(Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron - Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6)

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"To keep up the farce, within the last month of this present writing
(1821), I have had my life threatened in the same way which menaced Mr.
B.'s fame, excepting that the anonymous denunciation was addressed to
the Cardinal Legate of Romagna, instead of to * * * *. I append the
menace in all its barbaric but literal Italian, that Mr. B. may be
convinced; and as this is the only 'promise to pay' which the Italians
ever keep, so my person has been at least as much exposed to 'a shot in
the gloaming' from 'John Heatherblutter' (see Waverley), as ever Mr.
B.'s glory was from an editor. I am, nevertheless, on horseback and
lonely for some hours (_one_ of them twilight) in the forest daily; and
this, because it was my 'custom in the afternoon,' and that I believe if
the tyrant cannot escape amidst his guards (should it be so written), so
the humbler individual would find precautions useless."

The following just tribute to my Reverend Friend's merits as a poet I
have peculiar pleasure in extracting:--

"Mr. Bowles has no reason to 'succumb' but to Mr. Bowles. As a poet, the
author of 'The Missionary' may compete with the foremost of his
contemporaries. Let it be recollected, that all my previous opinions of
Mr. Bowles s poetry were _written_ long before the publication of his
_last_ and best poem; and that a poet's last poem should be his best, is
his highest praise. But, however, he may duly and honorably rank with
his living rivals," &c. &c. &c.

Among various Addenda for this pamphlet, sent at different times to Mr.
Murray, I find the following curious passages:--

"It is worthy of remark that, after all this outcry about '_in-door_
nature' and 'artificial images,' Pope was the principal inventor of that
boast of the English, _Modern Gardening_. He divides this honour with
Milton. Hear Warton:--'It hence appears that this _enchanting_ art of
modern gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every
nation in Europe, chiefly owes _its origin_ and its improvements to two
great poets, Milton and _Pope_.'

"Walpole (no friend to Pope) asserts that Pope formed _Kent's_ taste,
and that Kent was the artist to whom the English are chiefly indebted
for diffusing 'a taste in laying out grounds.' The design of the Prince
of Wales's garden was copied from _Pope's_ at Twickenham. Warton
applauds 'his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing so much
variety and scenery on a spot of five acres.' Pope was the _first_ who
ridiculed the 'formal, French, Dutch, false and unnatural taste in
gardening,' both in _prose_ and verse. (See, for the former, 'The
Guardian.')

"'Pope has given not only some of our _first_ but _best_ rules and
observations on _Architecture_ and _Gardening_.' (See Warton's Essay,
vol. ii. p. 237, &c.&c.)

"Now, is it not a shame, after this, to hear our Lakers in 'Kendal
green,' and our Bucolical Cockneys, crying out (the latter in a
wilderness of bricks and mortar) about 'Nature,' and Pope's 'artificial
in-door habits?' Pope had seen all of nature that _England_ alone can
supply. He was bred in Windsor Forest, and amidst the beautiful scenery
of Eton; he lived familiarly and frequently at the country seats of
Bathurst, Cobham, Burlington, Peterborough, Digby, and Bolingbroke;
amongst whose seats was to be numbered _Stowe_. He made his own little
five acres' a model to Princes, and to the first of our artists who
imitated nature. Warton thinks 'that the most engaging of _Kent's_ works
was also planned on the model of Pope's,--at least in the opening and
retiring shades of Venus's Vale.'

"It is true that Pope was infirm and deformed; but he could walk, and he
could ride (he rode to Oxford from London at a stretch), and he was
famous for an exquisite eye. On a tree at Lord Bathurst's is carved,
'Here Pope sang,'--he composed beneath it. Bolingbroke, in one of his
letters, represents them both writing in a hayfield. No poet ever
admired Nature more, or used her better, than Pope has done, as I will
undertake to prove from his works, prose and verse, if not anticipated
in so easy and agreeable a labour. I remember a passage in Walpole,
somewhere, of a gentleman who wished to give directions about some
willows to a man who had long served Pope in his grounds: 'I understand,
sir,' he replied: 'you would have them hang down, sir, _somewhat
poetical_.' Now if nothing existed but this little anecdote, it would
suffice to prove Pope's taste for _Nature_, and the impression which he
had made on a common-minded man. But I have already quoted Warton and
Walpole (_both_ his enemies), and, were it necessary, I could amply
quote Pope himself for such tributes to _Nature_ as no poet of the
present day has even approached.

