-day, probably something more will be known.

"Came home--read. Corrected Tom Campbell's slips of the pen. A good
work, though--style affected--but his defence of Pope is glorious. To be
sure, it is his _own cause_ too,--but no matter, it is very good, and
does him great credit.


"Midnight.

"I have been turning over different _Lives_ of the Poets. I rarely read
their works, unless an occasional flight over the classical ones, Pope,
Dryden, Johnson, Gray, and those who approach them nearest (I leave the
_rant_ of the rest to the _cant_ of the day), and--I had made several
reflections, but I feel sleepy, and may as well go to bed.


"January 11. 1821.

"Read the letters. Corrected the tragedy and the 'Hints from Horace.'
Dined, and got into better spirits. Went out--returned--finished
letters, five in number. Read Poets, and an anecdote in Spence.

"Alli. writes to me that the Pope, and Duke of Tuscany, and King of
Sardinia, have also been called to Congress; but the Pope will only deal
there by proxy. So the interests of millions are in the hands of about
twenty coxcombs, at a place called Leibach!

"I should almost regret that my own affairs went well, when those of
nations are in peril. If the interests of mankind could be essentially
bettered (particularly of these oppressed Italians), I should not so
much mind my own 'suma peculiar.' God grant us all better times, or more
philosophy!

"In reading, I have just chanced upon an expression of Tom
Campbell's;--speaking of Collins, he says that no reader cares any more
about the _characteristic manners_ of his Eclogues than about the
authenticity of the tale of Troy.' 'Tis false--we _do_ care about the
authenticity of the tale of Troy. I have stood upon that plain _daily_,
for more than a month in 1810; and if any thing diminished my pleasure,
it was that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity. It is true
I read 'Homer Travestied' (the first twelve books), because Hobhouse and
others bored me with their learned localities, and I love quizzing. But
I still venerated the grand original as the truth of _history_ (in the
material _facts_) and of _place_. Otherwise, it would have given me no
delight. Who will persuade me, when I reclined upon a mighty tomb, that
it did not contain a hero?--its very magnitude proved this. Men do not
labour over the ignoble and petty dead--and why should not the _dead_ be
_Homer_'s dead? The secret of Tom Campbell's defence of _inaccuracy_ in
costume and description is, that his Gertrude, &c. has no more locality
in common with Pennsylvania than with Penmanmaur. It is notoriously full
of grossly false scenery, as all Americans declare, though they praise
parts of the poem. It is thus that self-love for ever creeps out, like a
snake, to sting any thing which happens, even accidentally, to stumble
upon it.


"January 12. 1821.

"The weather still so humid and impracticable, that London, in its most
oppressive fogs, were a summer-bower to this mist and sirocco, which has
now lasted (but with one day's interval), chequered with snow or heavy
rain only, since the 30th of December, 1820. It is so far lucky that I
have a literary turn;--but it is very tiresome not to be able to stir
out, in comfort, on any horse but Pegasus, for so many days. The roads
are even worse than the weather, by the long splashing, and the heavy
soil, and the growth of the waters.

"Read the Poets--English, that is to say--out of Campbell's edition.
There is a good deal of taffeta in some of Tom's prefatory phrases, but
his work is good as a whole. I like him best, though, in his own poetry.

"Murray writes that they want to act the Tragedy of Marino Faliero--more
fools they, it was written for the closet. I have protested against this
piece of usurpation, (which, it seems, is legal for managers over any
printed work, against the author's will,) and I hope they will not
attempt it. Why don't they bring out some of the numberless aspirants
for theatrical celebrity, now encumbering their shelves, instead of
lugging me out of the library? I have written a fierce protest against
any such attempt, but I still would hope that it will not be necessary,
and that they will see, at once, that it is not intended for the stage.
It is too regular--the time, twenty-four hours--the change of place not
frequent--nothing _melo_dramatic--no surprises, no starts, nor
trap-doors, nor opportunities 'for tossing their heads and kicking their
heels'--and no _love_--the grand ingredient of a modern play.

"I have found out the seal cut on Murray's letter. It is meant for
Walter Scott--or _Sir_ Walter--he is the first poet knighted since Sir
Richard Blackmore. But it does not do him justice.
Scott's--particularly when he recites--is a very intelligent
countenance, and this seal says nothing.

"Scott is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels are
a new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any--if not
better (only on an erroneous system)--and only ceased to be so popular,
because the vulgar learned were tired of hearing 'Aristides called the
Just,' and Scott the Best, and ostracised him.

"I like him, too, for his manliness of character, for the extreme
pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature towards myself,
personally. May he prosper!--for he deserves it. I know no reading to
which I fall with such alacrity as a work of W. Scott's. I shall give
the seal, with his bust on it, to Madame la Contesse G. this evening,
who will be curious to have the effigies of a man so celebrated.

