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

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"What you say about Galignani's two biographies is very amusing;
and, if I were not lazy, I would certainly do what you desire. But
I doubt my present stock of facetiousness--that is, of good
_serious_ humour, so as not to let the cat out of the bag.[71] I
wish _you_ would undertake it. I will forgive and _indulge_ you
(like a Pope) beforehand, for any thing ludicrous, that might keep
those fools in their own dear belief that a man is a _loup garou_.

"I suppose I told you that the Giaour story had actually some
foundation on facts; or, if I did not, you will one day find it in
a letter of Lord Sligo's, written to me _after_ the publication of
the poem. I should not like marvels to rest upon any account of my
own, and shall say nothing about it. However, the _real_ incident
is still remote enough from the poetical one, being just such as,
happening to a man of any imagination, might suggest such a
composition. The worst of any _real_ adventures is that they
involve living people--else Mrs. ----'s, ----'s, &c. are as 'german
to the matter' as Mr. Maturin could desire for his novels. * * * *

"The consummation you mentioned for poor * * was near taking place
yesterday. Riding pretty sharply after Mr. Medwin and myself, in
turning the corner of a lane between Pisa and the hills, he was
spilt,--and, besides losing some claret on the spot, bruised
himself a good deal, but is in no danger. He was bled, and keeps
his room. As I was a-head of him some hundred yards, I did not see
the accident; but my servant, who was behind, did, and says the
horse did not fall--the usual excuse of floored equestrians. As * *
piques himself upon his horsemanship, and his horse is really a
pretty horse enough, I long for his personal narrative,--as I never
yet met the man who would _fairly claim a tumble_ as his own
property.

"Could not you send me a printed copy of the 'Irish Avatar?'--I do
not know what has become of Rogers since we parted at Florence.

"Don't let the Angles keep you from writing. Sam told me that you
were somewhat dissipated in Paris, which I can easily believe. Let
me hear from you at your best leisure.

"Ever and truly, &c.

"P.S. December 13.

"I enclose you some lines written not long ago, which you may do
what you like with, as they are very harmless.[72] Only, if copied,
or printed, or set, I could wish it more correctly than in the
usual way, in which one's 'nothings are monstered,' as Coriolanus
says.

"You must really get * * published--he never will rest till he is
so. He is just gone with his broken head to Lucca, at my desire, to
try to save a _man_ from being _burnt_. The Spanish * * *, that has
her petticoats over Lucca, had actually condemned a poor devil to
the stake, for stealing the wafer box out of a church. Shelley and
I, of course, were up in arms against this piece of piety, and have
been disturbing every body to get the sentence changed. * * is gone
to see what can be done.

"B."

[Footnote 71: Mr. Galignani having expressed a wish to be furnished with
a short Memoir of Lord Byron, for the purpose of prefixing it to the
French edition of his works, I had said jestingly in a preceding letter
to his Lordship, that it would he but a fair satire on the disposition
of the world to "bemonster his features," if he would write for the
public, English as well as French, a sort of mock-heroic account of
himself, outdoing, in horrors and wonders, all that had been yet related
or believed of him, and leaving even Goethe's story of the double murder
in Florence far behind.]

[Footnote 72: The following are the lines enclosed in this letter. In
one of his Journals, where they are also given, he has subjoined to them
the following note:--"I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added
now) a few days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa.

"Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

"What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled.
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can _only_ give glory?

"Oh Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

"_There_ chiefly I sought thee, _there_ only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory."]

* * * * *

LETTER 473. TO MR. SHELLEY.

"December 12. 1821.

"My dear Shelley,

"Enclosed is a note for you from ----. His reasons are all very
true, I dare say, and it might and may be of personal inconvenience
to us. But that does not appear to me to be a reason to allow a
being to be burnt without trying to save him. To save him by any
means but _remonstrance_ is of course out of the question; but I do
not see why a _temperate_ remonstrance should hurt any one. Lord
Guilford is the man, if he would undertake it. He knows the Grand
Duke personally, and might, perhaps, prevail upon him to interfere.
But, as he goes to-morrow, you must be quick, or it will be
useless. Make any use of my name that you please.

