The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2

170.—­To James Wedderburn Webster. [1]

Newstead Abbey, August 24th, 1811.

My dear W.,—­Conceiving your wrath to be somewhat evaporated, and your Dignity recovered from the Hysterics into which my innocent note from London had thrown it, I should feel happy to be informed how you have determined on the disposal of this accursed Coach, [2] which has driven us out of our Good humour and Good manners to a complete Standstill, from which I begin to apprehend that I am to lose altogether your valuable correspondence.  Your angry letter arrived at a moment, to which I shall not allude further, as my happiness is best consulted in forgetting it.

You have perhaps heard also of the death of poor Matthews, whom you recollect to have met at Newstead.  He was one whom his friends will find it difficult to replace, nor will Cambridge ever see his equal.

I trust you are on the point of adding to your relatives instead of losing them, and of friends a man of fortune will always have a plentiful stock—­at his Table.

I dare say now you are gay, and connubial, and popular, so that in the next parliament we shall be having you a County Member.  But beware your Tutor, for I am sure he Germanized that sanguinary letter; you must not write such another to your Constituents; for myself (as the mildest of men) I shall say no more about it.

Seriously, mio Caro W., if you can spare a moment from Matrimony, I shall be glad to hear that you have recovered from the pucker into which this Vis (one would think it had been a Sulky) has thrown you; you know I wish you well, and if I have not inflicted my society upon you according to your own Invitation, it is only because I am not a social animal, and should feel sadly at a loss amongst Countesses and Maids of Honour, particularly being just come from a far Country, where Ladies are neither carved for, or fought for, or danced after, or mixed at all (publicly) with the Men-folks, so that you must make allowances for my natural diffidence and two years travel.

But (God and yourself willing) I shall certes pay my promised visit, as I shall be in town, if Parliament meets, in October.

In the mean time let me hear from you (without a privy Council), and believe me in sober sadness,

Yours very sincerely,

Byron.

[Footnote 1:  James Wedderburn Webster (1789-1840), grandson of Sir A. Wedderburn, Bart., whose third son, David, assumed the additional name of Webster, was the author of ‘Waterloo, and other Poems’ (1816), and ’A Genealogical Account of the Wedderburn Family’ (privately printed, 1819).  He was with Byron, possibly at Cambridge, certainly at Athens in 1810.  He married, in 1810, Lady Frances Caroline Annesley, daughter of Arthur, first Earl of Mountnorris and eighth Viscount Valencia.  He was knighted in 1822.  Byron, in 1813, lent him £1000.  Lady Frances died in 1837, and her husband in 1840.

Moore (’Memoirs, Journals, etc.’, vol. iii. p. 112) mentions dining with Webster at Paris in 1820.

“He told me,” writes Moore, “that, one day, travelling from Newstead to town with Lord Byron in his vis-a-vis, the latter kept his pistols beside him, and continued silent for hours, with the most ferocious expression possible on his countenance.

    ‘For God’s sake, my dear B.,’ said W——­at last, ’what are you
    thinking of?  Are you about to commit murder? or what other dreadful
    thing are you meditating?’

To which Byron answered that he always had a sort of presentiment that his own life would be attacked some time or other; and that this was the reason of his always going armed, as it was also the subject of his thoughts at that moment.”

Moore also adds (’ibid’., p. 292),

  “W.  W. owes Lord Byron, he says, £1000, and does not seem to have the
  slightest intention of paying him.”

Lady Frances was the lady to whom Byron seriously devoted himself in 1813-4.  Subsequently she was practically separated from her husband, and Byron, in 1823, endeavoured to reconcile them.  Moore (’Memoirs, Journals, etc’., vol. ii. p. 249) writes,

“To the Devizes ball in the evening; Lady Frances W. there; introduced to her, and had much conversation, chiefly about our friend Lord B. Several of those beautiful things, published (if I remember right) with the ‘Bride’, were addressed to her.  She must have been very pretty when she had more of the freshness of youth, though she is still but five or six and twenty; but she looks faded already” (1819).

In the Court of Common Pleas, February 16, 1816, the libel action of ‘Webster v.  Baldwin’ was heard.  The plaintiff obtained £2000 in damages for a libel charging Lady Frances and the Duke of Wellington with adultery.]

[Footnote 2:  On his return to London in July, 1811, Byron ordered a ‘vis-a-vis’ to be built by Goodall.  This he exchanged for a carriage belonging to Webster, who, within a few weeks, resold the ‘vis-a-vis’ to Byron.  The two following letters from Byron to Webster explain the transaction:—­

  “Reddish’s Hotel, 29th July, 1811.

“My dear Webster,—­As this eternal ‘vis-a-vis’ seems to sit heavy on your soul, I beg leave to apprize you that I have arranged with Goodall:  you are to give me the promised Wheels, and the lining, with ‘the Box at Brighton,’ and I am to pay the stipulated sum.

I am obliged to you for your favourable opinion, and trust that the happiness you talk so much of will be stationary, and not take those freaks to which the felicity of common mortals is subject.  I do very sincerely wish you well, and am so convinced of the justice of your matrimonial arguments, that I shall follow your example as soon as I can get a sufficient price for my coronet.  In the mean time I should be happy to drill for my new situation under your auspices; but business, inexorable business, keeps me here.  Your letters are forwarded.  If I can serve you in any way, command me.  I will endeavour to fulfil your requests as awkwardly as another.  I shall pay you a visit, perhaps, in the autumn.  Believe me, dear W.,

  Yours unintelligibly,

  B.”

  “Reddish’s Hotel, July 31st, 1811.

My dear W. W.,—­I always understood that the ‘lining’ was to accompany the ‘carriage’; if not, the ‘carriage’ may accompany the ‘lining’, for I will have neither the one nor the other.  In short, to prevent squabbling, this is my determination, so decide;—­if you leave it to my ‘feelings’ (as you say) they are very strongly in favour of the said lining.  Two hundred guineas for a carriage with ancient lining!!!  Rags and rubbish!  You must write another pamphlet, my dear W., before; but pray do not waste your time and eloquence in expostulation, because it will do neither of us any good, but decide—­content or ‘not’ content.  The best thing you can do for the Tutor you speak of will be to send him in your Vis (with the lining) to ‘the U—­Niversity of Göttingen.’  How can you suppose (now that my own Bear is dead) that I have any situation for a German genius of this kind, till I get another, or some children?  I am infinitely obliged by your invitations, but I can’t pay so high for a second-hand chaise to make my friends a visit.  The coronet will not ‘grace’ the ‘pretty Vis,’ till your tattered lining ceases to ’dis’grace it.  Pray favour me with an answer, as we must finish the affair one way or another immediately,—­before next week.

  Believe me, yours truly,

  Byron.”

  “Byron,” says Webster, in a note, “was more than strict about
  trifles.”]

[Footnote 3:  The death of Mrs. Byron, August 1, 1811.]

171.—­To R. C. Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, August 25, 1811.

Being fortunately enabled to frank, I do not spare scribbling, having sent you packets within the last ten days.  I am passing solitary, and do not expect my agent to accompany me to Rochdale [1] before the second week in September; a delay which perplexes me, as I wish the business over, and should at present welcome employment.  I sent you exordiums, annotations, etc., for the forthcoming quarto, if quarto it is to be:  and I also have written to Mr. Murray my objection to sending the MS. to Juvenal, [2] but allowing him to show it to any others of the calling.  Hobhouse [3] is amongst the types already:  so, between his prose and my verse, the world will be decently drawn upon for its paper-money and patience.  Besides all this, my ‘Imitation of Horace’ [4] is gasping for the press at Cawthorn’s, but I am hesitating as to the how and the when, the single or the double, the present or the future.  You must excuse all this, for I have nothing to say in this lone mansion but of myself, and yet I would willingly talk or think of aught else.

What are you about to do?  Do you think of perching in Cumberland, as you opined when I was in the metropolis?  If you mean to retire, why not occupy Miss Milbanke’s “Cottage of Friendship,” late the seat of Cobbler Joe, [5] for whose death you and others are answerable?  His “Orphan Daughter” (pathetic Pratt!) will, certes, turn out a shoemaking Sappho.  Have you no remorse?  I think that elegant address to Miss Dallas should be inscribed on the cenotaph which Miss Milbanke means to stitch to his memory.

The newspapers seem much disappointed at his Majesty’s not dying, or doing something better. [6] I presume it is almost over.  If parliament meets in October, I shall be in town to attend.  I am also invited to Cambridge for the beginning of that month, but am first to jaunt to Rochdale.  Now Matthews [7] is gone, and Hobhouse in Ireland, I have hardly one left there to bid me welcome, except my inviter.  At three-and-twenty I am left alone, and what more can we be at seventy?  It is true I am young enough to begin again, but with whom can I retrace the laughing part of life?  It is odd how few of my friends have died a quiet death,—­I mean, in their beds.  But a quiet life is of more consequence.  Yet one loves squabbling and jostling better than yawning.  This ‘last word’ admonishes me to relieve you from

Yours very truly, etc.

[Footnote 1:  For Byron’s Rochdale property, which was supposed to contain a quantity of coal, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 78, ‘note’ 2. [Footnote 2 of Letter 34]]

[Footnote 2:  Gifford.]

[Footnote 3:  For John Cam Hobhouse, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 163, ‘note’ 1. [Footnote 1 of Letter 86]]

[Footnote 4:  The poem remained unpublished till after Byron’s death.  (See ‘note’, p. 23, and ‘Poems’, ed. 1898, vol. i. pp. 385-450.) ]

[Footnote 5: 

“In Seaham churchyard, without any memorial,” says Mr. Surtees, “rest the remains of Joseph Blacket, an unfortunate child of genius, whose last days were soothed by the generous attention of the family of Milbanke.”

‘Hist. of Durham’, vol. i. p. 272. (See also ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 314, ‘note’ 2 [Footnote 2 of Letter 154].  For Miss Milbanke, afterwards Lady Byron, see p. 118, ‘note’ 4.) [Footnote 1 of Letter 7]]

[Footnote 6:  On July 28, 1811, Lord Grenville wrote to Lord Auckland,

  “It is, I believe, certainly true that the King has taken for the last
  three days scarcely any food at all, and that, unless a change takes
  place very shortly in that respect, he cannot survive many days”

(’Auckland Correspondence’, vol. iv. p. 366).  It was, however, the mind, and not the physical strength that failed.

  “The King, I should suppose,” wrote Lord Buckinghamshire, on August
  13, “is not likely to die soon, but I fear his mental recovery is
  hardly to be expected.”

(’ibid’., vol. iv. p. 367).  George iii. never, except for brief intervals, recovered his reason.]

[Footnote 7:  For C. S. Matthews, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 150, ‘note’ 3. [Footnote 2 of Letter 84]]

172.—­To R. C. Dallas. [1]

Newstead Abbey, Aug. 27, 1811.

