Thomas Moore - Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III

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"After damning my servants for letting people in without apprizing
me, I found that Marianna in the morning had seen her
sister-in-law's gondolier on the stairs, and, suspecting that his
apparition boded her no good, had either returned of her own
accord, or been followed by her maids or some other spy of her
people to the conversazione, from whence she returned to perpetrate
this piece of pugilism. I had seen fits before, and also some small
scenery of the same genus in and out of our island: but this was
not all. After about an hour, in comes--who? why, Signor S * *, her
lord and husband, and finds me with his wife fainting upon a sofa,
and all the apparatus of confusion, dishevelled hair, hats,
handkerchiefs, salts, smelling bottles--and the lady as pale as
ashes, without sense or motion. His first question was, 'What is
all this?' The lady could not reply--so I did. I told him the
explanation was the easiest thing in the world; but in the mean
time it would be as well to recover his wife--at least, her senses.
This came about in due time of suspiration and respiration.

"You need not be alarmed--jealousy is not the order of the day in
Venice, and daggers are out of fashion, while duels, on love
matters, are unknown--at least, with the husbands. But, for all
this, it was an awkward affair; and though he must have known that
I made love to Marianna, yet I believe he was not, till that
evening, aware of the extent to which it had gone. It is very well
known that almost all the married women have a lover; but it is
usual to keep up the forms, as in other nations. I did not,
therefore, know what the devil to say. I could not out with the
truth, out of regard to her, and I did not choose to lie for my
sake;--besides, the thing told itself. I thought the best way would
be to let her explain it as she chose (a woman being never at a
loss--the devil always sticks by them)--only determining to protect
and carry her off, in case of any ferocity on the part of the
Signor. I saw that he was quite calm. She went to bed, and next
day--how they settled it, I know not, but settle it they did.
Well--then I had to explain to Marianna about this
never-to-be-sufficiently-confounded sister-in-law; which I did by
swearing innocence, eternal constancy, &c. &c. But the
sister-in-law, very much discomposed with being treated in such
wise, has (not having her own shame before her eyes) told the
affair to half Venice, and the servants (who were summoned by the
fight and the fainting) to the other half. But, here, nobody minds
such trifles, except to be amused by them. I don't know whether you
will be so, but I have scrawled a long letter out of these follies.

"Believe me ever," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 260. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, January 24. 1817.

"I have been requested by the Countess Albrizzi here to present her
with 'the Works;' and wish you therefore to send me a copy, that I
may comply with her requisition. You may include the last
published, of which I have seen and know nothing, but from your
letter of the 13th of December.

"Mrs. Leigh tells me that most of her friends prefer the two first
Cantos. I do not know whether this be the general opinion or not
(it is _not hers_); but it is natural it should be so. I, however,
think differently, which is natural also; but who is right, or who
is wrong, is of very little consequence.

"Dr. Polidori, as I hear from him by letter from Pisa, is about to
return to England, to go to the Brazils on a medical speculation
with the Danish consul. As you are in the favour of the powers that
be, could you not get him some letters of recommendation from some
of your government friends to some of the Portuguese settlers? He
understands his profession well, and has no want of general
talents; his faults are the faults of a pardonable vanity and
youth. His remaining with me was out of the question: I have enough
to do to manage my own scrapes; and as precepts without example are
not the most gracious homilies, I thought it better to give him his
conge: but I know no great harm of him, and some good. He is clever
and accomplished; knows his profession, by all accounts, well; and
is honourable in his dealings, and not at all malevolent. I think,
with luck, he will turn out a useful member of society (from which
he will lop the diseased members) and the College of Physicians. If
you can be of any use to him, or know any one who can, pray be so,
as he has his fortune to make. He has kept a _medical journal_
under the eye of _Vacca_ (the first surgeon on the Continent) at
Pisa: Vacca has corrected it, and it must contain some valuable
hints or information on the practice of this country. If you can
aid him in publishing this also, by your influence with your
brethren, do; I do not ask you to publish it yourself, because that
sort of request is too personal and embarrassing. He has also a
tragedy, of which, having seen nothing, I say nothing: but the very
circumstance of his having made these efforts (if they are only
efforts), at one-and-twenty, is in his favour, and proves him to
have good dispositions for his own improvement. So if, in the way
of commendation or recommendation, you can aid his objects with
your government friends, I wish you would, I should think some of
your Admiralty Board might be likely to have it in their power."