"How strange are our thoughts, &c. &c. &c.[19]

[Footnote 19: Here follows a long passage, already extracted, relative
to his early friend, Edward Noel Long.]


"Midnight.

"Read the Italian translation by Guido Sorelli of the German
Grillparzer--a devil of a name, to be sure, for posterity; but they
_must_ learn to pronounce it. With all the allowance for a
_translation_, and above all, an _Italian_ translation (they are the
very worst of translators, except from the Classics--Annibale Caro, for
instance--and _there_, the bastardy of their language helps them, as, by
way of _looking legitimate_, they ape their father's tongue);--but with
every allowance for such a disadvantage, the tragedy of Sappho is superb
and sublime! There is no denying it. The man has done a great thing in
writing that play. And _who is he?_ I know him not; but _ages will_.
'Tis a high intellect.

"I must premise, however, that I have read _nothing_ of Adolph Muellner's
(the author of 'Guilt'), and much less of Goethe, and Schiller, and
Wieland, than I could wish. I only know them through the medium of
English, French, and Italian translations. Of the _real_ language I know
absolutely nothing,--except oaths learnt from postilions and officers in
a squabble. I can _swear_ in German potently, when I
like--'Sacrament--Verfluchter--Hundsfott'--and so forth; but I have
little of their less energetic conversation.

"I like, however, their women, (I was once so _desperately_ in love with
a German woman, Constance,) and all that I have read, translated, of
their writings, and all that I have seen on the Rhine of their country
and people--all, except the Austrians, whom I abhor, loathe, and--I
cannot find words for my hate of them, and should be sorry to find deeds
correspondent to my hate; for I abhor cruelty more than I abhor the
Austrians--except on an impulse, and then I am savage--but not
deliberately so.

"Grillparzer is grand--antique--_not so simple_ as the ancients, but
very simple for a modern--too Madame de Stael_ish_, now and then--but
altogether a great and goodly writer.


"January 13. 1821, Saturday.

"Sketched the outline and Drams. Pers. of an intended tragedy of
Sardanapalus, which I have for some time meditated. Took the names from
Diodorus Siculus, (I know the history of Sardanapalus, and have known it
since I was twelve years old,) and read over a passage in the ninth vol.
octavo, of Mitford's Greece, where he rather vindicates the memory of
this last of the Assyrians.

"Dined--news come--the _Powers_ mean to war with the peoples. The
intelligence seems positive--let it be so--they will be beaten in the
end. The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like
water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I
shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.

"I carried Teresa the Italian translation of Grillparzer's Sappho, which
she promises to read. She quarrelled with me, because I said that love
was _not the loftiest_ theme for true tragedy; and, having the advantage
of her native language, and natural female eloquence, she overcame my
fewer arguments. I believe she was right. I must put more love into
'Sardanapalus' than I intended. I speak, of course, _if_ the times will
allow me leisure. That _if_ will hardly be a peace-maker.


"January 14. 1821.

"Turned over Seneca's tragedies. Wrote the opening lines of the intended
tragedy of Sardanapalus. Rode out some miles into the forest. Misty and
rainy. Returned--dined--wrote some more of my tragedy.

"Read Diodorus Siculus--turned over Seneca, and some other books. Wrote
some more of the tragedy. Took a glass of grog. After having ridden hard
in rainy weather, and scribbled, and scribbled again, the spirits (at
least mine) need a little exhilaration, and I don't like laudanum now as
I used to do. So I have mixed a glass of strong waters and single
waters, which I shall now proceed to empty. Therefore and thereunto I
conclude this day's diary.

"The effect of all wines and spirits upon me is, however, strange. It
_settles_, but it makes me gloomy--gloomy at the very moment of their
effect, and not gay hardly ever. But it composes for a time, though
sullenly.


"January 15. 1821.

"Weather fine. Received visit. Rode out into the forest--fired pistols.
Returned home--dined--dipped into a volume of Mitford's Greece--wrote
part of a scene of 'Sardanapalus.' Went out--heard some music--heard
some politics. More ministers from the other Italian powers gone to
Congress. War seems certain--in that case, it will be a savage one.
Talked over various important matters with one of the initiated. At ten
and half returned home.

"I have just thought of something odd. In the year 1814, Moore ('the
poet,' _par excellence_, and he deserves it) and I were going together,
in the same carriage, to dine with Earl Grey, the Capo Politico of the
remaining Whigs. Murray, the magnificent (the illustrious publisher of
that name), had just sent me a Java gazette--I know not why, or
wherefore. Pulling it out, by way of curiosity, we found it to contain a
dispute (the said Java gazette) on Moore's merits and mine. I think, if
I had been there, that I could have saved them the trouble of disputing
on the subject. But, there is _fame_ for you at six and twenty!
Alexander had conquered India at the same age; but I doubt if he was
disputed about, or his conquests compared with those of Indian Bacchus,
at Java.