"His various excellence is really wonderful: architecture, painting,
_gardening_, all are alike subject to his genius. Be it remembered, that
English _gardening_ is the purposed perfectioning of niggard _Nature_,
and that without it England is but a hedge-and-ditch,
double-post-and-rail, Hounslow-heath and Clapham-common sort of a
country, since the principal forests have been felled. It is, in
general, far from a picturesque country. The case is different with
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and I except also the lake counties and
Derbyshire, together with Eton, Windsor, and my own dear Harrow on the
Hill, and some spots near the coast. In the present rank fertility of
'great poets of the age,' and 'schools of poetry'--a word which, like
'schools of eloquence' and of 'philosophy,' is never introduced till the
decay of the art has increased with the number of its professors--in the
present day, then, there have sprung up two sorts of Naturals;--the
Lakers, who whine about Nature because they live in Cumberland; and
their _under-sect_ (which some one has maliciously called the 'Cockney
School'), who are enthusiastical for the country because they live in
London. It is to be observed, that the rustical founders are rather
anxious to disclaim any connection with their metropolitan followers,
whom they ungraciously review, and call cockneys, atheists, foolish
fellows, bad writers, and other hard names, not less ungrateful than
unjust. I can understand the pretensions of the aquatic gentlemen of
Windermere to what Mr. B * * terms '_entusumusy_' for lakes, and
mountains, and daffodils, and buttercups; but I should be glad to be
apprised of the foundation of the London propensities of their imitative
brethren to the same' high argument.' Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge
have rambled over half Europe, and seen Nature in most of her varieties
(although I think that they have occasionally not used her very well);
but what on earth--of earth, and sea, and Nature--have the others seen?
Not a half, nor a tenth part so much as Pope. While they sneer at his
Windsor Forest, have they ever seen any thing of Windsor except its
_brick_?

"When they have really seen life--when they have felt it--when they have
travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of
Middlesex--when they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, and traced to
its sources the Nile of the New River--then, and not till then, can it
properly be permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not _in
Wales_, been _near_ it, when he described so beautifully the
'_artificial_' works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the 'Man
of Ross,' whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the inn, I
have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and admiration
of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good works could
hardly have preserved his honest renown.

"If they had said nothing of _Pope_, they might have remained 'alone
with their glory' for aught I should have said or thought about them or
their nonsense. But if they interfere with the little 'Nightingale' of
Twickenham, they may find others who will bear it--_I_ won't. Neither
time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my veneration
for him, who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all
feelings, and of all stages of existence. The delight of my boyhood, the
study of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it) he may be
the consolation of my age. His poetry is the Book of Life. Without
canting, and yet without neglecting, religion, he has assembled all
that a good and great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in
consummate beauty. Sir William Temple observes, 'That of all the members
of mankind that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man
that is born capable of making a _great poet_ there may be a _thousand_
born capable of making as great generals and ministers of state as any
in story.' Here is a statesman's opinion of poetry: it is honourable to
him and to the art. Such a 'poet of a thousand years' was _Pope_. A
thousand years will roll away before such another can be hoped for in
our literature. But it can _want_ them--he himself is a literature.

"One word upon his so brutally abused translation of Homer. 'Dr. Clarke,
whose critical exactness is well known, has _not been_ able to point out
above three or four mistakes _in the sense_ through the whole Iliad. The
real faults of the translation are of a different kind.' So says Warton,
himself a scholar. It appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief
fault of a translator. As to its other faults, they consist in his
having made a beautiful English poem of a sublime Greek one. It will
always hold. Cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may do
their best and their worst; they will never wrench Pope from the hands
of a single reader of sense and feeling.