* * * * *

LETTER 261. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, February 15. 1817.

"I have received your two letters, but not the parcel you mention.
As the Waterloo spoils are arrived, I will make you a present of
them, if you choose to accept of them; pray do.

"I do not exactly understand from your letter what has been
omitted, or what not, in the publication; but I shall see probably
some day or other. I could not attribute any but a _good_ motive to
Mr. Gifford or yourself in such omission; but as our politics are
so very opposite, we should probably differ as to the passages.
However, if it is only a _note_ or notes, or a line or so, it
cannot signify. You say 'a _poem_;' _what_ poem? You can tell me in
your next.

"Of Mr. Hobhouse's quarrel with the Quarterly Review, I know very
little except * * 's article itself, which was certainly harsh
enough; but I quite agree that it would have been better not to
answer--particularly after Mr. _W.W._, who never more will trouble
you, trouble you. I have been uneasy, because Mr. H. told me that
his letter or preface was to be addressed to me. Now, he and I are
friends of many years; I have many obligations to him, and he none
to me, which have not been cancelled and more than repaid; but Mr.
Gifford and I are friends also, and he has moreover been literally
so, through thick and thin, in despite of difference of years,
morals, habits, and even _politics_; and therefore I feel in a very
awkward situation between the two, Mr. Gifford and my friend
Hobhouse, and can only wish that they had no difference, or that
such as they have were accommodated. The Answer I have not seen,
for--it is odd enough for people so intimate--but Mr. Hobhouse and
I are very sparing of our literary confidences. For example, the
other day he wished to have a MS. of the third Canto to read over
to his brother, &c., which was refused;--and I have never seen his
journals, nor he mine--(I only kept the short one of the mountains
for my sister)--nor do I think that hardly ever he or I saw any of
the other's productions previous to their publication.

"The article in the Edinburgh Review on Coleridge I have not seen;
but whether I am attacked in it or not, or in any other of the same
journal, I shall never think ill of Mr. Jeffrey on that account,
nor forget that his conduct towards me has been certainly most
handsome during the last four or more years.

"I forgot to mention to you that a kind of Poem in dialogue[128]
(in blank verse) or Drama, from which 'The Incantation' is an
extract, begun last summer in Switzerland, is finished; it is in
three acts; but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable
kind. Almost all the persons--but two or three--are Spirits of the
earth and air, or the waters; the scene is in the Alps; the hero a
kind of magician, who is tormented by a species of remorse, the
cause of which is left half unexplained. He wanders about invoking
these Spirits, which appear to him, and are of no use; he at last
goes to the very abode of the Evil Principle, _in propria persona_,
to evocate a ghost, which appears, and gives him an ambiguous and
disagreeable answer; and in the third act he is found by his
attendants dying in a tower where he had studied his art. You may
perceive by this outline that I have no great opinion of this piece
of fantasy; but I have at least rendered it _quite impossible_ for
the stage, for which my intercourse with Drury Lane has given me
the greatest contempt.

"I have not even copied it off, and feel too lazy at present to
attempt the whole; but when I have, I will send it you, and you may
either throw it into the fire or not."

[Footnote 128: Manfred.]

* * * * *

LETTER 262. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, February 25. 1817.

"I wrote to you the other day in answer to your letter; at present
I would trouble you with a commission, if you would be kind enough
to undertake it.