I was so sincere in my note on the late Charles Matthews, and do feel myself so totally unable to do justice to his talents, that the passage must stand for the very reason you bring against it.  To him all the men I ever knew were pigmies.  He was an intellectual giant.  It is true I loved Wingfield [2] better; he was the earliest and the dearest, and one of the few one could never repent of having loved:  but in ability—­ah! you did not know Matthews!

‘Childe Harold’ may wait and welcome—­books are never the worse for delay in the publication.  So you have got our heir, George Anson Byron, [3] and his sister, with you.

You may say what you please, but you are one of the ‘murderers’ of Blackett, and yet you won’t allow Harry White’s genius.

Setting aside his bigotry, he surely ranks next Chatterton.  It is astonishing how little he was known; and at Cambridge no one thought or heard of such a man till his death rendered all notice useless.  For my own part, I should have been most proud of such an acquaintance:  his very prejudices were respectable.  There is a sucking epic poet at Granta, a Mr. Townsend, [5] ‘protégé’ of the late Cumberland.  Did you ever hear of him and his ‘Armageddon’?  I think his plan (the man I don’t know) borders on the sublime:  though, perhaps, the anticipation of the “Last Day” (according to you Nazarenes) is a little too daring:  at least, it looks like telling the Lord what he is to do, and might remind an ill-natured person of the line,

  “And fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

But I don’t mean to cavil, only other folks will, and he may bring all the lambs of Jacob Behmen about his ears.  However, I hope he will bring it to a conclusion, though Milton is in his way.

Write to me—­I dote on gossip—­and make a bow to Ju—­, and shake George by the hand for me; but, take care, for he has a sad sea paw.

P.S.—­I would ask George here, but I don’t know how to amuse him—­all my horses were sold when I left England, and I have not had time to replace them.  Nevertheless, if he will come down and shoot in September, he will be very welcome:  but he must bring a gun, for I gave away all mine to Ali Pacha, and other Turks.  Dogs, a keeper, and plenty of game, with a very large manor, I have—­a lake, a boat, houseroom, and neat wines.

[Footnote 1:  Dallas, writing to Byron, August 18, 1811, had said,

  “I have been reading the ‘Remains’ of Kirke White, and find that you
  have to answer for misleading me.  He does not, in my opinion, merit
  the high praise you have bestowed upon him.”

Writing again, August 26, he objected to the ‘note’ on Matthews in ‘Childe Harold’: 

“In your note, as it stands, it strikes me that the eulogy on Matthews is a ‘little’ at the expense of Wingfield and others whom you ‘have’ commemorated.  I should think it quite enough to say that his Powers and Attainments were above all praise, without expressly admitting them to be above that of a Muse who soars high in the praise of others.”]

[Footnote 2:  For Wingfield, see ‘Letters’, vol. i, p. 180, ‘note’ 1. [Footnote 2 of Letter 92]]

[Footnote:  For George Anson Byron, afterwards Lord Byron, and his sister Julia, see ‘Letters’, vol. i, p. 188, ‘note’ 1.[Footnote 1 of Letter 96]]

[Footnote 4:  For H. K. White, see ‘Letters’, vol. i, p. 336, ‘note’ 2. [Footnote 3 of Letter 167]]

[Footnote 5:  The Rev. George Townsend (1788-1857) of Trinity College, Cambridge, published ‘Poems’ in 1810, and eight books of his ‘Armageddon’ in 1815.  The remaining four books were never published.  Townsend became a Canon of Durham in 1825, and held the stall till his death in 1857.  Richard Cumberland, dramatist, novelist, and essayist (1732-1811), the “Sir Fretful Plagiary” of ‘The Critic’, announced the forthcoming poem in the ‘London Review’; but, as Townsend says, in the Preface to ‘Armageddon’, praised him “too abundantly and prematurely.”  “My talents,” he adds, “were neither equal to my own ambition, nor his zeal to serve me.” (See ‘Hints from Horace’, lines 191-212, and Byron’s ‘note’ to line 191, ‘Poems’, ed. 1898, vol. i. p. 403.)]

173.—­To the Hon. Augusta Leigh. [1]

Newstead Abbey, August 30th, 1811.

My Dear Augusta,—­The embarrassments you mention in your last letter I never heard of before, but that disease is epidemic in our family.  Neither have I been apprised of any of the changes at which you hint, indeed how should I?  On the borders of the Black Sea, we heard only of the Russians.  So you have much to tell, and all will be novelty.

I don’t know what Scrope Davies [2] meant by telling you I liked Children, I abominate the sight of them so much that I have always had the greatest respect for the character of Herod.  But, as my house here is large enough for us all, we should go on very well, and I need not tell you that I long to see you.  I really do not perceive any thing so formidable in a Journey hither of two days, but all this comes of Matrimony, you have a Nurse and all the etceteras of a family.  Well, I must marry to repair the ravages of myself and prodigal ancestry, but if I am ever so unfortunate as to be presented with an Heir, instead of a Rattle he shall be provided with a Gag.

I shall perhaps be able to accept D’s invitation to Cambridge, but I fear my stay in Lancashire will be prolonged, I proceed there in the 2d week in Septr to arrange my coal concerns, & then if I can’t persuade some wealthy dowdy to ennoble the dirty puddle of her mercantile Blood,—­why—­I shall leave England and all it’s clouds for the East again; I am very sick of it already.  Joe [3] has been getting well of a disease that would have killed a troop of horse; he promises to bear away the palm of longevity from old Parr.  As you won’t come, you will write; I long to hear all those unutterable things, being utterly unable to guess at any of them, unless they concern your relative the Thane of Carlisle, [4] though I had great hopes we had done with him.

I have little to add that you do not already know, and being quite alone, have no great variety of incident to gossip with; I am but rarely pestered with visiters, and the few I have I get rid of as soon as possible.  I will now take leave of you in the Jargon of 1794.  “Health & Fraternity!”

Yours always, B.

[Footnote 1:  For the Hon. Augusta Leigh, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 18, ‘note’ 1. [Footnote 1 of Letter 7] Byron’s letter is in answer to the following from his half-sister: 

  “6 Mile Bottom, Aug. 27th.

“My Dearest Brother,—­Your letter was stupidly sent to Town to me on Sunday, from whence I arrived at home yesterday; consequently I have not received it so soon as I ought to have done.  I feel so very happy to have the pleasure of hearing from you that I will not delay a moment answering it, altho’ I am in all the delights of ‘unpacking’, and afraid of being too late for the Post.

“I have been a fortnight in Town, and went up on my ‘eldest’ little girl’s account.  She had been very unwell for some time, and I could not feel happy till I had better advice than this neighbourhood affords.  She is, thank Heaven! much better, and I hope in a fair way to be quite ‘herself’ again.  Mr. Davies flattered me by saying she was exactly the sort of child ‘you’ would delight in.  I am determined not to say another word in her praise for fear you should accuse me of partiality and expect too much.  The youngest (’little’ Augusta) is just 6 months old, and has no particular merit at present but a very sweet placid temper.

“Oh! that I could immediately set out to Newstead and shew them to you.  I can’t tell you ‘half’ the happiness it would give me to see it and ‘you’; but, my dearest B., it is a long journey and serious undertaking all things considered.  Mr. Davies writes me word you promise to make him a visit bye and bye; ‘pray do’, you can then so easily come here.  I have set my heart upon it.  Consider how very long it is since I’ve seen you.

“I have indeed ‘much’ to tell you; but it is more easily ‘said’ than ‘written’.  Probably you have heard of many changes in our situation since you left England; in a ‘pecuniary’ point of view it is materially altered for the worse; perhaps in other respects better.  Col.  Leigh has been in Dorsetshire and Sussex during my stay in Town.  I expect him at home towards the end of this week, and hope to make him acquainted with you ere long.

“I have not time to write half I have to say, for my letter must go; but I prefer writing in a hurry to not writing at all.  You can’t think how much I feel for your griefs and losses, or how much and constantly I have thought of you lately.  I began a letter to you in Town, but destroyed it, from the fear of appearing troublesome.  There are times, I know, when one cannot write with any degree of comfort or satisfaction.  I intend to do so again shortly, so I hope yon won’t think me a bore.

“Remember me most kindly to Old Joe.  I rejoice to hear of his health and prosperity.  Your letter (some parts of it at least) made me laugh.  I am so very glad to hear you have sufficiently overcome your prejudices against the ‘fair sex’ to have determined upon marrying; but I shall be most anxious that my future ‘Belle Soeur’ should have more attractions than merely money, though to be sure ‘that’ is somewhat necessary.  I have not another moment, dearest B., so forgive me if I write again very soon, and believe me,

  “Your most affec’tn Sister, A. L.

  “Do write if you can.”]

[Footnote 2:  For Scrope Berdmore Davies, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 165, ‘note’ 2. [Footnote 2 of Letter 86] The following story is told of him by Byron, in a passage of his ‘Detached Thoughts’ (Ravenna, 1821): 

“One night Scrope Davies at a Gaming house (before I was of age), being tipsy as he usually was at the Midnight hour, and having lost monies, was in vain intreated by his friends, one degree less intoxicated than himself, to come or go home.  In despair, he was left to himself and to the demons of the dice-box.

“Next day, being visited about two of the Clock, by some friends just risen with a severe headache and empty pockets (who had left him losing at four or five in the morning), he was found in a sound sleep, without a night-cap, and not particularly encumbered with bed-cloathes:  a Chamber-pot stood by his bed-side, brim-full of—–­’Bank Notes!’, all won, God knows how, and crammed, Scrope knew not where; but THERE they were, all good legitimate notes, and to the amount of some thousand pounds.”]

[Footnote 3:  For Joe Murray, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 21, ‘note’ 3. [Footnote 4 of Letter 7]]

[Footnote 4:  For the Earl of Carlisle, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 36, ‘note’ 2. [Footnote 3 of Letter 13]]

174.-To the Hon. Augusta Leigh.

Newstead Abbey, Aug’st 30th, 1811.

MY DEAR AUGUSTA,—­I wrote to you yesterday, and as you will not be very sorry to hear from me again, considering our long separation, I shall fill up this sheet before I go to bed.  I have heard something of a quarrel between your spouse and the Prince, I don’t wish to pry into family secrets or to hear anything more of the matter, but I can’t help regretting on your account that so long an intimacy should be dissolved at the very moment when your husband might have derived some advantage from his R. H.’s friendship.  However, at all events, and in all Situations, you have a brother in me, and a home here.