"Yours ever," &c

* * * * *

LETTER 474. TO MR. MOORE.

"I send you the two notes, which will tell you the story I allude
to of the Auto da Fe. Shelley's allusion to his 'fellow-serpent' is
a buffoonery of mine. Goethe's Mephistofilus calls the serpent who
tempted Eve 'my aunt, the renowned snake;' and I always insist that
Shelley is nothing but one of her nephews, walking about on the tip
of his tail."

* * * * *

TO LORD BYRON.

"Two o'clock, Tuesday Morning.

"My dear Lord,

"Although strongly persuaded that the story must be either an
entire fabrication, or so gross an exaggeration as to be nearly so;
yet, in order to be able to discover the truth beyond all doubt,
and to set your mind quite at rest, I have taken the determination
to go myself to Lucca this morning. Should it prove less false than
I am convinced it is, I shall not fail to exert myself in _every
way_ that I can imagine may have any success. Be assured of this.

"Your Lordship's most truly,

"* *.

"P.S. To prevent _bavardage_, I prefer going in person to sending
my servant with a letter. It is better for you to mention nothing
(except, of course, to Shelley) of my excursion. The person I visit
there is one on whom I can have every dependence in every way, both
as to authority and truth."

* * * * *

TO LORD BYRON.

"Thursday Morning.

"My dear Lord Byron,

"I hear this morning that the design, which certainly had been in
contemplation, of burning my fellow-serpent, has been abandoned,
and that he has been condemned to the galleys. Lord Guilford is at
Leghorn; and as your courier applied to me to know whether he ought
to leave your letter for him or not, I have thought it best since
this information to tell him to take it back.

"Ever faithfully yours,

"P.B. SHELLEY."

* * * * *

LETTER 475. TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

"Pisa, January 12. 1822.

"My dear Sir Walter,

"I need not say how grateful I am for your letter, but I must own
my ingratitude in not having written to you again long ago. Since I
left England (and it is not for all the usual term of
transportation) I have scribbled to five hundred blockheads on
business, &c. without difficulty, though with no great pleasure;
and yet, with the notion of addressing you a hundred times in my
head, and always in my heart, I have not done what I ought to have
done. I can only account for it on the same principle of tremulous
anxiety with which one sometimes makes love to a beautiful woman of
our own degree, with whom one is enamoured in good earnest;
whereas, we attack a fresh-coloured housemaid without (I speak, of
course, of earlier times) any sentimental remorse or mitigation of
our virtuous purpose.

"I owe to you far more than the usual obligation for the courtesies
of literature and common friendship; for you went out of your way
in 1817 to do me a service, when it required not merely kindness,
but courage to do so: to have been recorded by you in such a
manner, would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a
time when 'all the world and his wife,' as the proverb goes, were
trying to trample upon me, was something still higher to my
self-esteem,--I allude to the Quarterly Review of the Third Canto
of Childe Harold, which Murray told me was written by you,--and,
indeed, I should have known it without his information, as there
could not be two who _could_ and _would_ have done this at the
time. Had it been a common criticism, however eloquent or
panegyrical, I should have felt pleased, undoubtedly, and grateful,
but not to the extent which the extraordinary good-heartedness of
the whole proceeding must induce in any mind capable of such
sensations. The very _tardiness_ of this acknowledgment will, at
least, show that I have not forgotten the obligation; and I can
assure you that my sense of it has been out at compound interest
during the delay. I shall only add one word upon the subject, which
is, that I think that you, and Jeffrey, and Leigh Hunt were the
only literary men, of numbers whom I know (and some of whom I had
served), who dared venture even an anonymous word in my favour just
then: and that, of those three, I had never seen _one_ at all--of
the second much less than I desired--and that the third was under
no kind of obligation to me, whatever; while the other _two_ had
been actually attacked by me on a former occasion; _one_, indeed,
with some provocation, but the other wantonly enough. So you see
you have been heaping 'coals of fire, &c.' in the true gospel
manner, and I can assure you that they have burnt down to my very
heart.

