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

197.—­To R.C.  Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811.

I have returned from Lancashire, and ascertained that my property there may be made very valuable, but various circumstances very much circumscribe my exertions at present.  I shall be in town on business in the beginning of November, and perhaps at Cambridge before the end of this month; but of my movements you shall be regularly apprised.  Your objections I have in part done away by alterations, which I hope will suffice; and I have sent two or three additional stanzas for both “Fyttes.” I have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times [1]; but “I have almost forgot the taste of grief,” and “supped full of horrors” [2] till I have become callous, nor have I a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed down my head to the earth.  It seems as though I were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age.  My friends fall around me, and I shall be left a lonely tree before I am withered.  Other men can always take refuge in their families; I have no resource but my own reflections, and they present no prospect here or hereafter, except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my betters.  I am indeed very wretched, and you will excuse my saying so, as you know I am not apt to cant of sensibility.

Instead of tiring yourself with my concerns, I should be glad to hear your plans of retirement.  I suppose you would not like to be wholly shut out of society?  Now I know a large village, or small town, about twelve miles off, where your family would have the advantage of very genteel society, without the hazard of being annoyed by mercantile affluence; where you would meet with men of information and independence; and where I have friends to whom I should be proud to introduce you.  There are, besides, a coffee-room, assemblies, etc., etc., which bring people together.  My mother had a house there some years, and I am well acquainted with the economy of Southwell, the name of this little commonwealth.  Lastly, you will not be very remote from me; and though I am the very worst companion for young people in the world, this objection would not apply to you, whom I could see frequently.  Your expenses, too, would be such as best suit your inclinations, more or less, as you thought proper; but very little would be requisite to enable you to enter into all the gaieties of a country life.  You could be as quiet or bustling as you liked, and certainly as well situated as on the lakes of Cumberland, unless you have a particular wish to be picturesque.

Pray, is your Ionian friend in town?  You have promised me an introduction.  You mention having consulted some friend on the MSS.  Is not this contrary to our usual way?  Instruct Mr. Murray not to allow his shopman to call the work Child of Harrow’s Pilgrimage!!!!! [3] as he has done to some of my astonished friends, who wrote to inquire after my sanity on the occasion, as well they might.  I have heard nothing of Murray, whom I scolded heartily.  Must I write more notes?  Are there not enough?  Cawthorn must be kept back with the Hints.  I hope he is getting on with Hobhouse’s quarto.  Good evening.

Yours ever, etc.

[Footnote 1:  The reference is to Edleston (see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 130, note 3 [Footnote 2 of Letter 74]), of whose death Miss Edleston had recently sent Byron an account.]

[Footnote 2: 

  “I have almost forgot the taste of fears: 
  ... 
  I have supp’d full with horrors.”

‘Macbeth’, act v. sc. 5.]

[Footnote 3:  Francis Hodgson, writing to Byron, October 8, 1811, says,

“Murray’s shopman, taught, I presume, by himself, calls ‘Psyche’ ‘Pishy,’ ‘The Four Slaves of Cythera’ ‘The Four do. of Cythera,’ and ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ ‘Child of Harrow’s Pilgrimage.’  This misnomering Vendor of Books must have been misbegotten in some portentous union of the Malaprops and the Slipslops.”]

198.—­To Francis Hodgson.

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 13, 1811.

You will begin to deem me a most liberal correspondent; but as my letters are free, you will overlook their frequency.  I have sent you answers in prose and verse to all your late communications; and though I am invading your ease again, I don’t know why, or what to put down that you are not acquainted with already.  I am growing nervous (how you will laugh!)—­but it is true,—­really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically nervous.  Your climate kills me; I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else.  My days are listless, and my nights restless; I have very seldom any society, and when I have, I run out of it.  At “this present writing,” there are in the next room three ladies, and I have stolen away to write this grumbling letter.—­I don’t know that I sha’n’t end with insanity, for I find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely; but this looks more like silliness than madness, as Scrope Davies would facetiously remark in his consoling manner.  I must try the hartshorn of your company; and a session of Parliament would suit me well,—­any thing to cure me of conjugating the accursed verb “ennuyer.”

When shall you be at Cambridge?  You have hinted, I think, that your friend Bland [1] is returned from Holland.  I have always had a great respect for his talents, and for all that I have heard of his character; but of me, I believe he knows nothing, except that he heard my sixth form repetitions ten months together at the average of two lines a morning, and those never perfect.  I remembered him and his Slaves as I passed between Capes Matapan, St. Angelo, and his Isle of Ceriga, and I always bewailed the absence of the Anthology.  I suppose he will now translate Vondel, the Dutch Shakspeare, and Gysbert van Amsteli [2]

will easily be accommodated to our stage in its present state; and I presume he saw the Dutch poem, where the love of Pyramus and Thisbe is compared to the passion of Christ; also the love of Lucifer for Eve, and other varieties of Low Country literature.