I am led into this train of thinking by a part of your letter which hints at pecuniary losses.  I know how delicate one ought to be on such subjects, but you are probably the only being on Earth now interested in my welfare, certainly the only relative, and I should be very ungrateful if I did not feel the obligation.  You must excuse my being a little cynical, knowing how my temper was tried in my Non-age; the manner in which I was brought up must necessarily have broken a meek Spirit, or rendered a fiery one ungovernable; the effect it has had on mine I need not state.

However, buffeting with the World has brought me a little to reason, and two years travel in distant and barbarous countries has accustomed me to bear privations, and consequently to laugh at many things which would have made me angry before.  But I am wandering—­in short I only want to assure you that I love you, and that you must not think I am indifferent, because I don’t shew my affection in the usual way.

Pray can’t you contrive to pay me a visit between this and Xmas? or shall I carry you down with me from Cambridge, supposing it practicable for me to come?  You will do what you please, without our interfering with each other; the premises are so delightfully extensive, that two people might live together without ever seeing, hearing or meeting,—­but I can’t feel the comfort of this till I marry.  In short it would be the most amiable matrimonial mansion, and that is another great inducement to my plan,—­my wife and I shall be so happy,—­one in each Wing.  If this description won’t make you come, I can’t tell what will, you must please yourself.  Good night, I have to walk half a mile to my Bed chamber.  Yours ever, BYRON.

175.—­To James Wedderburn Webster.

Newstead Abbey, Notts., Aug’st 31st, 1811.

MY DEAR W.,—­I send you back your friend’s letter, and, though I don’t agree with his Canons of Criticism, they are not the worse for that.  My friend Hodgson [1] is not much honoured by the comparison to the ‘Pursuits of L.’, which is notoriously, as far as the ‘poetry’ goes, the worst written of its kind; the World has been long but of one opinion, viz. that it’s sole merit lies in the Notes, which are indisputably excellent.

Had Hodgson’s “Alterative” been placed with the ‘Baviad’ the compliment had been higher to both; for, surely, the ‘Baviad’ is as much superior to H.’s poem, as I do firmly believe H.’s poem to be to the ’Pursuits of Literature’.

Your correspondent talks for talking’s sake when he says “Lady J. Grey” is neither “Epic, dramatic, or legendary.”  Who ever said it was “epic” or “dramatic”? he might as well say his letter was neither “epic or dramatic;” the poem makes no pretensions to either character.  “Legendary” it certainly is, but what has that to do with its merits?  All stories of that kind founded on facts are in a certain degree legendary, but they may be well or ill written without the smallest alteration in that respect.  When Mr. Hare prattles about the “Economy,” etc., he sinks sadly;—­all such expressions are the mere cant of a schoolboy hovering round the Skirts of Criticism.

Hodgson’s tale is one of the best efforts of his Muse, and Mr. H.’s approbation must be of more consequence, before any body will reduce it to a “Scale,” or be much affected by “the place” he “assigns” to the productions of a man like Hodgson.

But I have said more than I intended and only beg you never to allow yourself to be imposed upon by such “common place” as the 6th form letter you sent me.  Judge for yourself.

I know the Mr. Bankes [2] you mention though not to that “extreme” you seem to think, but I am flattered by his “boasting” on such a subject (as you say), for I never thought him likely to “boast” of any thing which was not his own.  I am not “‘melancholish’”—­pray what “‘folk’” dare to say any such thing?  I must contradict them by being ‘merry’ at their expence.

I shall invade you in the course of the winter, out of envy, as Lucifer looked at Adam and Eve.

Pray be as happy as you can, and write to me that I may catch the infection.

Yours ever, BYRON.

[Footnote 1:  Webster had sent Byron a letter from Naylor Hare, in which the latter criticized Hodgson’s poems, ’Lady Jane Grey, a Tale; and other Poems (1809)’ (see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 195, ‘note 1’ [Footnote 1 of Letter 102]).

In the volume (pp. 56-77) was printed his “Gentle Alterative prepared for the Reviewers,” which Hare apparently compared to ’The Pursuits of Literature (1794-97)’, by T. J. Mathias.

To this criticism Byron objected, saying that the “Alterative” might be more fairly compared to Gifford’s ‘Baviad’ (1794).]

[Footnote 2:  For William John Bankes, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 120, ‘note’ 1. [Footnote 1 of Letter 67]]

176.—–­To the Hon. Augusta Leigh.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 2d, 1811.

My dear Augusta,—­I wrote you a vastly dutiful letter since my answer to your second epistle, and I now write you a third, for which you have to thank Silence and Solitude.  Mr. Hanson [2] comes hither on the 14th, and I am going to Rochdale on business, but that need not prevent you from coming here, you will find Joe, and the house and the cellar and all therein very much at your Service.

As to Lady B., when I discover one rich enough to suit me and foolish enough to have me, I will give her leave to make me miserable if she can.  Money is the magnet; as to Women, one is as well as another, the older the better, we have then a chance of getting her to Heaven.  So, your Spouse does not like brats better than myself; now those who beget them have no right to find fault, but I may rail with great propriety.

My “Satire!”—­I am glad it made you laugh for Somebody told me in Greece that you was angry, and I was sorry, as you were perhaps the only person whom I did not want to make angry.

But how you will make me laugh I don’t know, for it is a vastly serious subject to me I assure you; therefore take care, or I shall hitch you into the next Edition to make up our family party.  Nothing so fretful, so despicable as a Scribbler, see what I am, and what a parcel of Scoundrels I have brought about my ears, and what language I have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way;—­all this comes of Authorship, but now I am in for it, and shall be at war with Grubstreet, till I find some better amusement.

You will write to me your Intentions and may almost depend on my being at Cambridge in October.  You say you mean to be etc. in the Autumn; I should be glad to know what you call this present Season, it would be Winter in every other Country which I have seen.  If we meet in October we will travel in my Vis. and can have a cage for the children and a cart for the Nurse.  Or perhaps we can forward them by the Canal.  Do let us know all about it, your “bright thought” is a little clouded, like the Moon in this preposterous climate.

Good even, Child.

Yours ever, B.

[Footnote 1:  The following is Mrs. Leigh’s letter, to which the above is an answer: 

  “6 Mile Bottom, Saturday, 31 Aug.

“My dearest brother,—­I hope you don’t dislike receiving letters so much as writing them, for you would in that case pronounce me a great torment.  But as I prepared you in my last for its being followed very soon by another, I hope you will have reconciled your mind to the impending toil.  I really wrote in such a hurry that I did not say half I wished; but I did not like to delay telling you how happy you made me by writing.  I have been dwelling constantly upon the idea of going to Newstead ever since I had your wish to see me there.  At last a bright thought struck me.

“We intend, I believe, to go to Yorkshire in the autumn.  Now, if I could contrive to pay you a visit en passant, it would be delightful, and give me the greatest pleasure.  But I fear you would be obliged to make up your mind to receive my Brats too.  As for my husband, he prefers the outside of the Mail to the inside of a Post-Chaise, particularly when partly occupied by Nurse and Children, so that we always travel independent of each other.

“So much for this, my dear B. I can only say I should much like to see you at Newstead.  The former I hope I shall at all events, as you must not be shabby, but come to Cambridge as you promised.  Are you staying at Newstead now for any time?  I saw George Byron in Town for one day, and he promised to call or write again, but has not done either, so I begin to think he has gone back to Lisbon.  I think it is impossible not to like him; he is so good-natured and natural.  We talked much of you; he told me you were grown very thin; as you don’t complain, I hope you are not the worse for being so, and I remember you used to wish it.  Don’t you think it a great shame that George B. is not promoted?  I wish there was any possibility of assisting him about it; but all I know who could do any good with you present Ministers, I don’t for many reasons like to ask.  Perhaps there may be a change bye and bye.

“Fred Howard is married to Miss Lambton.  I saw them in town in their way to Castle Howard.  I hope he will be happy with all my heart; his kindness and friendship to us last year, when Col. Leigh was placed in one of the most perplexing situations that I think anybody could be in, is never to be forgotten.  I think he used to be a greater favourite with you than some others of his family. Mrs. F.H. is very pretty, very young (not quite 17), and appears gentle and pleasing, which is all one can expect [to discover from] a very slight acquaintance.

“Now, my dearest Byron, pray let me hear from you.  I shall be daily expecting to hear of a Lady Byron, since you have confided to me your determination of marrying, in which I really hope you are serious, being convinced such an event would contribute greatly to your happiness, PROVIDED her Ladyship was the sort of person that would suit you; and you won’t be angry with me for saying that it is not EVERY one who would; therefore don’t be too precipitate.  You will wish me hanged, I fear, for boring you so unmercifully, so God bless you, my dearest Bro.; and, when you have time, do write.  Are you going to amuse us with any more Satires?  Oh, English Bards! I shall make you laugh (when we meet) about it.

  “Ever your most affectionate Sis. and Friend,

  “A.  L.”]

[Footnote 2:  For John Hanson, see Letters, vol. i. p. 8, note 2. [Footnote 1 of Letter 3]]

177.—­To Francis Hodgson.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 3, 1811.

MY DEAR HODGSON,—­I will have nothing to do with your immortality; [1] we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another.  If men are to live, why die at all? and if they die, why disturb the sweet and sound sleep that “knows no waking”?

  “Post Mortem nihil est, ipsaque Mors nihil … quæris quo jaceas post
  obitum loco?  Quo non Nata jacent.” [2]

As to revealed religion, Christ came to save men; but a good Pagan will go to heaven, and a bad Nazarene to hell; “Argal” (I argue like the gravedigger) why are not all men Christians? or why are any?  If mankind may be saved who never heard or dreamt, at Timbuctoo, Otaheite, Terra Incognita, etc., of Galilee and its Prophet, Christianity is of no avail:  if they cannot be saved without, why are not all orthodox?  It is a little hard to send a man preaching to Judaea, and leave the rest of the world—­Negers and what not—­dark as their complexions, without a ray of light for so many years to lead them on high; and who will believe that God will damn men for not knowing what they were never taught?  I hope I am sincere; I was so at least on a bed of sickness in a far-distant country, when I had neither friend, nor comforter, nor hope, to sustain me.  I looked to death as a relief from pain, without a wish for an after-life, but a confidence that the God who punishes in this existence had left that last asylum for the weary.

  Greek:  Hon ho theòs agapáei apothnáeskei néos.

I am no Platonist, I am nothing at all; but I would sooner be a Paulician, Manichean, Spinozist, Gentile, Pyrrhonian, Zoroastrian, than one of the seventy-two villainous sects who are tearing each other to pieces for the love of the Lord and hatred of each other.  Talk of Galileeism?  Show me the effects—­are you better, wiser, kinder by your precepts?  I will bring you ten Mussulmans shall shame you in all goodwill towards men, prayer to God, and duty to their neighbours.  And is there a Talapoin, [4] or a Bonze, who is not superior to a fox-hunting curate?  But I will say no more on this endless theme; let me live, well if possible, and die without pain.  The rest is with God, who assuredly, had He come or sent, would have made Himself manifest to nations, and intelligible to all.