"The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets is
their _vulgarity_. By this I do not mean that they are coarse, but
'shabby-genteel,' as it is termed. A man may be _coarse_ and yet not
_vulgar_, and the reverse. Burns is often coarse, but never _vulgar_.
Chatterton is never vulgar, nor Wordsworth, nor the higher of the Lake
school, though they treat of low life in all its branches. It is in
their _finery_ that the new under school are _most_ vulgar, and they may
be known by this at once; as what we called at Harrow 'a Sunday blood'
might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, although his clothes
might be better cut, and his boots the best blackened, of the
two;--probably because he made the one or cleaned the other with his own
hands.

"In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons. Of the latter,
I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found. * * They may be
honourable and _gentlemanly_ men, for what I know, but the latter
quality is studiously excluded from their publications. They remind me
of Mr. Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead Assembly, in
'Evelina.' In these things (in private life, at least) I pretend to some
small experience: because, in the course of my youth, I have seen a
little of all sorts of society, from the Christian prince and the
Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ranks of their countries,
down to the London boxer, the '_flash and the swell_,' the Spanish
muleteer, the wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch Highlander, and the
Albanian robber;--to say nothing of the curious varieties of Italian
social life. Far be it from me to presume that there are now, or can be,
such a thing as an _aristocracy_ of _poets_; but there _is_ a nobility
of thought and of style, open to all stations, and derived partly from
talent, and partly from education,--which is to be found in Shakspeare,
and Pope, and Burns, no less than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is
nowhere to be perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt's little
chorus. If I were asked to define what this gentlemanliness is, I should
say that it is only to be defined by _examples_--of those who have it,
and those who have it not. In _life_, I should say that most _military_
men have it, and few _naval_; that several men of rank have it, and few
lawyers; that it is more frequent among authors than divines (when they
are not pedants); that _fencing_-masters have more of it than
dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that (if it be not _an
Irishism_ to say so) it is far more generally diffused among women than
among men. In poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never
_make_ entirely a poet or a poem; but neither poet nor poem will ever be
good for any thing without it. It is the _salt_ of society, and the
seasoning of composition. _Vulgarity_ is far worse than downright
_black-guardism_; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong
sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all
things, 'signifying nothing.' It does not depend upon low themes, or
even low-language, for Fielding revels in both;--but is he ever
_vulgar_? No. You see the man of education, the gentleman, and the
scholar, sporting with his subject,--its master, not its slave. Your
vulgar writer is always most vulgar the higher his subject; as the man
who showed the menagerie at Pidcock's was wont to say, 'This, gentlemen,
is the _Eagle_ of the _Sun_, from Archangel in Russia: the _otterer_ it
is, the _igherer_ he flies.'"

* * * * *

In a note on a passage relative to Pope's lines upon Lady Mary W.
Montague, he says--

"I think that I could show, if necessary, that Lady Mary W. Montague was
also greatly to blame in that quarrel, _not_ for having rejected, but
for having encouraged him; but I would rather decline the task--though
she should have remembered her own line, '_He comes too near, that comes
to be denied._' I admire her so much--her beauty, her talents--that I
should do this reluctantly. I, besides, am so attached to the very name
of _Mary_, that as Johnson once said, 'If you called a dog _Harvey_, I
should love him;' so, if you were to call a female of the same species
'Mary,' I should love it better than others (biped or quadruped) of the
same sex with a different appellation. She was an extraordinary woman:
she could translate _Epictetus_, and yet write a song worthy of
Aristippus. The lines,

"'And when the long hours of the public are past,
And we meet, with champaigne and a chicken, at last,
May every fond pleasure that moment endear.'
Be banish'd afar both discretion and fear!
Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd,
He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud,
Till,' &c. &c.

There, Mr. Bowles!--what say you to such a supper with such a woman? and
her own description too? Is not her '_champaigne and chicken_' worth a
forest or two? Is it not poetry? It appears to me that this stanza
contains the '_puree_' of the whole philosophy of Epicurus:--I mean the
_practical_ philosophy of his school, not the precepts of the master;
for I have been too long at the university not to know that the
philosopher was himself a moderate man. But after all, would not some of
us have been as great fools as Pope? For my part, I wonder that, with
his quick feelings, her coquetry, and his disappointment, he did no
more,--instead of writing some lines, which are to be condemned if
false, and regretted if true."

