(Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron - Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6)
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(Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron >> Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6)
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So little was Tasso ashamed of those casual imitations of other poets
which are so often branded as plagiarisms, that, in his Commentary on
his Rime, he takes pains to point out and avow whatever coincidences of
this kind occur in his own verses.
While on this subject, I may be allowed to mention one single instance,
where a thought that had lain perhaps indistinctly in Byron's memory
since his youth, comes out so improved and brightened as to be, by every
right of genius, his own. In the Two Noble Kinsmen of Beaumont and
Fletcher (a play to which the picture of passionate friendship,
delineated in the characters of Palamon and Arcite, would be sure to
draw the attention of Byron in his boyhood,) we find the following
passage:--
"Oh never
Shall we two exercise, like twins of Honour,
Our arms again, and _feel our fiery horses
Like proud seas under us_."
Out of this somewhat forced simile, by a judicious transposition of the
comparison, and by the substitution of the more definite word "waves"
for "seas" the clear, noble thought in one of the Cantos of Childe
Harold has been produced:--
"Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me, as a steed
That knows his rider."]
[Footnote 47: "No man ever rose (says Pope) to any degree of perfection
in writing but through obstinacy and an inveterate resolution against
the stream of mankind."]
* * * * *
LETTER 446. TO MR. MOORE.
"Ravenna, August 24. 1821.
"Yours of the 5th only yesterday, while I had letters of the 8th
from London. Doth the post dabble into our letters? Whatever
agreement you make with Murray, if satisfactory to _you_, must be
so to me. There need be no scruple, because, though I used
sometimes to buffoon to myself, loving a quibble as well as the
barbarian himself (Shakspeare, to wit)--'that, like a Spartan, I
would sell my _life_ as _dearly_ as possible'--it never was my
intention to turn it to personal, pecuniary account, but to
bequeath it to a friend--yourself--in the event of survivorship. I
anticipated that period, because we happened to meet, and I urged
you to make what was possible _now_ by it, for reasons which are
obvious. It has been no possible _privation_ to me, and therefore
does not require the acknowledgments you mention. So, for God's
sake, don't consider it like * * *
"By the way, when you write to Lady Morgan, will you thank her for
her handsome speeches in her book about _my_ books? I do not know
her address. Her work is fearless and excellent on the subject of
Italy--pray tell her so--and I know the country. I wish she had
fallen in with _me_, I could have told her a thing or two that
would have confirmed her positions.
"I am glad you are satisfied with Murray, who seems to value dead
lords more than live ones. I have just sent him the following answer
to a proposition of his,
"For Orford and for Waldegrave, &c.
"The argument of the above is, that he wanted to 'stint me of my
sizings,' as Lear says,--that is to say, _not_ to propose an
extravagant price for an extravagant poem, as is becoming. Pray
take his guineas, by all means--_I_ taught him that. He made me a
filthy offer of _pounds_ once, but I told him that, like
physicians, poets must be dealt with in guineas, as being the only
advantage poets could have in the association with _them_, as
votaries of Apollo. I write to you in hurry and bustle, which I
will expound in my next.
"Yours ever, &c.
"P.S. You mention something of an attorney on his way to me on
legal business. I have had no warning of such an apparition. What
can the fellow want? I have some lawsuits and business, but have
not heard of any thing to put me to the expense of a _travelling_
lawyer. They do enough, in that way, at home.
"Ah, poor Queen I but perhaps it is for the best, if Herodotus's
anecdote is to be believed.
"Remember me to any friendly Angles of our mutual acquaintance.
What are you doing? Here I have had my hands full with tyrants and
their victims. There never _was_ such oppression, even in Ireland,
scarcely!"
* * * * *
LETTER 447. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, August 31. 1821.
"I have received the Juans, which are printed so _carelessly_,
especially the fifth Canto, as to be disgraceful to me, and not
creditable to you. It really must be _gone over again_ with the
_manuscript_, the errors are so gross;--words added--changed--so as
to make cacophony and nonsense. You have been careless of this poem
because some of your squad don't approve of it; but I tell you that
it will be long before you see any thing half so good as poetry or
writing. Upon what principle have you omitted the note on Bacon and
Voltaire? and one of the concluding stanzas sent as an addition?
because it ended, I suppose, with--
"And do not link two virtuous souls for life
Into that _moral centaur_ man and wife?