I shall rejoice to see you.  My present intention is to accept Scrope Davies’s invitation; and then, if you accept mine, we shall meet here and there.  Did you know poor Matthews?  I shall miss him much at Cambridge.

[Footnote 1:  The religious discussion arose out of the opening stanzas of ‘Childe Harold’, Canto II., which Hodgson was helping to correct for the press.

Byron’s opinions were not newly formed, as is shown by the following letter to Ensign Long (see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 73, ‘note 2’ [Footnote 2 of Letter 31]), which reached the Editor too late for insertion in its proper place: 

  Southwell, Ap:  16th, 1807.

“Your Epistle, my dear Standard Bearer, augurs not much in favour of your new life, particularly the latter part, where you say your happiest Days are over.  I most sincerely hope not.  The past has certainly in some parts been pleasant, but I trust will be equalled, if not exceeded by the future.  You hope it is not so with me.

“To be plain with Regard to myself.  Nature stampt me in the Die of Indifference.  I consider myself as destined never to be happy, although in some instances fortunate.  I am an isolated Being on the Earth, without a Tie to attach me to life, except a few School-fellows, and a ‘score of females.’  Let me but ’hear my fame on the winds’ and the song of the Bards in my Norman house, I ask no more and don’t expect so much.  Of Religion I know nothing, at least in its ‘favour’.  We have ‘fools’ in all sects and Impostors in most; why should I believe mysteries no one understands, because written by men who chose to mistake madness for Inspiration, and style themselves ‘Evangelicals?’ However enough on this subject.  Your ‘piety’ will be ‘aghast,’ and I wish for no proselytes.  This much I will venture to affirm, that all the virtues and pious ‘Deeds’ performed on Earth can never entitle a man to Everlasting happiness in a future State; nor on the other hand can such a Scene as a Seat of eternal punishment exist, it is incompatible with the benign attributes of a Deity to suppose so.

  “I am surrounded here by parsons and methodists, but, as you will
  see, not infected with the mania.  I have lived a ‘Deist’, what I shall
  die I know not; however, come what may, ‘ridens moriar’.

“Nothing detains me here but the publication, which will not be complete till June.  About 20 of the present pieces will be cut out, and a number of new things added.  Amongst them a complete Episode of Nisus and Euryalus from Virgil, some Odes from Anacreon, and several original Odes, the whole will cover 170 pages.  My last production has been a poem in imitation of Ossian, which I shall not publish, having enough without it.  Many of the present poems are enlarged and altered, in short you will behold an ‘Old friend with a new face.’  Were I to publish all I have written in Rhyme, I should fill a decent Quarto; however, half is quite enough at present.  You shall have ‘all’ when we meet.

“I grow thin daily; since the commencement of my System I have lost 23 lbs. in my weight ‘(i.e.)’ 1 st. and 9 lbs.  When I began I weighed 14 st. 6 lbs., and on Tuesday I found myself reduced to 12 st. 11 lb.  What sayest thou, Ned? do you not envy?  I shall still proceed till I arrive at 12 st. and then stop, at least if I am not too fat, but shall always live temperately and take much exercise.

“If there is a possibility we shall meet in June.  I shall be in Town, before I proceed to Granta, and if the ’mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the mountain.’  I don’t mean, by comparing you to the mountain, to insinuate anything on the Subject of your Size.  Xerxes, it is said, formed Mount Athos into the Shape of a Woman; had he lived now, and taken a peep at Chatham, he would have spared himself the trouble and made it unnecessary by finding a ‘Hill’ ready cut to his wishes.

  “Adieu, dear Mont Blanc, or rather ‘Mont Rouge’; don’t, for Heaven’s
  sake, turn Volcanic, at least roll the Lava of your indignation in any
  other Channel, and not consume Your’s ever,

  “BYRON.

  “Write Immediately.”

Byron lived to modify these opinions, as is shown by the following passages from his ‘Detached Thoughts’: 

“If I were to live over again, I do not know what I would change in my life, unless it were ‘for—­not to have lived at all’.  All history and experience, and the rest, teaches us that the good and evil are pretty equally balanced in this existence, and that what is most to be desired is an easy passage out of it.  What can it give us but years? and those have little of good but their ending.

“Of the immortality of the soul it appears to me that there can be little doubt, if we attend for a moment to the action of mind; it is in perpetual activity.  I used to doubt of it, but reflection has taught me better.  It acts also so very independent of body—­in dreams, for instance;—­incoherently and ‘madly’, I grant you, but still it is mind, and much more mind than when we are awake.  Now that this should not act ‘separately’, as well as jointly, who can pronounce?  The stoics, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, call the present state ’a soul which drags a carcass,’—­a heavy chain, to be sure; but all chains being material may be shaken off.  How far our future life will be ‘individual’, or, rather, how far it will at all resemble our ‘present’ existence, is another question; but that the mind is eternal seems as probable as that the body is not so.  Of course I here venture upon the question without recurring to Revelation, which, however, is at least as rational a solution of it as any other.  A ‘material’ resurrection seems strange, and even absurd, except for purposes of punishment; and all punishment which is to ‘revenge’ rather than ‘correct’ must be ‘morally wrong’; and ‘when the world is at an end’, what moral or warning purpose ‘can’ eternal tortures answer?  Human passions have probably disfigured the divine doctrines here;—­but the whole thing is inscrutable.”

“It is useless to tell me ‘not’ to ‘reason’, but to ‘believe’.  You might as well tell a man not to wake, but ‘sleep’.  And then to ‘bully’ with torments, and all that!  I cannot help thinking that the ‘menace’ of hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains.”

  “Man is born ‘passionate’ of body, but with an innate though secret
  tendency to the love of good in his main-spring of mind.  But, God help
  us all! it is at present a sad jar of atoms.”]

[Footnote 2:  The lines are quoted from Seneca’s ‘Troades’ (act ii. et seqq.): 

&#8220;Post mortem nihil <i>est</i>, ipsaque mors nihil.
........
........&#160;
Qu&#230;ris, quo jaceas post obitum loco?&#160;
Quo non nata jacent.&#8221;]

[Footnote 3:  The sentiment is found in one of the [Greek:  monóstichoi] of Menander (’Menandri et Philemonis reliquiæ,’ edidit Augustus Meineke, p. 48).  It is thus quoted by Stobæus (’Florilegium’, cxx. 8) as an iambic: 

  [Greek:  Hon oi theoì philoûsin apothnáeskei néos.]

In the ‘Comicorum Græcorum Sententiæ, id est’ [Greek:  gnômai](p. 219, ed, Henricus Stephanus, MDLXIX.) it is quoted as a leonine verse: 

  [Greek:  Hon gàr philei theòs apothnáeskei néos.]

Plautus gives it thus (’Bacchides’, iv. 7): 

  “Quem di diligunt adolescens moritur.”]

[Footnote 4:  The word is said to be illegible, and the conclusion of the letter to be lost (’Memoir of the Rev. Francis Hodgson’, vol. i. p. 196).  Only the latter statement is correct.  The word is perfectly legible.  Talapoin (Yule’s ‘Glossary of Anglo-Indian Words, sub voce’) is the name used by the Portuguese, and after them by the French writers, and by English travellers of the seventeenth century (Hakluyt, ed. 1807, vol. ii. p. 93; and Purchas, ed. 1645, vol. ii. p. 1747), to designate the Buddhist monks of Ceylon and the Indo-Chinese countries.  Pallegoix (’Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam’, vol. ii. p. 23) says,

  “Les Européens les ont appelés ‘talapoins’, probablement du nom de
  l’éventail qu’ils tiennent à la main, lequel s’appelle ‘talapat’, qui
  signifie ’feuille de palmier’.”

Possibly Byron knew the word through Voltaire (’Dial.’ xxii., ’André des Couches à Siam’);

  “‘A. des C.’:  Combien avez-vous de soldats?

  ‘Croutef.’:  Quatre-vingt mille, fort médiocrement payés.

  ‘A. des C.’:  Et de talapoins?

  ‘Cr.’:  Cent vingt-mille, tous fainéans et trés riches,” etc.]

178.—­To R.C.  Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, September 4th, 1811.

My dear Sir,—­I am at present anxious, as Cawthorn seems to wish it, to have a small edition of the ‘Hints from Horace’ [1] published immediately, but the Latin (the most difficult poem in the language) renders it necessary to be very particular not only in correcting the proofs with Horace open, but in adapting the parallel passages of the imitation in such places to the original as may enable the reader not to lose sight of the allusion.  I don’t know whether I ought to ask you to do this, but I am too far off to do it for myself; and if you condescend to my school-boy erudition, you will oblige me by setting this thing going, though you will smile at the importance I attach to it.

Believe me, ever yours,

BYRON.

[Footnote 1:  ‘Hints from Horace’, written during Byron’s second stay at Athens, March 11-14, 1811, and subsequently added to, had been placed in the hands of Cawthorn, the publisher of ’English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers’, for publication.  Byron afterwards changed his mind, and the poem remained unpublished till after his death.

The following letter from Cawthorn shows that considerable progress had been made with the printing of the poem, and that Byron also contemplated another edition of ‘English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers’.  The advice of his friends led him to abandon both plans; but his letter to Cawthorn, printed below, is evidence that in September he was still at work on ‘Hints from Horace’: 

  “24, Cockspur Street, Aug. 22’d, 1811.

“My Lord,—­Mr. Green the Amanuensis has finished the Latin of the Horace, and I shall be happy to do with it as your Lordship may direct, either to forward it to Newstead, or keep it in Town.  Would it not be better to print a small edition seperate (’sic’), and afterwards print the two satires together?  This I leave to your Lordship’s consideration.  Four Sheets of the ‘Travels’ are already printed, and one of the plates (Albanian Solain) is executed.  I sent it Capt.  H[obhouse] yesterday to Cork, to see if it meets his approbation.  The work is printed in quarto, for which I may be in some measure indebted to your Lordship, as I urged it so strongly.  I shall be extremely sorry if Capt.  H. is not pleased with it, but I think he will.  Your Lordship’s goodness will excuse me for saying how much the very sudden and melancholy events that have lately transpired—­I regret—­Capt.  Hobhouse has written me since the decease of Mr. Mathews.  I am told Capt.  H. is very much affected at it.  I have received some drawings of costumes from him, which I am to deliver to your Lordship.  Is it likely we shall see your Lordship in Town soon?

  “I have the honour to be your Lordship’s

  “Most respectful and greatly obliged Servt.,

  “JAMES CAWTHORN.

“If a small edition is printed of ‘Horace’ for the first” [words erased] “that, and I think in all probability the ‘E.  Bards’ will want reprinting about March next, when both could be done together.  Do not think me too sanguine.”