"You, perhaps, know Mr. Love, the jeweller, of Old Bond Street? In
1813, when in the intention of returning to Turkey, I purchased of
him, and paid (_argent comptant_) for about a dozen snuff-boxes, of
more or less value, as presents for some of my Mussulman
acquaintance. These I have now with me. The other day, having
occasion to make an alteration in the lid of one (to place a
portrait in it), it has turned out to be _silver-gilt_ instead of
_gold_, for which last it was sold and paid for. This was
discovered by the workman in trying it, before taking off the
hinges and working upon the lid. I have of course recalled and
preserved the box _in statu quo_. What I wish you to do is, to see
the said Mr. Love, and inform him of this circumstance, adding,
from me, that I will take care he shall not have done this with
impunity.

"If there is no remedy in law, there is at least the equitable one
of making known his _guilt_,--that is, his silver-_gilt_, and be
d----d to him.

"I shall carefully preserve all the purchases I made of him on that
occasion for my return, as the plague in Turkey is a barrier to
travelling there at present, or rather the endless quarantine which
would be the consequence before one could land in coming back. Pray
state the matter to him with due ferocity.

"I sent you the other day some extracts from a kind of Drama which
I had begun in Switzerland and finished here; you will tell me if
they are received. They were only in a letter. I have not yet had
energy to copy it out, or I would send you the whole in different
covers.

"The Carnival closed this day last week.

"Mr. Hobhouse is still at Rome, I believe. I am at present a little
unwell;--sitting up too late and some subsidiary dissipations have
lowered my blood a good deal; but I have at present the quiet and
temperance of Lent before me.

"Believe me, &c.

"P.S. Remember me to Mr. Gifford--I have not received your parcel
or parcels.--Look into 'Moore's (Dr. Moore's) View of Italy' for
me; in one of the volumes you will find an account of the _Doge
Valiere_ (it ought to be Falieri) and his conspiracy, or the
motives of it. Get it transcribed for me, and send it in a letter
to me soon. I want it, and cannot find so good an account of that
business here; though the veiled patriot, and the place where he
was crowned, and afterwards decapitated, still exist and are shown.
I have searched all their histories; but the policy of the old
aristocracy made their writers silent on his motives, which were a
private grievance against one of the patricians.

"I mean to write a tragedy on the subject, which appears to me very
dramatic; an old man, jealous, and conspiring against the state of
which he was the actually reigning chief. The last circumstance
makes it the most remarkable and only fact of the kind in all
history of all nations."

* * * * *

LETTER 263. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, February 28. 1817.

"You will, perhaps, complain as much of the frequency of my letters
now, as you were wont to do of their rarity. I think this is the
fourth within as many moons. I feel anxious to hear from you, even
more than usual, because your last indicated that you were unwell.
At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The Carnival--that
is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o'nights, had
knocked me up a little. But it is over,--and it is now Lent, with
all its abstinence and sacred music.

"The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went,
as also to most of the ridottos, &c. &c.; and, though I did not
dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out
the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of
twenty-nine.

"So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword out-wears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

I have lately had some news of litter_atoor_, as I heard the editor
of the Monthly pronounce it once upon a time. I hear that W.W. has
been publishing and responding to the attacks of the Quarterly, in
the learned Perry's Chronicle. I read his poesies last autumn, and,
amongst them, found an epitaph on his bull-dog, and another on
_myself_. But I beg leave to assure him (like the astrologer
Partridge) that I am not only alive now, but was alive also at the
time he wrote it. Hobhouse has (I hear, also) expectorated a letter
against the Quarterly, addressed to me. I feel awkwardly situated
between him and Gifford, both being my friends.

"And this is your month of going to press--by the body of Diana! (a
Venetian oath,) I feel as anxious--but not fearful for you--as if
it were myself coming out in a work of humour, which would, you
know, be the antipodes of all my previous publications. I don't
think you have any thing to dread but your own reputation. You must
keep up to that. As you never showed me a line of your work, I do
not even know your measure; but you must send me a copy by Murray
forthwith, and then you shall hear what I think. I dare say you are
in a pucker. Of all authors, you are the only really _modest_ one I
ever met with,--which would sound oddly enough to those who
recollect your morals when you were young--that is, when you were
_extremely_ young--don't mean to stigmatise you either with years
or morality.