"Now, I must say, once for all, that I will not permit any human
being to take such liberties with my writings because I am absent.
I desire the omissions to be replaced (except the stanza on
Semiramis)--particularly the stanza upon the Turkish marriages; and
I request that the whole be carefully gone over with the MS.
"I never saw such stuff as is printed:--Gu_ll_eyaz instead of
Gu_lb_eyaz, &c. Are you aware that Gulbeyaz is a real name, and the
other nonsense? I copied the _Cantos_ out carefully, so that there
is _no_ excuse, as the printer read, or at least _prints_, the MS.
of the plays without error.
"If you have no feeling for your own reputation, pray have some
little for mine. I have read over the poem carefully, and I tell
you, _it is poetry_. Your little envious knot of parson-poets may
say what they please: time will show that I am not in this instance
mistaken.
"Desire my friend Hobhouse to correct the press, especially of the
last Canto, from the manuscript as it is. It is enough to drive one
out of one's reason to see the infernal torture of words from the
original. For instance the line--
"And _pair_ their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves--
is printed
"And _praise_ their rhymes, &c.
Also '_precarious_' for '_precocious_;' and this line, stanza 133.
"_And this strong extreme effect to tire no longer._
Now do turn to the manuscript and see if I ever wrote such a
_line_: it is _not verse_.
"No wonder the poem should fail (which, however, it won't, you will
see) with such things allowed to creep about it. Replace what is
omitted, and correct what is so shamefully misprinted, and let the
poem have fair play; and I fear nothing.
"I see in the last two numbers of the Quarterly a strong itching to
assail me (see the review of 'The Etonian'); let it, and see if
they sha'n't have enough of it. I do not allude to Gifford, who has
always been my friend, and whom I do not consider as responsible
for the articles written by others.
"You will publish the plays when ready. I am in such a humour
about this printing of Don Juan so inaccurately, that I must close
this.
"Yours.
"P.S. I presume that you have _not_ lost the _stanza_ to which I
allude? It was sent afterwards: look over my letters and find it."
* * * * *
LETTER 448.[48] TO MR. MURRAY.
"The enclosed letter is written in bad humour, but not without
provocation. However, let it (that is, the bad humour) go for
little; but I must request your serious attention to the abuses of
the printer, which ought never to have been permitted. You forget
that all the fools in London (the chief purchasers of your
publications) will condemn in me the stupidity of your printer. For
instance, in the notes to Canto fifth, 'the _Adriatic_ shore of the
Bosphorus' instead of the _Asiatic!!_ All this may seem little to
you, so fine a gentleman with your ministerial connections, but it
is serious to me, who am thousands of miles off, and have no
opportunity of not proving myself the fool your printer makes me,
except your pleasure and leisure, forsooth.
"The gods prosper you, and forgive you, for I can't."
[Footnote 48: Written in the envelope of the preceding Letter.]
* * * * *
LETTER 449. TO MR. MOORE.
"Ravenna, September 3. 1821.
"By Mr. Mawman (a paymaster in the corps, in which you and I are
privates) I yesterday expedited to your address, under cover one,
two paper books, containing the _Giaour_-nal, and a thing or two.
It won't _all_ do--even for the posthumous public--but extracts
from it may. It is a brief and faithful chronicle of a month or
so--parts of it not very discreet, but sufficiently sincere. Mr.
Mawman saith that he will, in person or per friend, have it
delivered to you in your Elysian fields.
"If you have got the new Juans, recollect that there are some very
gross printer's blunders, particularly in the fifth Canto,--such as
'praise' for 'pair'--'precarious' for 'precocious'--'Adriatic' for
'Asiatic'--'case' for 'chase'--besides gifts of additional words
and syllables, which make but a cacophonous rhythmus. Put the pen
through the said, as I would mine through * *'s ears, if I were
alongside him. As it is, I have sent him a rattling letter, as
abusive as possible. Though he is publisher to the 'Board of
_Longitude_,' he is in no danger of discovering it.
"I am packing for Pisa--but direct your letters _here_, till
further notice. Yours ever," &c.