A few days later, Byron writes to Cawthom as follows: 

  “Newstead Abbey, September 4th, 1811.

“More notes for the ‘Hints’!  You mistake me much by thinking me inattentive to this publication.  If I had a friend willing and able to correct the press, it should be out with my good will immediately.  Pray attend to annexing additional notes in their proper places, and let them be added immediately.

  “Yours, etc.,

  “BYRON.”]

179.—­To John Murray. [1]

Newstead Abbey, Notts., Sept. 5, 1811.

SIR,—­The time seems to be past when (as Dr. Johnson said) a man was certain to “hear the truth from his bookseller,” for you have paid me so many compliments, that, if I was not the veriest scribbler on earth, I should feel affronted.  As I accept your compliments, it is but fair I should give equal or greater credit to your objections, the more so as I believe them to be well founded.  With regard to the political and metaphysical parts, I am afraid I can alter nothing; but I have high authority for my Errors in that point, for even the ‘Æneid’ was a political poem, and written for a political purpose; and as to my unlucky opinions on Subjects of more importance, I am too sincere in them for recantation.  On Spanish affairs I have said what I saw, and every day confirms me in that notion of the result formed on the Spot; and I rather think honest John Bull is beginning to come round again to that Sobriety which Massena’s retreat [2] had begun to reel from its centre—­the usual consequence of unusual success.  So you perceive I cannot alter the Sentiments; but if there are any alterations in the structure of the versification you would wish to be made, I will tag rhymes and turn stanzas as much as you please.  As for the “Orthodox,” let us hope they will buy, on purpose to abuse—­you will forgive the one, if they will do the other.  You are aware that any thing from my pen must expect no quarter, on many accounts; and as the present publication is of a nature very different from the former, we must not be sanguine.

You have given me no answer to my question—­tell me fairly, did you show the MS. to some of your corps? [3]

I sent an introductory stanza to Mr. Dallas, that it might be forwarded to you; the poem else will open too abruptly.  The Stanzas had better be numbered in Roman characters, there is a disquisition on the literature of the modern Greeks, and some smaller poems to come in at the close.  These are now at Newstead, but will be sent in time.  If Mr. D. has lost the Stanza and note annexed to it, write, and I will send it myself.—­You tell me to add two cantos, but I am about to visit my Collieries in Lancashire on the 15th instant, which is so unpoetical an employment that I need say no more.

I am, sir, your most obedient, etc., etc.,

BYRON.

[Footnote 1:  The following is Murray’s letter, to which Byron replies: 

  “London, Sept. 4, 1811, Wednesday.

“MY LORD,—­An absence of some days, passed in the country, has prevented me from writing earlier in answer to your obliging letter.  I have now, however, the pleasure of sending under a separate cover, the first proof sheet of your Lordship’s ‘Poem’, which is so good as to be entitled to all your care to render perfect.  Besides its general merit, there are parts, which, I am tempted to believe, far excel anything that your Lordship has hitherto published, and it were therefore grievous indeed, if you do not condescend to bestow upon it all the improvement of which your Lordship’s mind is so capable; every correction already made is valuable, and this circumstance renders me more confident in soliciting for it your further attention.

“There are some expressions, too, concerning Spain and Portugal, which, however just, and particularly so at the time they were conceived, yet as they do not harmonize with the general feeling, would so greatly interfere with the popularity which the poem is, in other respects, so certainly calculated to excite, that, in compassion to your publisher, who does not presume to reason upon the subject, otherwise than as a mere matter of business, I hope your Lordship’s goodness will induce you to obviate them, and, with them, perhaps, some religious feelings which may deprive me of some customers amongst the ‘Orthodox’.

“Could I flatter myself that these suggestions were not obtrusive, I would hazard another, in an earnest solicitation that your Lordship would add the two promised Cantos, and complete the ‘Poem’.  It were cruel indeed not to perfect a work which contains so much that is excellent; your Fame, my Lord, demands it; you are raising a Monument that will outlive your present feelings, and it should therefore be so constructed as to excite no other associations than those of respect and admiration for your Lordship’s Character and Genius.

“I trust that you will pardon the warmth of this address when I assure your Lordship that it arises, in the greatest degree, in a sincere regard for your lasting reputation, with, however, some view to that portion of it, which must attend the Publisher of so beautiful a Poem, as your Lordship is capable of rendering

  “‘The Romaunt of Childe Harold’.

  “I have the honour to be, My Lord,

  “Your Lordship’s

  “Obedient and faithful servant,

  “JOHN MURRAY.”]

[Footnote 2:  On the night of March 5, 1811, Massena retreated from his camp at Santarem, whence he had watched Wellington at Torres Vedras, and on April 4 he crossed the Coa into Spain.]

[Footnote 3:  Murray had shown the MS. to Gifford for advice as to its publication.  Byron seems to have resented this on the ground that it might look like an attempt to propitiate the ’Quarterly Review’.]

180.—­To R. C. Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, September 7, 1811.

As Gifford has been ever my “Magnus Apollo,” any approbation, such as you mention, would, of course, be more welcome than “all Bocara’s vaunted gold”, than all “the gems of Samarcand.” [1] But I am sorry the MS. was shown to him in such a manner, and had written to Murray to say as much, before I was aware that it was too late.

Your objection to the expression “central line” I can only meet by saying that, before Childe Harold left England, it was his full intention to traverse Persia, and return by India, which he could not have done without passing the equinoctial.

The other errors you mention, I must correct in the progress through the press.  I feel honoured by the wish of such men that the poem should be continued, but to do that I must return to Greece and Asia; I must have a warm sun, a blue sky; I cannot describe scenes so dear to me by a sea-coal fire.  I had projected an additional canto when I was in the Troad and Constantinople, and if I saw them again, it would go on; but under existing circumstances and ‘sensations’, I have neither harp, “heart, nor voice” to proceed, I feel that ‘you are all right’ as to the metaphysical part; but I also feel that I am sincere, and that if I am only to write “ad captandum vulgus,” I might as well edit a magazine at once, or spin canzonettas for Vauxhall. [2]

My work must make its way as well as it can; I know I have every thing against me, angry poets and prejudices; but if the poem is a ‘poem’, it will surmount these obstacles, and if ‘not’, it deserves its fate.  Your friend’s Ode [3] I have read—­it is no great compliment to pronounce it far superior to Smythe’s on the same subject, or to the merits of the new Chancellor.  It is evidently the production of a man of taste, and a poet, though I should not be willing to say it was fully equal to what might be expected from the author of “’Horae Ionicae’.” [4] I thank you for it, and that is more than I would do for any other Ode of the present day.

I am very sensible of your good wishes, and, indeed, I have need of them.  My whole life has been at variance with propriety, not to say decency; my circumstances are become involved; my friends are dead or estranged, and my existence a dreary void.  In Matthews I have lost my “guide, philosopher, and friend;” in Wingfield a friend only, but one whom I could have wished to have preceded in his long journey.

Matthews was indeed an extraordinary man; it has not entered into the heart of a stranger to conceive such a man:  there was the stamp of immortality in all he said or did;—­and now what is he?  When we see such men pass away and be no more—­men, who seem created to display what the Creator ‘could make’ his creatures, gathered into corruption, before the maturity of minds that might have been the pride of posterity, what are we to conclude?  For my own part, I am bewildered.  To me he was much, to Hobhouse every thing.  My poor Hobhouse doted on Matthews.  For me, I did not love quite so much as I honoured him; I was indeed so sensible of his infinite superiority, that though I did not envy, I stood in awe of it.  He, Hobhouse, Davies, and myself, formed a coterie of our own at Cambridge and elsewhere.  Davies is a wit and man of the world, and feels as much as such a character can do; but not as Hobhouse has been affected.  Davies, who is not a scribbler, has always beaten us all in the war of words, and by his colloquial powers at once delighted and kept us in order.  Hobhouse and myself always had the worst of it with the other two; and even Matthews yielded to the dashing vivacity of Scrope Davies.  But I am talking to you of men, or boys, as if you cared about such beings.

I expect mine agent down on the 14th to proceed to Lancashire, where I hear from all quarters that I have a very valuable property in coals, etc.  I then intend to accept an invitation to Cambridge in October, and shall, perhaps, run up to town.  I have four invitations—­to Wales, Dorset, Cambridge, and Chester; but I must be a man of business.  I am quite alone, as these long letters sadly testify.  I perceive, by referring to your letter, that the Ode is from the author; make my thanks acceptable to him.  His muse is worthy a nobler theme.  You will write as usual, I hope.  I wish you good evening, and am, etc.

[Footnote 1:  The lines, which are parodied in Byron’s unpublished ‘Barmaid’, are from Sir W. Jones’s translation of a song by Hafiz (’Works, vol. x. p. 251): 

  “Sweet maid, if thou would’st charm my sight,
  And bid these arms thy neck infold;
  That rosy cheek, that lily hand,
  Would give thy poet more delight,
  Than all Bocara’s vaunted gold,
  Than all the gems of Samarcand.”]

[Footnote 2:  Vauxhall Gardens (1661 to July 25, 1859) were still not only a popular but a fashionable resort, though fireworks and masquerades threatened to expel musicians and vocalists.  At this time the principal singers were Charles Dignum (1765-1827); Maria Theresa Bland (1769-1838), a famous ballad-singer; Rosoman Mountain, ‘née’ Wilkinson (1768-1841), whose husband was a violinist and leader at Vauxhall.—­(’The London Pleasure Gardens’, pp. 286-326.)]

[Footnote 3:  On June 29, 1811, the Duke of Gloucester was installed as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.  The Installation Ode, written by W. Smyth, of Peterhouse (1765-1849), Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, and author of ‘English Lyrics’ (1797) and other works, was set to music by Hague, and performed in the Senate House, Braham and Ashe, it is said, particularly distinguishing themselves among the performers.  The Ode is given in the ‘Annual Register’ for 1811, pp. 593-596.  The rival Ode, which Byron preferred, was by Walter Rodwell Wright.]

[Footnote 4:  For Walter Rodwell Wright, author of ‘Horæ Ionicæ’ (1809), see Letters, vol. i. p. 336, ‘note’ 1.

181.—­To the Hon. Augusta Leigh.

[Six Mile Bottom, Newmarket.]

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 9th, 1811.

My Dear Augusta,—­My Rochdale affairs are understood to be settled as far as the Law can settle them, and indeed I am told that the most valuable part is that which was never disputed; but I have never reaped any advantage from them, and God knows if I ever shall.  Mr. H., my agent, is a good man and able, but the most dilatory in the world.  I expect him down on the 14th to accompany me to Rochdale, where something will be decided as to selling or working the Collieries.  I am Lord of the Manor (a most extensive one), and they want to enclose, which cannot be done without me; but I go there in the worst humour possible and am afraid I shall do or say something not very conciliatory.  In short all my affairs are going on as badly as possible, and I have no hopes or plans to better them as I long ago pledged myself never to sell Newstead, which I mean to hold in defiance of the Devil and Man.