"I am glad that you accepted the Inscription. I meant to have
inscribed 'The Foscarini' to you instead; but first, I heard that
'Cain' was thought the least bad of the two as a composition; and,
2dly, I have abused S * * like a pickpocket, in a note to the
Foscarini, and I recollected that he is a friend of yours (though
not of mine), and that it would not be the handsome thing to
dedicate to one friend any thing containing such matters about
another. However, I'll work the Laureate before I have done with
him, as soon as I can muster Billingsgate therefor. I like a row,
and always did from a boy, in the course of which propensity, I
must needs say, that I have found it the most easy of all to be
gratified, personally and poetically. You disclaim 'jealousies;'
but I would ask, as Boswell did of Johnson, 'of _whom could_ you be
_jealous_?'--of none of the living certainly, and (taking all and
all into consideration) of which of the dead? I don't like to bore
you about the Scotch novels, (as they call them, though two of them
are wholly English, and the rest half so,) but nothing can or could
ever persuade me, since I was the first ten minutes in your
company, that you are _not_ the man. To me those novels have so
much of 'Auld lang syne' (I was bred a canny Scot till ten years
old) that I never move without them; and when I removed from
Ravenna to Pisa the other day, and sent on my library before, they
were the only books that I kept by me, although I already have them
by heart.

"January 27. 1822.

"I delayed till now concluding, in the hope that I should have got
'The Pirate,' who is under way for me, but has not yet hove in
sight. I hear that your daughter is married, and I suppose by this
time you are half a grandfather--a young one, by the way. I have
heard great things of Mrs. Lockhart's personal and mental charms,
and much good of her lord: that you may live to see as many novel
Scotts as there are Scots' novels, is the very bad pun, but sincere
wish of

"Yours ever most affectionately, &c.

"P.S. Why don't you take a turn in Italy? You would find yourself
as well known and as welcome as in the Highlands among the natives.
As for the English, you would be with them as in London; and I need
not add, that I should be delighted to see you again, which is far
more than I shall ever feel or say for England, or (with a few
exceptions 'of kith, kin, and allies') any thing that it contains.
But my 'heart warms to the tartan,' or to any thing of Scotland,
which reminds me of Aberdeen and other parts, not so far from the
Highlands as that town, about Invercauld and Braemar, where I was
sent to drink goat's _fey_ in 1795-6, in consequence of a
threatened decline after the scarlet fever. But I am gossiping, so,
good night--and the gods be with your dreams!

"Pray, present my respects to Lady Scott, who may, perhaps,
recollect having seen me in town in 1815.

"I see that one of your supporters (for like Sir Hildebrand, I am
fond of Guillin) is a _mermaid_; it is my _crest_ too, and with
precisely the same curl of tail. There's concatenation for you:--I
am building a little cutter at Genoa, to go a cruising in the
summer. I know _you_ like the sea too."

* * * * *

LETTER 476. TO ----.[73]

"Pisa, February 6. 1822.

"'Try back the deep lane,' till we find a publisher for the
'Vision;' and if none such is to be found, print fifty copies at my
expense, distribute them amongst my acquaintance, and you will soon
see that the booksellers _will_ publish them, even if we opposed
them. That they are now afraid is natural, but I do not see that I
ought to give way on that account. I know nothing of Rivington's
'Remonstrance' by the 'eminent Churchman;' but I suppose he wants a
living. I once heard of a preacher at Kentish Town against 'Cain.'
The same outcry was raised against Priestley, Hume, Gibbon,
Voltaire, and all the men who dared to put tithes to the question.