* * * * *

LETTER 424. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, May 11. 1821.

"If I had but known your notion about Switzerland before, I should
have adopted it at once. As it is, I shall let the child remain in
her convent, where she seems healthy and happy, for the present;
but I shall feel much obliged if you will _enquire_, when you are
in the cantons, about the usual and better modes of education there
for females, and let me know the result of your opinions. It is
some consolation that both Mr. and Mrs. Shelley have written to
approve entirely my placing the child with the nuns for the
present. I can refer to my whole conduct, as having neither spared
care, kindness, nor expense, since the child was sent to me. The
people may say what they please, I must content myself with not
deserving (in this instance) that they should speak ill.

"The place is a country town in a good air, where there is a large
establishment for education, and many children, some of
considerable rank, placed in it. As a _country_ town, it is less
liable to objections of every kind. It has always appeared to me,
that the moral defect in Italy does _not_ proceed from a
_conventual_ education,--because, to my certain knowledge, they
come out of their convents innocent even to _ignorance_ of moral
evil,--but to the state of society into which they are directly
plunged on coming out of it. It is like educating an infant on a
mountain-top, and then taking him to the sea and throwing him into
it and desiring him to swim. The evil, however, though still too
general, is partly wearing away, as the women are more permitted to
marry from attachment: this is, I believe, the case also in France.
And after all, what is the higher society of England? According to
my own experience, and to all that I have seen and heard (and I
have lived there in the very highest and what is called the
_best_), no way of life can be more corrupt. In Italy, however, it
is, or rather _was_, more _systematised_; but _now_, they
themselves are ashamed of _regular_ Serventism. In England, the
only homage which they pay to virtue is hypocrisy. I speak of
course of the _tone_ of high life,--the middle ranks may be very
virtuous.

"I have not got any copy (nor have yet had) of the letter on
Bowles; of course I should be delighted to send it to you. How is
Mrs. H.? well again, I hope. Let me know when you set out. I regret
that I cannot meet you in the Bernese Alps this summer, as I once
hoped and intended. With my best respects to madam, I am ever, &c.

"P.S. I gave to a musician_er_ a letter for you some time ago--has
he presented himself? Perhaps you could introduce him to the
Ingrains and other dilettanti. He is simple and unassuming--two
strange things in his profession--and he fiddles like Orpheus
himself or Amphion: 'tis a pity that he can't make Venice dance
away from the brutal tyrant who tramples upon it."

* * * * *

LETTER 425. TO MR. MURRAY.

"May 14. 1821.

"A Milan paper states that the play has been represented and
universally condemned. As remonstrance has been vain, complaint
would be useless. I presume, however, for your own sake (if not for
mine), that you and my other friends will have at least published
my different protests against its being brought upon the stage at
all; and have shown that Elliston (in spite of the writer) _forced_
it upon the theatre. It would be nonsense to say that this has not
vexed me a good deal, but I am not dejected, and I shall not take
the usual resource of blaming the public (which was in the right),
or my friends for not preventing--what they could not help, nor I
neither--a _forced_ representation by a speculating manager. It is
a pity that you did not show them its _unfitness_ for the stage
before the play was _published_, and exact a promise from the
managers not to act it. In case of their refusal, we would not have
published it at all. But this is too late.

"Yours.

"P.S. I enclose Mr. Bowles's letters: thank him in my name for
their candour and kindness.--Also a letter for Hodgson, which pray
forward. The Milan paper states that I '_brought forward the
play!!!_' This is pleasanter still. But don't let yourself be
worried about it; and if (as is likely) the folly of Elliston
checks the sale, I am ready to make any deduction, or the entire
cancel of your agreement.

"You will of course _not_ publish my defence of Gilchrist, as,
after Bowles's good humour upon the subject, it would be too
savage.

"Let me hear from you the particulars; for, as yet, I have only the
simple fact.

"If you knew what I have had to go through here, on account of the
failure of these rascally Neapolitans, you would be amused; but it
is now apparently over. They seemed disposed to throw the whole
project and plans of these parts upon me chiefly."

* * * * *

LETTER 426. TO MR. MOORE.