"It was a great fame to be named with Moore; greater to be compared with
him; greatest--_pleasure_, at least--to be _with_ him; and, surely, an
odd coincidence, that we should be dining together while they were
quarrelling about us beyond the equinoctial line.

"Well, the same evening, I met Lawrence the painter, and heard one of
Lord Grey's daughters (a fine, tall, spirit-looking girl, with much of
the _patrician, thorough-bred look_ of her father, which I dote upon)
play on the harp, so modestly and ingenuously, that she _looked music_.
Well, I would rather have had my talk with Lawrence (who talked
delightfully) and heard the girl, than have had all the fame of Moore
and me put together.

"The only pleasure of fame is that it paves the way to pleasure; and the
more intellectual our pleasure, the better for the pleasure and for us
too. It was, however, agreeable to have heard our fame before dinner,
and a girl's harp after.


"January 16. 1821.

"Read--rode--fired pistols--returned--dined--wrote--visited--heard
music--talked nonsense--and went home.

"Wrote part of a Tragedy--advanced in Act 1st with 'all deliberate
speed.' Bought a blanket. The weather is still muggy as a London
May--mist, mizzle, the air replete with Scotticisms, which, though fine
in the descriptions of Ossian, are somewhat tiresome in real, prosaic
perspective. Politics still mysterious.


"January 17. 1821.

"Rode i' the forest--fired pistols--dined. Arrived a packet of books
from England and Lombardy--English, Italian, French, and Latin. Read
till eight--went out.


"January 18. 1821.

"To-day, the post arriving late, did not ride. Read letters--only two
gazettes instead of twelve now due. Made Lega write to that negligent
Galignani, and added a postscript. Dined.

"At eight proposed to go out. Lega came in with a letter about a bill
_unpaid_ at Venice, which I thought paid months ago. I flew into a
paroxysm of rage, which almost made me faint. I have not been well ever
since. I deserve it for being such a fool--but it _was_ provoking--a set
of scoundrels! It is, however, but five and twenty pounds.


"January 19. 1821.

"Rode. Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself,
though Shakspeare says otherwise. At least, I am so much more accustomed
to meet with ingratitude than the north wind, that I thought the latter
the sharper of the two. I had met with both in the course of the
twenty-four hours, so could judge.

"Thought of a plan of education for my daughter Allegra, who ought to
begin soon with her studies. Wrote a letter--afterwards a postscript.
Rather in low spirits--certainly hippish--liver touched--will take a
dose of salts.

"I have been reading the Life, by himself and daughter, of Mr. R.L.
Edgeworth, the father of _the_ Miss Edgeworth. It is altogether a great
name. In 1813, I recollect to have met them in the fashionable world of
London (of which I then formed an item, a fraction, the segment of a
circle, the unit of a million, the nothing of something) in the
assemblies of the hour, and at a breakfast of Sir Humphry and Lady
Davy's, to which I was invited for the nonce. I had been the lion of
1812; Miss Edgeworth and Madame de Stael, with 'the Cossack,' towards
the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the succeeding year.

"I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red
complexion, but active, brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not
look fifty--no, nor forty-eight even. I had seen poor Fitzpatrick not
very long before--a man of pleasure, wit, eloquence, all things. He
tottered--but still talked like a gentleman, though feebly. Edgeworth
bounced about, and talked loud and long; but he seemed neither weakly
nor decrepit, and hardly old.

"He began by telling 'that he had given Dr. Parr a dressing, who had
taken him for an Irish bog-trotter,' &c. &c. Now I, who know Dr. Parr,
and who know (_not_ by experience--for I never should have presumed so
far as to contend with him--but by hearing him _with_ others, and _of_
others) that it is not so easy a matter to 'dress him,' thought Mr.
Edgeworth an assertor of what was not true. He could not have stood
before Parr an instant. For the rest, he seemed intelligent, vehement,
vivacious, and full of life. He bids fair for a hundred years.

"He was not much admired in London, and I remember a 'ryghte merrie' and
conceited jest which was rife among the gallants of the day,--viz. a
paper had been presented for the _recall of Mrs. Siddons to the stage_,
(she having lately taken leave, to the loss of ages,--for nothing ever
was, or can be, like her,) to which all men had been called to
subscribe. Whereupon, Thomas Moore, of profane and poetical memory, did
propose that a similar paper should be _sub_scribed and _circum_scribed
'for the recall of Mr. Edgeworth to Ireland.'[20]

"The fact was--every body cared more about _her_. She was a nice little
unassuming 'Jeanie Deans'-looking body,' as we Scotch say--and, if not
handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as
herself. One would never have guessed she could write her name; whereas
her father talked, not as if he could write nothing else, but as if
nothing else was worth writing.

"As for Mrs. Edgeworth, I forget--except that I think she was the
youngest of the party. Altogether, they were an excellent cage of the
ki