* * * * *
One of the "paper-books" mentioned in this letter as intrusted to Mr.
Mawman for me, contained a portion, to the amount of nearly a hundred
pages, of a prose story, relating the adventures of a young Andalusian
nobleman, which had been begun by him, at Venice, in 1817. The following
passage is all I shall extract from this amusing Fragment:--
"A few hours afterwards we were very good friends, and a few days
after she set out for Arragon, with my son, on a visit to her
father and mother. I did not accompany her immediately, having been
in Arragon before, but was to join the family in their Moorish
chateau within a few weeks.
"During her journey I received a very affectionate letter from
Donna Josepha, apprising me of the welfare of herself and my son.
On her arrival at the chateau, I received another still more
affectionate, pressing me, in very fond, and rather foolish, terms,
to join her immediately. As I was preparing to set out from
Seville, I received a third--this was from her father, Don Jose di
Cardozo, who requested me, in the politest manner, to dissolve my
marriage. I answered him with equal politeness, that I would do no
such thing. A fourth letter arrived--it was from Donna Josepha, in
which she informed me that her father's letter was written by her
particular desire. I requested the reason by return of post--she
replied, by express, that as reason had nothing to do with the
matter, it was unnecessary to give any--but that she was an injured
and excellent woman. I then enquired why she had written to me the
two preceding affectionate letters, requesting me to come to
Arragon. She answered, that was because she believed me out of my
senses--that, being unfit to take care of myself, I had only to set
out on this journey alone, and making my way without difficulty to
Don Jose di Cardozo's, I should there have found the tenderest of
wives and--a strait waistcoat.
"I had nothing to reply to this piece of affection but a
reiteration of my request for some lights upon the subject. I was
answered that they would only be related to the Inquisition. In the
mean time, our domestic discrepancy had become a public topic of
discussion: and the world, which always decides justly, not only in
Arragon but in Andalusia, determined that I was not only to blame,
but that all Spain could produce nobody so blamable. My case was
supposed to comprise all the crimes which could, and several which
could not, be committed, and little less than an auto-da-fe was
anticipated as the result. But let no man say that we are abandoned
by our friends in adversity--it was just the reverse. Mine thronged
around me to condemn, advise, and console me with their
disapprobation.--They told me all that was, would, or could be said
on the subject. They shook their heads--they exhorted me--deplored
me, with tears in their eyes, and--went to dinner."
* * * * *
LETTER 450. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, September 4. 1821.
"By Saturday's post, I sent you a fierce and furibund letter upon
the subject of the printer's blunders in Don Juan. I must solicit
your attention to the topic, though my wrath hath subsided into
sullenness.
"Yesterday I received Mr. ----, a friend of yours, and because he
is a friend of _yours_; and that's more than I would do in an
_English_ case, except for those whom I honour. I was as civil as I
could be among packages even to the very chairs and tables, for I
am going to _Pisa_ in a few weeks, and have sent and am sending
off my chattels. It regretted me[49] that, my books and every thing
being packed, I could not send you a few things I meant for you;
but they were all sealed and baggaged, so as to have made it a
month's work to get at them again. I gave him an envelope, with the
Italian scrap in it[50], alluded to in my Gilchrist defence.
Hobhouse will make it out for you, and it will make you laugh, and
him too, the _spelling_ particularly. The '_Mericani_,' of whom
they call me the 'Capo' (or Chief), mean 'Americans,' which is the
name given in _Romagna_ to a part of the Carbonari; that is to say,
to the _popular_ part, the _troops_ of the Carbonari. They are
originally a society of hunters in the forest, who took the name of
Americans, but at present comprise some thousands, &c.; but I
shan't let you further into the secret, which may be participated
with the postmasters. Why they thought me their Chief, I know not:
their Chiefs are like 'Legion, being many. However, it is a post of
more honour than profit, for, now that they are persecuted, it is
fit that I should aid them; and so I have done, as far as my means
would permit. They will rise again some day, for these fools of
the government are blundering: they actually seem to know
_nothing_; for they have arrested and banished many of their _own_
party, and let others escape who are not their friends.
"What think'st thou of Greece?
"Address to me here as usual, till you hear further from me.