I am quite alone and never see strangers without being sick, but I am nevertheless on good terms with my neighbours, for I neither ride or shoot or move over my Garden walls, but I fence and box and swim and run a good deal to keep me in exercise and get me to sleep.  Poor Murray is ill again, and one of my Greek servants is ill too, and my valet has got a pestilent cough, so that we are in a peck of troubles; my family Surgeon sent an Emetic this morning for one of them, I did not very well know which, but I swore Somebody should take it, so after a deal of discussion the Greek swallowed it with tears in his eyes, and by the blessing of it, and the Virgin whom he invoked to assist it and him, I suppose he’ll be well tomorrow, if not, another shall have the next.  So your Spouse likes children, that is lucky as he will have to bring them up; for my part (since I lost my Newfoundland dog,) I like nobody except his successor a Dutch Mastiff and three land Tortoises brought with me from Greece.

I thank you for your letters and am always glad to hear from you, but if you won’t come here before Xmas, I very much fear we shall not meet here at all, for I shall be off somewhere or other very soon out of this land of Paper credit (or rather no credit at all, for every body seems on the high road to Bankruptcy), and if I quit it again I shall not be back in a hurry.

However, I shall endeavour to see you somewhere, and make my bow with decorum before I return to the Ottomans, I believe I shall turn Mussulman in the end.

You ask after my health; I am in tolerable leanness, which I promote by exercise and abstinence.  I don’t know that I have acquired any thing by my travels but a smattering of two languages and a habit of chewing Tobacco. [1]

Yours ever,

B.

[Footnote 1:  To appease the pangs of hunger, and keep down his fat, Byron was in the habit of chewing gum-mastic and tobacco.  For the same reason, at a later date, he took opium.  The mistake which he makes in his letter to Hodgson (December 8,1811), “I do nothing but eschew tobacco,” is repeated in ‘Don Juan’ (Canto XII. stanza xiiii.)—­

  “In fact, there’s nothing makes me so much grieve,
  As that abominable tittle-tattle,
  Which is the cud eschewed by human cattle.”]

182.—­To Francis Hodgson.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 9, 1811.

Dear Hodgson,—­I have been a good deal in your company lately, for I have been reading ‘Juvenal’ and ‘Lady Jane’, [1] etc., for the first time since my return.  The Tenth Sat’e has always been my favourite, as I suppose indeed of everybody’s.  It is the finest recipe for making one miserable with his life, and content to walk out of it, in any language.  I should think it might be redde with great effect to a man dying without much pain, in preference to all the stuff that ever was said or sung in churches.  But you are a deacon, and I say no more.  Ah! you will marry and become lethargic, like poor Hal of Harrow, [2] who yawns at 10 o’ nights, and orders caudle annually.

I wrote an answer to yours fully some days ago, and, being quite alone and able to frank, you must excuse this subsequent epistle, which will cost nothing but the trouble of deciphering.  I am expectant of agents to accompany me to Rochdale, a journey not to be anticipated with pleasure; though I feel very restless where I am, and shall probably ship off for Greece again; what nonsense it is to talk of Soul, when a cloud makes it melancholy and wine makes it mad.

Collet of Staines, your “most kind host,” has lost that girl you saw of his.  She grew to five feet eleven, and might have been God knows how high if it had pleased Him to renew the race of Anak; but she fell by a ptisick, a fresh proof of the folly of begetting children.  You knew Matthews.  Was he not an intellectual giant?  I knew few better or more intimately, and none who deserved more admiration in point of ability.

Scrope Davies has been here on his way to Harrowgate; I am his guest in October at King’s, where we will “drink deep ere we depart.”  “Won’t you, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you come, Mr. Mug?” [3] We did not amalgamate properly at Harrow; it was somehow rainy, and then a wife makes such a damp; but in a seat of celibacy I will have revenge.  Don’t you hate helping first, and losing the wings of chicken?  And then, conversation is always flabby.  Oh! in the East women are in their proper sphere, and one has—­no conversation at all.  My house here is a delightful matrimonial mansion.  When I wed, my spouse and I will be so happy!—­one in each wing.

I presume you are in motion from your Herefordshire station, [4] and Drury must be gone back to Gerund Grinding.  I have not been at Cambridge since I took my M.A. degree in 1808. Eheu fugaces! I look forward to meeting you and Scrope there with the feelings of other times.  Capt.  Hobhouse is at Enniscorthy in Juverna.  I wish he was in England.

Yours ever,

B.

[Footnote 1:  See ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 195, ‘note’ I. [Footnote 1 of Letter 102]]

[Footnote 2:  For Henry Drury, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 41, ‘note’ 2. [Footnote 1 of Letter 14]]

[Footnote 3:  Byron may possibly allude to “Matthew Mug,” a character in Foote’s ‘Mayor of Garratt’, said to be intended for the Duke of Newcastle.  In act ii. sc. 2 of the comedy occurs this passage—­

  “‘Heel-Tap’.  Now, neighbours, have a good caution that this Master Mug
  does not cajole you; he is a damn’d palavering fellow.”

But there is no passage in the play which exactly corresponds with Byron’s quotation.]

[Footnote 4:  Hodgson was staying with his uncle, the Rev. Richard Coke, of Lower Moor, Herefordshire.]

183.—­To R.C.  Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 10, 1811.

Dear Sir,—­I rather think in one of the opening stanzas of ’Childe Harold’ there is this line: 

  ’Tis said at times the sullen tear would start.

Now, a line or two after, I have a repetition of the epithet “sullen reverie;” so (if it be so) let us have “speechless reverie,” or “silent reverie;” but, at all events, do away the recurrence.

Yours ever,

B.

184.—­To Francis Hodgson.

Newstead Abbey, September 13, 1811.

My Dear Hodgson,—­I thank you for your song, or, rather, your two songs,—­your new song on love, and your old song on religion. [1] I admire the first sincerely, and in turn call upon you to admire the following on Anacreon Moore’s new operatic farce, [2] or farcical opera—­call it which you will: 

  Good plays are scarce,
  So Moore writes Farce;
      Is Fame like his so brittle? 
  We knew before
  That “Little’s” Moore,
      But now ’tis Moore that’s Little.

I won’t dispute with you on the Arcana of your new calling; they are Bagatelles like the King of Poland’s rosary.  One remark, and I have done; the basis of your religion is injustice; the Son of God, the pure, the immaculate, the innocent, is sacrificed for the Guilty.  This proves His heroism; but no more does away man’s guilt than a schoolboy’s volunteering to be flogged for another would exculpate the dunce from negligence, or preserve him from the Rod.  You degrade the Creator, in the first place, by making Him a begetter of children; and in the next you convert Him into a Tyrant over an immaculate and injured Being, who is sent into existence to suffer death for the benefit of some millions of Scoundrels, who, after all, seem as likely to be damned as ever.  As to miracles, I agree with Hume that it is more probable men should lie or be deceived, than that things out of the course of Nature should so happen.  Mahomet wrought miracles, Brothers [3] the prophet had proselytes, and so would Breslaw [4] the conjuror, had he lived in the time of Tiberius.

Besides I trust that God is not a Jew, but the God of all Mankind; and as you allow that a virtuous Gentile may be saved, you do away the necessity of being a Jew or a Christian.

I do not believe in any revealed religion, because no religion is revealed:  and if it pleases the Church to damn me for not allowing a nonentity, I throw myself on the mercy of the “Great First Cause, least understood,” who must do what is most proper; though I conceive He never made anything to be tortured in another life, whatever it may in this.  I will neither read pro nor con.  God would have made His will known without books, considering how very few could read them when Jesus of Nazareth lived, had it been His pleasure to ratify any peculiar mode of worship.  As to your immortality, if people are to live, why die?  And our carcases, which are to rise again, are they worth raising?  I hope, if mine is, that I shall have a better pair of legs than I have moved on these two-and-twenty years, or I shall be sadly behind in the squeeze into Paradise.  Did you ever read “Malthus on Population”?  If he be right, war and pestilence are our best friends, to save us from being eaten alive, in this “best of all possible Worlds.” [5]

I will write, read, and think no more; indeed, I do not wish to shock your prejudices by saying all I do think.  Let us make the most of life, and leave dreams to Emanuel Swedenborg.  Now to dreams of another genus—­Poesies.  I like your song much; but I will say no more, for fear you should think I wanted to scratch you into approbation of my past, present, or future acrostics.  I shall not be at Cambridge before the middle of October; but, when I go, I should certes like to see you there before you are dubbed a deacon.  Write to me, and I will rejoin.

Yours ever, BYRON.

[Footnote 1:  The lines in which Hodgson answered Byron’s letter on his religious opinions are quoted in the ‘Memoir of the Rev. F. Hodgson’, vol. i. pp. 199, 200.]

[Footnote 2:  Moore’s ‘M.P., or The Bluestocking’, was played at the Lyceum, September 9, 1811, but was soon withdrawn.]

[Footnote 3:  Richard Brothers (1757-1824) believed that, in 1795, he was to be revealed as Prince of the Hebrews and ruler of the world.  In that year he was arrested, and confined first as a criminal lunatic, afterwards in a private asylum, where he remained till 1806.  A portrait of “Richard Brothers, Prince of the Hebrews,” was engraved, April, 1795, by William Sharp, with the following inscription: 

  “Fully believing this to be the Man whom God has appointed, I engrave
  this likeness.  William Sharp.”]

[Footnote 4:  See ‘Breslaw’s Last Legacy; or, the Magical Companion’.  Including the various exhibitions of those wonderful Artists, Breslaw, Sieur Comus, Jonas, etc. (1784).]

[Footnote 5:  ‘Candide, ou l’Optimisms’ (chapitre xxx.): 

  “et Pangloss disait quelquefois à Candide; Tous les événements sont
  enchainés dans le meilleur des mondes possibles,” etc.

Hodgson replies (September 18, 1811): 

“Your last letter has unfeignedly grieved me.  Believing, as I do from my heart, that you would be better and happier by thoroughly examining the evidences for Christianity, how can I hear you say you will not read any book on the subject, without being pained?  But God bless you under all circumstances.  I will say no more.  Only do not talk of ‘shocking my prejudices,’ or of ’rushing to see me ‘before’ I am a Deacon.’  I wish to see you at all times; and as to our different opinions, we can easily keep them to ourselves.”

The next day he writes again: 

“Let me make one other effort.  You mentioned an opinion of Hume’s about miracles.  For God’s sake,—­hear me, Byron, for God’s sake—­examine Paley’s answer to that opinion; examine the whole of Paley’s ‘Evidences’.  The two volumes may be read carefully in less than a week.  Let me for the last time by our friendship, implore you to read them.”]