No doubt you will think me crazed to talk of such things, but they are all in black and white and good repute on the banks of every canal from Amsterdam to Alkmaar.

Yours ever,

B.

My poesy is in the hands of its various publishers; but the Hints from Horace (to which I have subjoined some savage lines on Methodism, [3] and ferocious notes on the vanity of the triple Editory of the Edin.  Annual Register [4]), my Hints, I say, stand still, and why?—­I have not a friend in the world (but you and Drury) who can construe Horace’s Latin or my English well enough to adjust them for the press, or to correct the proofs in a grammatical way.  So that, unless you have bowels when you return to town (I am too far off to do it for myself), this ineffable work will be lost to the world for—­I don’t know how many weeks.

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage must wait till Murray’s is finished.  He is making a tour in Middlesex, and is to return soon, when high matter may be expected.  He wants to have it in quarto, which is a cursed unsaleable size; but it is pestilent long, and one must obey one’s bookseller.  I trust Murray will pass the Paddington Canal without being seduced by Payne and Mackinlay’s example,—­I say Payne and Mackinlay, supposing that the partnership held good.  Drury, the villain, has not written to me; “I am never (as Mrs. Lumpkin [5] says to Tony) to be gratified with the monster’s dear wild notes.”

So you are going (going indeed!) into orders.  You must make your peace with the Eclectic Reviewers—­they accuse you of impiety, I fear, with injustice.  Demetrius, the “Sieger of Cities,” is here, with “Gilpin Horner.”

The painter [7] is not necessary, as the portraits he already painted are (by anticipation) very like the new animals.—­Write, and send me your “Love Song”—­but I want paulo majora from you.  Make a dash before you are a deacon, and try a dry publisher.

Yours always,

B.

[Footnote 1:  For Robert Bland, see ‘Letters’, vol. i. p. 271, ‘note’ 1 [Footnote 2 of Letter 137].  In his ‘Four Slaves of Cythera’ (1809), Canto I., occur the following lines: 

  “Now full in sight the Paphian gardens smile,
  And thence by many a green and summer isle,
  Whose ancient walls and temples seem to sleep,
  Enshadowed on the mirror of the deep,
  They coast along Cythera’s happy ground,
  Gem of the sea, for love’s delight renown’d.”]

[Footnote 2:  Bland had been acting as English Chaplain in Holland.  Joost Van Vondel (1587-1679), born at Cologne of Anabaptist parents, became a Roman Catholic in 1641.  Most of his thirty-two tragedies are on classical or religious subjects, and in the latter may be traced his gradual change of faith.  ’Gysbrecht van Amstel’(1637) is a play, the action of which takes place on Christmas Day in the thirteenth century.  The scene is laid at Amsterdam, which is captured by a ruse like that of the Greeks at Troy.  The play appealed strongly to the patriotic instincts of the Dutch by its prophecy of the future greatness of Amsterdam.  Vondel’s ‘Lucifer’ (1654) has been often compared to ‘Paradise Lost’.  It also bears some affinities to ‘Cain’.  In it the Archangel Lucifer rebels against God on learning the Divine intention to take on Himself the nature, not of Angels, but of Man.]

[Footnote 3:  ‘Hints from Horace’, lines 371-382.]

[Footnote 4:  ‘The Edinburgh Annual Register’ (1808-26) was published by John Ballantyne and Co.  The prospectus promised a general history of Europe; a collection of State papers; a chronicle of events; original essays on morality, literature, and science; and articles on biography, the useful arts, and meteorology.  The Editor was Scott, and Southey was responsible for the historical department.  The first two parts, giving the history of 1808, did not appear till July, 1810, and then with an editorial apology for the omission of the articles on biography, the useful arts, and meteorology; also with an explanation that the idea of original essays on morality, literature, and science had been abandoned.  The venture, thus unfortunately launched, never succeeded.  For Byron’s attack, see ‘Hints from Horace’, line 657, and his ’note’.]

[Footnote 5:  This is an obvious slip for “Mrs. Hardcastle,” who, in ’She Stoops to Conquer’ (act ii.), says,

  “I’m never to be delighted with your agreeable wild notes, unfeeling
  monster!”]

[Footnote 6:  Probably Demetrius, his Greek servant, whom he nicknames after Demetrius Poliorcetes, and Claridge, who had bored Byron during a long stay of three weeks.]

[Footnote 7:  Barber, whom he had brought down to Newstead to paint his wolf and his bear.]