"By Mawman I have sent a Journal to Moore; but it won't do for the
public,--at least a great deal of it won't;--_parts_ may.
"I read over the Juans, which are excellent. Your squad are quite
wrong; and so you will find by and by. I regret that I do not go on
with it, for I had all the plan for several cantos, and different
countries and climes. You say nothing of the _note_ I enclosed to
you[51], which will explain why I agreed to discontinue it (at
Madame G----'s request); but you are so grand, and sublime, and
occupied, that one would think, instead of publishing for 'the
Board of _Longitude_,' that you were trying to discover it.
"Let me hear that Gifford is _better_. He can't be spared either by
you or me."
[Footnote 49: It will be observed, from this and a few other instances,
that notwithstanding the wonderful purity of English he was able to
preserve in his writings, while living constantly with persons speaking
a different language, he had already begun so far to feel the influence
of this habit as to fall occasionally into Italianisms in his familiar
letters.--"I am in the case to know"--"I have caused write"--"It regrets
me," &c.]
[Footnote 50: An anonymous letter which he had received, threatening him
with assassination.]
[Footnote 51: In this note, so highly honourable to the fair writer, she
says, "Remember, my Byron, the promise you have made me. Never shall I
be able to tell you the satisfaction I feel from it, so great are the
sentiments of pleasure and confidence with which the sacrifice you have
made has inspired me." In a postscript to the note she adds, "I am only
sorry that Don Juan was not left in the infernal regions."--"Ricordati,
mio Byron, della promessa che mi hai fatta. Non potrei mai dirti la
satisfazione ch' io ne provo!--sono tanti i sentimenti di piacere e di
confidenza che il tuo sacrificio m'inspira."--"Mi reveresce solo che Don
Giovanni non resti all' Inferno."
In enclosing the lady's note to Mr. Murray, July 4th, Lord B. says,
"This is the note of acknowledgment for the promise not to continue Don
Juan. She says, in the postscript, that she is only sorry that D.J. does
not _remain_ in Hell (or go there)".]
* * * * *
LETTER 451. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, September 12. 1821.
"By Tuesday's post, I forwarded, in three packets, the drama of
Cain in three acts, of which I request the acknowledgment when
arrived. To the last speech of _Eve_, in the last act (_i.e._ where
she curses Cain), add these three lines to the concluding one--
"May the grass wither from thy foot! the woods
Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust
A grave! the sun his light! and Heaven her God!
"There's as pretty a piece of imprecation for you, when joined to
the lines already sent, as you may wish to meet with in the course
of your business. But don't forget the addition of the above three
lines, which are clinchers to Eve's speech.
"Let me know what Gifford thinks (if the play arrives in safety);
for I have a good opinion of the piece, as poetry; it is in my gay
metaphysical style, and in the Manfred line.
"You must at least commend my facility and variety, when you
consider what I have done within the last fifteen months, with my
head, too, full of other and of mundane matters. But no doubt you
will avoid saying any good of it, for fear I should raise the price
upon you: that's right: stick to business. Let me know what your
other ragamuffins are writing, for I suppose you don't like
starting too many of your vagabonds at once. You may give them the
start, for any thing I care.
"Why don't you publish my _Pulci_--the best thing I ever
wrote,--with the Italian to it? I wish I was alongside of you;
nothing is ever done in a man's absence; every body runs counter,
because they _can_. If ever I _do_ return to England, (which I
sha'n't, though,) I will write a poem to which 'English Bards,' &c.
shall be new milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of
mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar. But I am not yet
quite bilious enough: a season or two more, and a provocation or
two, will wind me up to the point, and then have at the whole set!
"I have no patience with the sort of trash you send me out by way
of books; except Scott's novels, and three or four other things, I
never saw such work, or works. Campbell is lecturing--Moore
idling--S * * twaddling--W * * drivelling--C * * muddling--* *
piddling--B * * quibbling, squabbling, and snivelling. * * will
_do_, if he don't cant too much, nor imitate Southey; the fellow
has poesy in him; but he is envious, and unhappy, as all the
envious are. Still he is among the best of the day. B * * C * *
will do better by-and-by, I dare say, if he don't get spoiled by
green tea, and the praises of Pentonville and Paradise Row. The
pity of these men is, that they never lived in _high life_, nor in
_solitude_: there is no medium for the knowledge of the _busy_ or
the _still_ world. If admitted into high life for a season, it is
merely as spectators--they form no part of the mechanism thereof.