"May 14. 1821.

"If any part of the letter to Bowles has (unintentionally, as far
as I remember the contents) vexed you, you are fully avenged; for I
see by an Italian paper that, notwithstanding all my remonstrances
through all my friends (and yourself among the rest), the managers
persisted in attempting the tragedy, and that it has been
'unanimously hissed!!' This is the consolatory phrase of the Milan
paper, (which detests me cordially, and abuses me, on all
occasions, as a Liberal,) with the addition that _I_ 'brought the
play out' of my own good will.

"All this is vexatious enough, and seems a sort of dramatic
Calvinism--predestined damnation, without a sinner's own fault. I
took all the pains poor mortal could to prevent this inevitable
catastrophe--partly by appeals of all kinds up to the Lord
Chamberlain, and partly to the fellows themselves. But, as
remonstrance was vain, complaint is useless. I do not understand
it--for Murray's letter of the 24th, and all his preceding ones,
gave me the strongest hopes that there would be no representation.
As yet, I know nothing but the fact, which I presume to be true, as
the date is Paris, and the 30th. They must have been in a _hell_ of
a hurry for this damnation, since I did not even know that it was
published; and, without its being first published, the histrions
could not have got hold of it. Any one might have seen, at a
glance, that it was utterly impracticable for the stage; and this
little accident will by no means enhance its merit in the closet.

"Well, patience is a virtue, and, I suppose, practice will make it
perfect. Since last year (spring, that is) I have lost a lawsuit,
of great importance, on Rochdale collieries--have occasioned a
divorce--have had my poesy disparaged by Murray and the critics--my
fortune refused to be placed on an advantageous settlement (in
Ireland) by the trustees--my life threatened last month (they put
about a paper here to excite an attempt at my assassination, on
account of politics, and a notion which the priests disseminated
that I was in a league against the Germans,)--and, finally, my
mother-in-law recovered last fortnight, and my play was damned last
week! These are like 'the eight-and-twenty misfortunes of
Harlequin.' But they must be borne. If I give in, it shall be after
keeping up a spirit at least. I should not have cared so much about
it, if our southern neighbours had not bungled us all out of
freedom for these five hundred years to come.

"Did you know John Keats? They say that he was killed by a review
of him in the Quarterly--if he be dead, which I really don't know.
I don't understand that _yielding_ sensitiveness. What I feel (as
at this present) is an immense rage for eight-and-forty hours, and
then, as usual--unless this time it should last longer. I must get
on horseback to quiet me. Yours, &c.

"Francis I. wrote, after the battle of Pavia, 'All is lost except
our honour.' A hissed author may reverse it--'_Nothing_ is lost,
except our honour.' But the horses are waiting, and the paper full.
I wrote last week to you."

* * * * *

LETTER 427. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, May 19. 1821.

"By the papers of Thursday, and two letters of Mr. Kinnaird, I
perceive that the Italian gazette had lied most _Italically_, and
that the drama had _not_ been hissed, and that my friends _had_
interfered to prevent the representation. So it seems they
continue to act it, in spite of us all: for this we must 'trouble
them at 'size.' Let it by all means be brought to a plea: I am
determined to try the right, and will meet the expenses. The reason
of the Lombard lie was that the Austrians--who keep up an
Inquisition throughout Italy, and a _list of names_ of all who
think or speak of any thing but in favour of their despotism--have
for five years past abused me in every form in the Gazette of
Milan, &c. I wrote to you a week ago on the subject.

"Now I should be glad to know what compensation Mr. Elliston would
make me, not only for dragging my writings on the stage in _five_
days, but for being the cause that I was kept for _four_ days (from
Sunday to Thursday morning, the only post-days) in the _belief_
that the _tragedy_ had been acted and 'unanimously hissed;' and
this with the addition that _I_ 'had brought it upon the stage,'
and consequently that none of my friends had attended to my request
to the contrary. Suppose that I had burst a blood-vessel, like John
Keats, or blown my brains out in a fit of rage,--neither of which
would have been unlikely a few years ago. At present I am, luckily,
calmer than I used to be, and yet I would not pass those four days
over again for--I know not what[38].

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