185.—­To John Murray. [1]

Newstead Abbey, Notts., Sept. 14, 1811.

Sir,—­Since your former letter, Mr. Dallas informs me that the MS. has been submitted to the perusal of Mr. Gifford, most contrary to my wishes, as Mr. D. could have explained, and as my own letter to you did, in fact, explain, with my motives for objecting to such a proceeding.  Some late domestic events, of which you are probably aware, prevented my letter from being sent before; indeed, I hardly conceived you would have so hastily thrust my productions into the hands of a Stranger, who could be as little pleased by receiving them, as their author is at their being offered, in such a manner, and to such a Man.

My address, when I leave Newstead, will be to “Rochdale, Lancashire;” but I have not yet fixed the day of departure, and I will apprise you when ready to set off.

You have placed me in a very ridiculous situation, but it is past, and nothing more is to be said on the subject.  You hinted to me that you wished some alterations to be made; if they have nothing to do with politics or religion, I will make them with great readiness.

I am, Sir, etc., etc., BYRON.

[Footnote 1:  As soon as Byron came to town, he was a frequent visitor at 32, Fleet Street, while the sheets of ‘Childe Harold’ were passing through the press.

“Fresh from the fencing rooms of Angelo and Jackson, he used to amuse himself by renewing his practice of ‘Carte et Tierce’, with his walking-cane directed against the bookshelves, while Murray was reading passages from the poem with occasional ejaculations of admiration, on which Byron would say, ’You think that a good idea, do you, Murray?’ Then he would fence and lunge with his walking-stick at some special book which he had picked out on the shelves before him.  As Murray afterwards said, ‘I was often very glad to get rid of him!’”

(Smiles’s ‘Memoir of John Murray’, vol. i. p. 207).]

186.—­To R. C. Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 15, 1811.

My dear Sir,—­My agent will not he here for at least a week, and even afterwards my letters will be forwarded to Rochdale.  I am sorry that Murray should groan on my account, tho’ that is better than the anticipation of applause, of which men and books are generally disappointed.

The notes I sent are merely matter to be divided, arranged, and published for notes hereafter, in proper places; at present I am too much occupied with earthly cares to waste time or trouble upon rhyme, or its modern indispensables, annotations.

Pray let me hear from you, when at leisure.  I have written to abuse Murray for showing the MS. to Mr. G., who must certainly think it was done by my wish, though you know the contrary.—­Believe me, Yours ever, B—­

187.—­To John Murray.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 16, 1811.

DEAR SIR,—­I return the proof, which I should wish to be shown to Mr. Dallas, who understands typographical arrangements much better than I can pretend to do.  The printer may place the notes in his own way, or any way, so that they are out of my way; I care nothing about types or margins.

If you have any communication to make, I shall be here at least a week or ten days longer.  I am, Sir, etc., etc.,

BYRON.

188—­To R. C. Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 16, 1811.

DEAR SIR,—­I send you a ‘motto’: 

“L’univers est une espèce de livre, dont on n’a lu que la première page quand on n’a vu que son pays.  J’en ai feuilleté un assez grand nombre, que j’ai trouvé également mauvaises.  Cet examen ne m’a point été infructueux.  Je haïssais ma patrie.  Toutes les impertinences des peuples divers, parmi lesquels j’ai vécu, m’ont réconcilié avec elle.  Quand je n’aurais tiré d’autre bénéfice de mes voyages que celui-là, je n’en regretterais ni les frais, ni les fatigues.”

“Le Cosmopolite.” [1]

If not too long, I think it will suit the book.  The passage is from a little French volume, a great favourite with me, which I picked up in the Archipelago.  I don’t think it is well known in England; Monbron is the author; but it is a work sixty years old.

Good morning!  I won’t take up your time.

Yours ever,
BYRON.

[Footnote 1:  Fougeret de Monbron, born at Péronne, served in the ’Gardes du Corps’, but abandoned the sword for the pen, and published ’Henriade Travestie’ (1745); ‘Préservatif Centre l’Anglomanie’ (1787); and ’Le Cosmopolite’ (1750).  His novels, ’Margot la Ravaudeuse, Thérlsé Philosophe’, and others, appeared under the name of Fougeret.  He died in 1761.  In that year was published in London an edition of ’Le Cosmopolite, ou le Citoyen du Monde’, par Mr. de Monbron, with the motto, “Patria est ubicunque est bene” (Cic. 5, Tusc. 37).

Byron’s quotation is the opening paragraph of the book.  The author, who had travelled in England, returns to France a complete “Jacques Rôt-de-Bif.”  He then visits Holland, the Low Countries, Constantinople, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and England a second time.  He finds that the charm has vanished, and that the English are no better than their neighbours.  It is a cynical little book, abounding in such sayings as.  “Make acquaintances, not friends; intimacy breeds disgust;” “The best fruit of travelling is the justification of instinctive dislikes.”  Monbron, like Byron, ridicules the traveller’s passion for collecting broken statues and antiques.]

189.—­To R. C. Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 17, 1811.

I can easily excuse your not writing, as you have, I hope, something better to do, and you must pardon my frequent invasions on your attention, because I have at this moment nothing to interpose between you and my epistles.

I cannot settle to any thing, and my days pass, with the exception of bodily exercise to some extent, with uniform indolence, and idle insipidity.  I have been expecting, and still expect, my agent, when I shall have enough to occupy my reflections in business of no very pleasant aspect.  Before my journey to Rochdale, you shall have due notice where to address me—­I believe at the post-office of that township.  From Murray I received a second proof of the same pages, which I requested him to show you, that any thing which may have escaped my observation may be detected before the printer lays the corner-stone of an errata column.

I am now not quite alone, having an old acquaintance and school-fellow [1] with me, so old, indeed, that we have nothing new to say on any subject, and yawn at each other in a sort of quiet inquietude.  I hear nothing from Cawthorn, or Captain Hobhouse; and their quarto—­Lord have mercy on mankind!  We come on like Cerberus with our triple publications. [2] As for myself, by myself, I must be satisfied with a comparison to Janus.

I am not at all pleased with Murray for showing the MS.; and I am certain Gifford must see it in the same light that I do.  His praise is nothing to the purpose:  what could he say?  He could not spit in the face of one who had praised him in every possible way.  I must own that I wish to have the impression removed from his mind, that I had any concern in such a paltry transaction.  The more I think, the more it disquiets me; so I will say no more about it.  It is bad enough to be a scribbler, without having recourse to such shifts to extort praise, or deprecate censure.  It is anticipating, it is begging, kneeling, adulating,—­the devil! the devil! the devil! and all without my wish, and contrary to my express desire.  I wish Murray had been tied to Payne’s neck when he jumped into the Paddington Canal, [3] and so tell him,—­that is the proper receptacle for publishers.  You have thought of settling in the country, why not try Notts.?  I think there are places which would suit you in all points, and then you are nearer the metropolis.  But of this anon.

I am, yours, etc.,
BYRON.

[Footnote 1:  John Claridge. (See ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 267, ‘note’ 2.) [Footnote 4 of Letter 136]]

[Footnote 2:  i. e.  ‘Childe Harold’, ‘Hints from Horace’, and ’Travels in Albania.’]

[Footnote 3:  Mr. Payne, of the firm of Payne and Mackinlay, the publishers of Hodgson’s ‘Juvenal’, committed suicide by drowning himself in the Paddington Canal.  Byron, in a note to ‘Hints from Horace’, line 657, thus applies the incident: 

“A literary friend of mine, walking out one lovely evening last summer, on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington canal, was alarmed by the cry of ‘one in jeopardy:’  he rushed along, collected a body of Irish haymakers (supping on buttermilk in an adjacent paddock), procured three rakes, one eel spear and a landing-net, and at last (’horresco referens’) pulled out—­his own publisher.  The unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which proved, on inquiry, to have been Mr. Southey’s last work.  Its ‘alacrity of sinking’ was so great, that it has never since been heard of; though some maintain that it is at this moment concealed at Alderman Birch’s pastry-premises, Cornhill.  Be this as it may, the coroner’s inquest brought in a verdict of ’’Felo de Bibliopolâ’’ against a quarto unknown,’ and circumstantial evidence being since strong against the ‘Curse of Kehama’ (of which the above words are an exact description), it will be tried by its peers next session, in Grub Street—­Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Coeur de Lion, Exodus, Exodiad, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, Siege of Acre, Don Roderick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of the twelve jurors.  The judges are Pye, Bowles, and the bell-man of St. Sepulchre’s.”

190.—­To R.C.  Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 17, 1811.

Dear Sir,—­I have just discovered some pages of observations on the modern Greeks, written at Athens by me, under the title of ’Noctes Atticæ’.  They will do to cut up into notes, and to be cut up afterwards, which is all that notes are generally good for.  They were written at Athens, as you will see by the date.

Yours ever,
B.

191.—­To R. C. Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Sept, 21, 1811.

I have shown my respect for your suggestions by adopting them; but I have made many alterations in the first proof, over and above; as, for example: 

  Oh Thou, in Hellas deem’d of heavenly birth,
  etc., etc.

  Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth,
  Mine, etc.

  Yet there I’ve wandered by the vaunted rill;

and so on.  So I have got rid of Dr. Lowth and “drunk” to boot, and very glad I am to say so.  I have also sullenised the line as heretofore, and in short have been quite conformable.

Pray write; you shall hear when I remove to Lancashire.  I have brought you and my friend Juvenal Hodgson upon my back, on the score of revelation.  You are fervent, but he is quite glowing; and if he take half the pains to save his own soul, which he volunteers to redeem mine, great will be his reward hereafter.  I honour and thank you both, but am convinced by neither.  Now for notes.  Besides those I have sent, I shall send the observations on the Edinburgh Reviewer’s remarks on the modern Greek, an Albanian song in the Albanian (not Greek) language, specimens of modern Greek from their New Testament, a comedy of Goldoni’s translated, one scene, a prospectus of a friend’s book, and perhaps a song or two, all in Romaic, besides their Pater Noster; so there will be enough, if not too much, with what I have already sent.  Have you received the “Noctes Atticæ”?

I sent also an annotation on Portugal.  Hobhouse is also forthcoming. [1]

[Footnote 1:  That is, with his ‘Travels in Albania’, in part of which Byron and his Greek servant, Demetrius, were assisting him with notes and other material.]

192.—­TO R. C. Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 23, 1811.

Lisboa [1] is the Portuguese word, consequently the very best.  Ulissipont is pedantic; and as I have Hellas and Eros not long before, there would be something like an affectation of Greek terms, which I wish to avoid, since I shall have a perilous quantity of modern Greek in my notes, as specimens of the tongue; therefore Lisboa may keep its place.  You are right about the Hints; they must not precede the Romaunt; but Cawthorn will be savage if they don’t; however, keep them back, and him in good humour, if we can, but do not let him publish.