Now Moore and I, the one by circumstances, and the other by birth,
happened to be free of the corporation, and to have entered into
its pulses and passions, _quarum partes fuimus_. Both of us have
learnt by this much which nothing else could have taught us.
"Yours.
"P.S. I saw one of your brethren, another of the allied sovereigns
of Grub Street, the other day, Mawman the Great, by whom I sent due
homage to your imperial self. To-morrow's post may perhaps bring a
letter from you, but you are the most ungrateful and ungracious of
correspondents. But there is some excuse for you, with your
perpetual levee of politicians, parsons, scribblers, and loungers.
Some day I will give you a poetical catalogue of them."
* * * * *
LETTER 452. TO MR. MOORE.
"Ravenna, September 17. 1821.
"The enclosed lines[52], as you will directly perceive, are written
by the Rev. W.L.B * *. Of course it is for _him_ to deny them if
they are not.
"Believe me yours ever and most affectionately,
"B.
"P.S. Can you forgive this? It is only a reply to your lines
against my Italians. Of course I will _stand_ by my lines against
all men; but it is heart-breaking to see such things in a people as
the reception of that unredeemed * * * * * * in an oppressed
country. _Your_ apotheosis is now reduced to a level with his
welcome, and their gratitude to Grattan is cancelled by their
atrocious adulation of this, &c. &c. &c."
[Footnote 52: "The Irish Avatar." In this copy the following sentence
(taken from a letter of Curran, in the able Life of that true Irishman,
by his son) is prefixed as a motto to the Poem,--"And Ireland, like a
bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider."--_Letter of
Curran, Life_, vol. ii. p. 336. At the end of the verses are these
words:--"(Signed) W.L. B * *, M.A., and written with a view to a
Bishoprick."]
* * * * *
LETTER 453. TO MR. MOORE.
"Ravenna, September 19, 1821.
"I am in all the sweat, dust, and blasphemy of an universal packing
of all my things, furniture, &c. for Pisa, whither I go for the
winter. The cause has been the exile of all my fellow Carbonics,
and, amongst them, of the whole family of Madame G.; who, you know,
was divorced from her husband last week, 'on account of P.P. clerk
of this parish,' and who is obliged to join her father and
relatives, now in exile there, to avoid being shut up in a
monastery, because the Pope's decree of separation required her to
reside in _casa paterna_, or else, for decorum's sake, in a
convent. As I could not say with Hamlet, 'Get thee to a nunnery,' I
am preparing to follow them.
"It is awful work, this love, and prevents all a man's projects of
good or glory. I wanted to go to Greece lately (as every thing
seems up here) with her brother, who is a very fine, brave fellow
(I have seen him put to the proof), and wild about liberty. But
the tears of a woman who has left her husband for a man, and the
weakness of one's own heart, are paramount to these projects, and I
can hardly indulge them.
"We were divided in choice between Switzerland and Tuscany, and I
gave my vote for Pisa, as nearer the Mediterranean, which I love
for the sake of the shores which it washes, and for my young
recollections of 1809. Switzerland is a curst selfish, swinish
country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world.
I never could bear the inhabitants, and still less their English
visiters; for which reason, after writing for some information
about houses, upon hearing that there was a colony of English all
over the cantons of Geneva, &c. I immediately gave up the thought,
and persuaded the Gambas to do the same.
"By the last post I sent you 'The Irish Avatar,'--what think you?
The last line--'a name never spoke but with curses or jeers'--must
run either 'a name only uttered with curses or jeers,' or, 'a
wretch never named but with curses or jeers.' Be_case_ as _how_,
'spoke' is not grammar, except in the House of Commons; and I doubt
whether we can say 'a name _spoken_,' for _mentioned_. I have some
doubts, too, about 'repay,'--'and for murder repay with a shout and
a smile.' Should it not be, 'and for murder repay him with shouts
and a smile, 'or '_reward_ him with shouts and a smile?'
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