"I believe I told you that the E.R. had attacked me, in an article
on Coleridge (I have not seen it)--'_Et tu_, Jeffrey?'--'there is
nothing but roguery in villanous man.' But I absolve him of all
attacks, present and future; for I think he had already pushed his
clemency in my behoof to the utmost, and I shall always think well
of him. I only wonder he did not begin before, as my domestic
destruction was a fine opening for all the world, of which all who
could did well to avail themselves.

"If I live ten years longer, you will see, however, that it is not
over with me--I don't mean in literature, for that is nothing; and
it may seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But
you will see that I shall do something or other--the times and
fortune permitting--that, 'like the cosmogony, or creation of the
world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.' But I doubt
whether my constitution will hold out. I have, at intervals,
ex_or_cised it most devilishly.

"I have not yet fixed a time of return, but I think of the spring.
I shall have been away a year in April next. You never mention
Rogers, nor Hodgson, your clerical neighbour, who has lately got a
living near you. Has he also got a child yet?--his desideratum,
when I saw him last.

"Pray let me hear from you, at your time and leisure, believing me
ever and truly and affectionately," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 264. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, March 3. 1817.

"In acknowledging the arrival of the article from the
'Quarterly[129],' which I received two days ago, I cannot express
myself better than in the words of my sister Augusta, who (speaking
of it) says, that it is written in a spirit 'of the most feeling
and kind nature.' It is, however, something more; it seems to me
(as far as the subject of it may be permitted to judge) to be
_very well_ written as a composition, and I think will do the
journal no discredit, because even those who condemn its partiality
must praise its generosity. The temptations to take another and a
less favourable view of the question have been so great and
numerous, that, what with public opinion, politics, &c. he must be
a gallant as well as a good man, who has ventured in that place,
and at this time, to write such an article even anonymously. Such
things are, however, their own reward; and I even flatter myself
that the writer, whoever he may be (and I have no guess), will not
regret that the perusal of this has given me as much gratification
as any composition of that nature could give, and more than any
other has given,--and I have had a good many in my time of one kind
or the other. It is not the mere praise, but there is a _tact_ and
a _delicacy_ throughout, not only with regard to me, but to
_others_, which, as it had not been observed _elsewhere_, I had
till now doubted whether it could be observed _any where_.

"Perhaps some day or other you will know or tell me the writer's
name. Be assured, had the article been a harsh one, I should not
have asked it.

"I have lately written to you frequently, with _extracts_, &c.,
which I hope you have received, or will receive, with or before
this letter.--Ever since the conclusion of the Carnival I have been
unwell, (do not mention this, on any account, to Mrs. Leigh; for if
I grow worse, she will know it too soon, and if I get better, there
is no occasion that she should know it at all,) and have hardly
stirred out of the house. However, I don't want a physician, and
if I did, very luckily those of Italy are the worst in the world,
so that I should still have a chance. They have, I believe, one
famous surgeon, Vacca, who lives at Pisa, who might be useful in
case of dissection:--but he is some hundred miles off. My malady is
a sort of lowish fever, originating from what my 'pastor and
master,' Jackson, would call 'taking too much out of one's self.'
However, I am better within this day or two.

"I missed seeing the new Patriarch's procession to St. Mark's the
other day (owing to my indisposition), with six hundred and fifty
priests in his rear--a 'goodly army.' The admirable government of
Vienna, in its edict from thence, authorising his installation,
prescribed, as part of the pageant, 'a _coach_ and four horses.' To
show how very, very '_German_ to the matter' this was, you have
only to suppose our parliament commanding the Archbishop of
Canterbury to proceed from Hyde Park Corner to St. Paul's Cathedral
in the Lord Mayor's barge, or the Margate hoy. There is but St.
Mark's Place in all Venice broad enough for a carriage to move, and
it is paved with large smooth flag-stones, so that the chariot and
horses of Elijah himself would be puzzled to manoeuvre upon it.
Those of Pharaoh might do better; for the canals--and particularly
the Grand Canal--are sufficiently capacious and extensive for his
whole host. Of course, no coach could be attempted; but the
Venetians, who are very naive as well as arch, were much amused
with the ordinance.