"I have got S----'s pretended reply, to which I am surprised that
you do not allude. What remains to be done is to call him out. The
question is, would he come? for, if he would not, the whole thing
would appear ridiculous, if I were to take a long and expensive
journey to no purpose.

"You must be my second, and, as such, I wish to consult you.

"I apply to you, as one well versed in the duello, or monomachie.
Of course I shall come to England as privately as possible, and
leave it (supposing that I was the survivor) in the same manner;
having no other object which could bring me to that country except
to settle quarrels accumulated during my absence.

"By the last post I transmitted to you a letter upon some Rochdale
toll business, from which there are moneys in prospect. My agent
says two thousand pounds, but supposing it to be only one, or even
one hundred, still they may be moneys; and I have lived long enough
to have an exceeding respect for the smallest current coin of any
realm, or the least sum, which, although I may not want it myself,
may do something for others who may need it more than I.

"They say that 'Knowledge is Power:'--I used to think so; but I now
know that they meant '_money_:' and when Socrates declared, 'that
all he knew was, that he knew nothing,' he merely intended to
declare, that he had not a drachm in the Athenian world.

"The _circulars_ are arrived, and circulating like the vortices (or
vortexes) of Descartes. Still I have a due care of the needful, and
keep a look out ahead, as my notions upon the score of moneys
coincide with yours, and with all men's who have lived to see that
every guinea is a philosopher's stone, or at least his
_touch_-stone. You will doubt me the less, when I pronounce my firm
belief, that _Cash_ is _Virtue_.

"I cannot reproach myself with much expenditure: my only extra
expense (and it is more than I have spent upon myself) being a loan
of two hundred and fifty pounds to ----; and fifty pounds worth of
furniture, which I have bought for him; and a boat which I am
building for myself at Genoa, which will cost about a hundred
pounds more.

"But to return. I am determined to have all the moneys I can,
whether by my own funds, or succession, or lawsuit, or MSS. or any
lawful means whatever.

"I will pay (though with the sincerest reluctance) my remaining
creditors, and every man of law, by instalments from the award of
the arbitrators.

"I recommend to you the notice in Mr. Hanson's letter, on the
demands of moneys for the Rochdale tolls.

"Above all, I recommend my interests to your honourable worship.

"Recollect, too, that I expect some moneys for the various MSS. (no
matter what); and, in short, 'Rem _quocunque modo_, Rem!'--the
noble feeling of cupidity grows upon us with our years.

"Yours ever," &c.

[Footnote 73: This letter has been already published, with a few others,
in a periodical work, and is known to have been addressed to the late
Mr. Douglas Kinnaird.]

* * * * *

LETTER 477. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, February 8. 1822.

"Attacks upon me were to be expected, but I perceive one upon _you_
in the papers, which I confess that I did not expect. How, or in
what manner, _you_ can be considered responsible for what _I_
publish, I am at a loss to conceive.

"If 'Cain' be 'blasphemous,' Paradise Lost is blasphemous; and the
very words of the Oxford gentleman, 'Evil, be thou my good,' are
from that very poem, from the mouth of Satan, and is there any
thing more in that of Lucifer in the Mystery? Cain is nothing more
than a drama, not a piece of argument. If Lucifer and Cain speak as
the first murderer and the first rebel may be supposed to speak,
surely all the rest of the personages talk also according to their
characters--and the stronger passions have ever been permitted to
the drama.

"I have even avoided introducing the Deity as in Scripture, (though
Milton does, and not very wisely either,) but have adopted his
angel as sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shocking any
feelings on the subject by falling short of what all uninspired men
must fall short in, viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of
the presence of Jehovah. The old Mysteries introduced him liberally
enough, and all this is avoided in the new one.

"The attempt to _bully you_, because they think it won't succeed
with me, seems to me as atrocious an attempt as ever disgraced the
times. What! when Gibbon's, Hume's, Priestley's, and Drummond's
publishers have been allowed to rest in peace for seventy years,
are you to be singled out for a work of _fiction_, not of history
or argument? There must be something at the bottom of this--some
private enemy of your own: it is otherwise incredible.