I have adopted, I believe, most of your suggestions, but “Lisboa” will be an exception to prove the rule.  I have sent a quantity of notes, and shall continue; but pray let them be copied; no devil can read my hand.  By the by, I do not mean to exchange the ninth verse of the “Good Night.” [2] I have no reason to suppose my dog better than his brother brutes, mankind; and Argus we know to be a fable.  The Cosmopolite was an acquisition abroad.  I do not believe it is to be found in England.  It is an amusing little volume, and full of French flippancy.  I read, though I do not speak the language.

I will be angry with Murray.  It was a bookselling, back-shop, Paternoster-row, paltry proceeding; and if the experiment had turned out as it deserved, I would have raised all Fleet Street, and borrowed the giant’s staff from St. Dunstan’s church, [3] to immolate the betrayer of trust.  I have written to him as he never was written to before by an author, I’ll be sworn, and I hope you will amplify my wrath, till it has an effect upon him.  You tell me always you have much to write about.  Write it, but let us drop metaphysics;—­on that point we shall never agree.  I am dull and drowsy, as usual.  I do nothing, and even that nothing fatigues me.

Adieu.

[Footnote 1:  See ‘Childe Harold’, Canto I. stanza xvi., and Byron’s ’note’.]

[Footnote 2:  See ‘Childe Harold’, Canto I. The “Good Night” is placed between stanzas xiii. and xiv.

  “And now I’m in the world alone,
    Upon the wide, wide sea;
  But why should I for others groan,
    When none will sigh for me? 
  Perchance my dog will whine in vain,
    Till fed by stranger hands;
  But long ere I come back again
    He’d tear me where he stands.”]

[Footnote 3:  St. Dunstan’s in the West, before its rebuilding by Shaw (1831-33), was one of the oldest churches in London.  The clock, which projected over the street, and had two wooden figures of wild men who struck the hours with their clubs, was set up in 1671.  Unless there was a similar clock before this date, as is not improbable, Scott is wrong in ‘The Fortunes of Nigel’, where he makes Moniplies stand “astonished as old Adam and Eve ply their ding-dong.”  The figures, the removal of which, it is said, brought tears to the eyes of Charles Lamb, were bought by the Marquis of Hertford to adorn his villa in Regent’s Park, still called St. Dunstan’s.  Murray’s shop at 32, Fleet Street, stood opposite the church, the yard of which was surrounded with stationers’ shops, where many famous books of the seventeenth century were published.]

193.—­To Francis Hodgson.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 25, 1811.

MY DEAR HODGSON,—­I fear that before the latest of October or the first of November, I shall hardly be able to make Cambridge.  My everlasting agent puts off his coming like the accomplishment of a prophecy.  However, finding me growing serious he hath promised to be here on Thursday, and about Monday we shall remove to Rochdale.  I have only to give discharges to the tenantry here (it seems the poor creatures must be raised, though I wish it was not necessary), and arrange the receipt of sums, and the liquidation of some debts, and I shall be ready to enter upon new subjects of vexation.  I intend to visit you in Granta, and hope to prevail on you to accompany me here or there or anywhere.

I am plucking up my spirits, and have begun to gather my little sensual comforts together.  Lucy is extracted from Warwickshire; some very bad faces have been warned off the premises, and more promising substituted in their stead; the partridges are plentiful, hares fairish, pheasants not quite so good, and the Girls on the Manor * * * * Just as I had formed a tolerable establishment my travels commenced, and on my return I find all to do over again; my former flock were all scattered; some married, not before it was needful.  As I am a great disciplinarian, I have just issued an edict for the abolition of caps; no hair to be cut on any pretext; stays permitted, but not too low before; full uniform always in the evening; Lucinda to be commander—­’vice’ the present, about to be wedded (’mem’. she is 35 with a flat face and a squeaking voice), of all the makers and unmakers of beds in the household.

My tortoises (all Athenians), my hedgehog, my mastiff and the other live Greek, are all purely.  The tortoises lay eggs, and I have hired a hen to hatch them.  I am writing notes for ‘my’ quarto (Murray would have it a ’quarto’), and Hobhouse is writing text for ‘his’ quarto; if you call on Murray or Cawthorn you will hear news of either.  I have attacked De Pauw, [1] Thornton, [1] Lord Elgin, [2] Spain, Portugal, the ’Edinburgh Review’, [3] travellers, Painters, Antiquarians, and others, so you see what a dish of Sour Crout Controversy I shall prepare for myself.  It would not answer for me to give way, now; as I was forced into bitterness at the beginning, I will go through to the last.  ‘Væ Victis’!  If I fall, I shall fall gloriously, fighting against a host.

‘Felicissima Notte a Voss.  Signoria,’

B.

[Footnote 1:  ‘Childe Harold’, Canto II. note D, part ii.]

[Footnote 2:  ’Ibid’., note A.]

[Footnote 3:  ’Ibid’., note D, part iii.]

194.—­To R. C. Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 26, 1811.

MY DEAR SIR,-In a stanza towards the end of canto 1st, there is in the concluding line,

  Some bitter bubbles up, and e’en on roses stings.

I have altered it as follows: 

  Full from the heart of joy’s delicious springs
  Some bitter o’er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.

If you will point out the stanzas on Cintra [1] which you wish recast, I will send you mine answer.  Be good enough to address your letters here, and they will either be forwarded or saved till my return.  My agent comes tomorrow, and we shall set out immediately.

The press must not proceed of course without my seeing the proofs, as I have much to do.  Pray, do you think any alterations should be made in the stanzas on Vathek? [2]

I should be sorry to make any improper allusion, as I merely wish to adduce an example of wasted wealth, and the reflection which arose in surveying the most desolate mansion in the most beautiful spot I ever beheld.

Pray keep Cawthorn back; he was not to begin till November, and even that will be two months too soon.  I am so sorry my hand is unintelligible; but I can neither deny your accusation, nor remove the cause of it.—­It is a sad scrawl, certes.—­A perilous quantity of annotation hath been sent; I think almost enough, with the specimens of Romaic I mean to annex.

I will have nothing to say to your metaphysics, and allegories of rocks and beaches; we shall all go to the bottom together, so “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow, etc.”  I am as comfortable in my creed as others, inasmuch as it is better to sleep than to be awake.

I have heard nothing of Murray; I hope he is ashamed of himself.  He sent me a vastly complimentary epistle, with a request to alter the two, and finish another canto.  I sent him as civil an answer as if I had been engaged to translate by the sheet, declining altering anything in sentiment, but offered to tag rhymes, and mend them as long as he liked.

I will write from Rochdale when I arrive, if my affairs allow me; but I shall be so busy and savage all the time with the whole set, that my letters will, perhaps, be as pettish as myself.  If so, lay the blame on coal and coal-heavers.  Very probably I may proceed to town by way of Newstead on my return from Lancs.  I mean to be at Cambridge in November, so that, at all events, we shall be nearer.  I will not apologise for the trouble I have given and do give you, though I ought to do so; but I have worn out my politest periods, and can only say that I am much obliged to you.

Believe me, yours always,

BYRON.

[Footnote 1:  ‘Childe Harold’, Canto I. stanza xviii.]

[Footnote 2:  ‘i.e.’ on Bedford (see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 228, ‘note’ 1 [Footnote 2 of Letter 125]; and ‘Childe Harold’, Canto I, stanza xxii.).]

195.-To James Wedderburn Webster.

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 10th, 1811.

DEAR WEBSTER,—­I can hardly invite a gentleman to my house a second time who walked out of it the first in so singular a mood, but if you had thought proper to pay me a visit, you would have had a “Highland Welcome.”

I am only just returned to it out of Lancashire, where I have been on business to a Coal manor of mine near Rochdale, and shall leave it very shortly for Cambridge and London.  My companions, or rather companion, (for Claridge alone has been with me) have not been very amusing, and, as to their “Sincerity,” they are doubtless sincere enough for a man who will never put them to the trial.  Besides you talked so much of your conjugal happiness, that an invitation from home would have seemed like Sacrilege, and my rough Bachelor’s Hall would have appeared to little advantage after the “Bower of Armida” [1] where you have been reposing.

I cannot boast of my social powers at any time, and just at present they are more stagnant than ever.  Your Brother-in-law [2] means to stand for Wexford, but I have reasons for thinking the Portsmouth interest will be against him; however I wish him success.  Do you mean to stand for any place next election?  What are your politics?  I hope Valentia’s Lord is for the Catholics.  You will find Hobhouse at Enniscorthy in the contested County.

Pray what has seized you? your last letter is the only one in which you do not rave upon matrimony.  Are there no symptoms of a young W.W.? and shall I never be a Godfather?  I believe I must be married myself soon, but it shall be a secret and a Surprise.  However, knowing your exceeding discretion I shall probably entrust the secret to your silence at a proper period.  You have, it is true, invited me repeatedly to Dean’s Court [3] and now, when it is probable I might adventure there, you wish to be off.  Be it so.

If you address your letters to this place they will be forwarded wherever I sojourn.  I am about to meet some friends at Cambridge and on to town in November.

The papers are full of Dalrymple’s Bigamy [4] (I know the man).  What the Devil will he do with his Spare-rib?  He is no beauty, but as lame as myself.  He has more ladies than legs, what comfort to a cripple! Sto sempre umilissimo servitore.

BYRON.

[Footnote 1:  Armida is the Sorceress, the niece of Prince Idreotes, in Tasso’s ‘Jerusalem Delivered’, in whose palace Rinaldo forgets his vow as a crusader.  Byron, in ‘Don Juan’ (Canto I. stanza lxxi.), says: 

  “But ne’er magician’s wand
  Wrought change, with all Armida’s fairy art,
  Like what this light touch left on Juan’s heart.”

In the Catalogue of Byron’s books, sold April 5, 1816, appear four editions of Tasso’s ‘Gerusalemme Liberata’, being those of 1776, 1785, 1813, and one undated.]

[Footnote 2:  For George Annesley, Lord Valentia, afterwards Earl of Mountnorris (1769-1844), see ‘Poems’, ed. 1898, vol. i. p. 378, and ’note 5’.]

[Footnote 3:  Near Wimborne, Dorset.]

[Footnote 4:  The suit of ‘Dalrymple’ v.  ‘Dalrymple’ was tried before Sir William Scott, in the Consistory Court, Doctors’ Commons, July 16, 1811.  The suit was brought by Mrs. Dalrymple (’née’ Joanna Gordon) against Captain John William Henry Dalrymple.  By Scottish law he was held to have been married to Miss Gordon, and his subsequent marriage with Miss Manners, sister of the Duchess of St. Albans, was held to be illegal.]