"The Armenian Grammar is published; but my Armenian studies are
suspended for the present till my head aches a little less. I sent
you the other day, in two covers, the first Act of 'Manfred,' a
drama as mad as Nat. Lee's Bedlam tragedy, which was in 25 acts and
some odd scenes:--mine is but in Three Acts.

"I find I have begun this letter at the wrong end: never mind; I
must end it, then, at the right.

"Yours ever very truly and obligedly," &c.

[Footnote 129: An article in No. 31. of this Review, written, as Lord
Byron afterwards discovered, by Sir Walter Scott, and well meriting, by
the kind and generous spirit that breathes through it, the warm and
lasting gratitude it awakened in the noble poet.]

* * * * *

LETTER 265. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, March 9. 1817.

"In remitting the third Act of the sort of dramatic poem of which
you will by this time have received the two first (at least I hope
so), which were sent within the last three weeks, I have little to
observe, except that you must not publish it (if it ever is
published) without giving me previous notice. I have really and
truly no notion whether it is good or bad; and as this was not the
case with the principal of my former publications, I am, therefore,
inclined to rank it very humbly. You will submit it to Mr. Gifford,
and to whomsoever you please besides. With regard to the question
of copyright (if it ever comes to publication), I do not know
whether you would think _three hundred_ guineas an over-estimate;
if you do, you may diminish it: I do not think it worth more; so
you may see I make some difference between it and the others.

"I have received your two Reviews (but not the 'Tales of my
Landlord'); the Quarterly I acknowledged particularly to you, on
its arrival, ten days ago. What you tell me of Perry petrifies me;
it is a rank imposition. In or about February or March, 1816, I was
given to understand that Mr. Croker was not only a coadjutor in the
attacks of the Courier in 1814, but the author of some lines
tolerably ferocious, then recently published in a morning paper.
Upon this I wrote a reprisal. The whole of the lines I have
forgotten, and even the purport of them I scarcely remember; for on
_your_ assuring me that he was not, &c. &c., I put them into the
_fire before your face_, and there _never was_ but that _one rough_
copy. Mr. Davies, the only person who ever heard them read, wanted
a copy, which I refused. If, however, by some _impossibility_,
which I cannot divine, the ghost of these rhymes should walk into
the world, I never will deny what I have really written, but hold
myself personally responsible for satisfaction, though I reserve to
myself the right of disavowing all or any _fabrications_. To the
previous facts you are a witness, and best know how far my
recapitulation is correct; and I request that you will inform Mr.
Perry from me, that I wonder he should permit such an abuse of my
name in his paper; I say an _abuse_, because my absence, at least,
demands some respect, and my presence and positive sanction could
alone justify him in such a proceeding, even were the lines mine;
and if false, there are no words for him. I repeat to you that the
original was burnt before you on your _assurance_, and there
_never_ was a _copy_, nor even a verbal repetition,--very much to
the discomfort of some zealous Whigs, who bored me for them (having
heard it bruited by Mr. Davies that there were such matters) to no
purpose; for, having written them solely with the notion that Mr.
Croker was the aggressor, and for _my own_ and not party reprisals,
I would not lend me to the zeal of any sect when I was made aware
that he was not the writer of the offensive passages. _You know_,
if there was such a thing, I would not deny it. I mentioned it
openly at the time to you, and you will remember why and where I
destroyed it; and no power nor wheedling on earth should have made,
or could make, me (if I recollected them) give a copy after that,
unless I was well assured that Mr. Croker was really the author of
that which you assured me he was not.

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