"I can only say, 'Me, me; en adsum qui feci;'--that any proceedings
directed against you, I beg, may be transferred to me, who am
willing, and _ought_, to endure them all;--that if you have lost
money by the publication, I will refund any or all of the
copyright;--that I desire you will say that both _you_ and _Mr.
Gifford_ remonstrated against the publication, as also Mr.
Hobhouse;--that _I_ alone occasioned it, and I alone am the person
who, either legally or otherwise, should bear the burden. If they
prosecute, I will come to England--that is, if, by meeting it in my
own person, I can save yours. Let me know. You sha'n't suffer for
me, if I can help it. Make any use of this letter you please.

"Yours ever, &c.

"P.S. I write to you about all this row of bad passions and
absurdities with the _summer_ moon (for here our winter is clearer
than your dog-days) lighting the winding Arno, with all her
buildings and bridges,--so quiet and still!--What nothings are we
before the least of these stars!"

* * * * *

LETTER 478. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, February 19. 1822.

"I am rather surprised not to have had an answer to my letter and
packets. Lady Noel is dead, and it is not impossible that I may
have to go to England to settle the division of the Wentworth
property, and what portion Lady B. is to have out of it; all which
was left undecided by the articles of separation. But I hope not,
if it can be done without,--and I have written to Sir Francis
Burdett to be my referee, as he knows the property.

"Continue to address here, as I shall not go if I can avoid it--at
least, not on that account. But I may on another; for I wrote to
Douglas Kinnaird to convey a message of invitation to Mr. Southey
to meet me, either in England, or (as less liable to interruption)
on the coast of France. This was about a fortnight ago, and I have
not yet had time to have the answer. However, you shall have due
notice; therefore continue to address to Pisa.

"My agents and trustees have written to me to desire that I would
take the name directly, so that I am yours very truly and
affectionately,

"NOEL BYRON.

"P.S. I have had no news from England, except on business; and
merely know, from some abuse in that faithful _ex_ and _de_-tractor
Galignani, that the clergy are up against 'Cain.' There is (if I am
not mistaken) some good church preferment on the Wentworth estates;
and I will show them what a good Christian I am, by patronising and
preferring the most pious of their order, should opportunity occur.

"M. and I are but little in correspondence, and I know nothing of
literary matters at present. I have been writing on business only
lately. What are _you_ about? Be assured that there is no such
coalition as you apprehend."

* * * * *

LETTER 479. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, February 20. 1822.[74]

"Your letter arrived since I wrote the enclosed. It is not likely,
as I have appointed agents and arbitrators for the Noel estates,
that I should proceed to England on that account,--though I may
upon another, within stated. At any rate, _continue_ you to address
here till you hear further from me. I could wish _you_ still to
arrange for me, either with a London or Paris publisher, for the
things, &c. I shall not quarrel with any arrangement you may please
to make.

"I have appointed Sir Francis Burdett my arbitrator to decide on
Lady Byron's allowance out of the Noel estates, which are estimated
at seven thousand a year, and _rents_ very well paid,--a rare thing
at this time. It is, however, owing to their _consisting_ chiefly
in pasture lands, and therefore less affected by corn bills, &c.
than properties in tillage.

"Believe me yours ever most affectionately,

"NOEL BYRON.

"Between my own property in the funds, and my wife's in land, I do
not know which _side_ to cry out on in politics.

"There is nothing against the immortality of the soul in 'Cain'
that I recollect. I hold no such opinions;--but, in a drama, the
first rebel and the first murderer must be made to talk according
to their characters. However, the parsons are all preaching at it,
from Kentish Town and Oxford to Pisa;--the scoundrels of priests,
who do more harm to religion than all the infidels that ever forgot
their catechisms!

"I have not seen Lady Noel's death announced in Galignani.--How is
that?"

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