The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 106

Sunday, March 20.

I intended to go to Lady Hardwicke's, [1] but won't. I always begin the day with a bias towards going to parties; but, as the evening advances, my stimulus fails, and I hardly ever go out--and, when I do, always regret it. This might have been a pleasant one;--at least, the hostess is a very superior woman. Lady Lansdowne's [2] to-morrow--Lady Heathcote's [3] Wednesday. Um!--I must spur myself into going to some of them, or it will look like rudeness, and it is better to do as other people do--confound them!

Redde Machiavel, [4] parts of Chardin, and Sismondi, and Bandello--by starts. Redde the _Edinburgh_, 44, just come out. In the beginning of the article on Edgeworth's _Patronage_, I have gotten a high compliment, I perceive. [5] Whether this is creditable to me, I know not; but it does honour to the editor, because he once abused me. Many a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its censure, or _can_ praise the man it has once attacked. I have often, since my return to England, heard Jeffrey most highly commended by those who know him for things independent of his talents. I admire him for _this_--not because he has _praised me_ (I have been so praised elsewhere and abused, alternately, that mere habit has rendered me as indifferent to both as a man at twenty-six can be to any thing), but because he is, perhaps, the _only man_ who, under the relations in which he and I stand, or stood, with regard to each other, would have had the liberality to act thus; none but a great soul dared hazard it. The height on which he stands has not made him giddy;--a little scribbler would have gone on cavilling to the end of the chapter. As to the justice of his panegyric, that is matter of taste. There are plenty to question it, and glad, too, of the opportunity.

Lord Erskine called to-day. He means to carry down his reflections on the war--or rather wars--to the present day. I trust that he will. Must send to Mr. Murray to get the binding of my copy of his pamphlet finished, as Lord E. has promised me to correct it, and add some marginal notes to it. Any thing in his handwriting will be a treasure, which will gather compound interest from years. Erskine has high expectations of Mackintosh's promised History. Undoubtedly it must be a cla.s.sic, when finished. [6]

Sparred with Jackson again yesterday morning, and shall to-morrow. I feel all the better for it, in spirits, though my arms and shoulders are very stiff from it. Mem. to attend the pugilistic dinner:--Marquess Huntley [7] is in the chair.

Lord Erskine thinks that ministers must be in peril of going out. So much the better for him. To me it is the same who are in or out;--we want something more than a change of ministers, and some day we will have it.

I remember, in riding from Chrisso to Castri (Delphos), along the sides of Parna.s.sus, I saw six eagles in the air. It is uncommon to see so many together; and it was the number--not the species, which is common enough--that excited my attention.

The last bird I ever fired at was an _eaglet_, on the sh.o.r.e of the Gulf of Lepanto, near Vost.i.tza. It was only wounded, and I tried to save it, the eye was so bright; but it pined, and died in a few days; and I never did since, and never will, attempt the death of another bird. I wonder what put these two things into my head just now? I have been reading Sismondi, and there is nothing there that could induce the recollection.

I am mightily taken with Braccio di Montone, Giovanni Galeazzo, and Eccelino. But the last is _not_ Bracciaferro (of the same name), Count of Ravenna, whose history I want to trace. There is a fine engraving in Lavater, from a picture by Fuseli, of _that_ Ezzelin, over the body of Meduna, punished by him for a _hitch_ in her constancy during his absence in the Crusades. He was right--but I want to know the story. [8]

[Footnote 1: Philip Yorke, third Earl of Hardwicke, married, in 1782, Elizabeth, daughter of the fifth Earl of Balcarres.]

[Footnote 2: Louisa Emma, daughter of the second Earl of Ilchester, was married, in 1808, to the Marquis of Lansdowne, at that time Lord Henry Petty.]

[Footnote 3: Katherine Sophia, daughter of John Manners, of Grantham Grange, co. Lincoln, was married, in 1793, to Sir Gilbert Heathcote.]

[Footnote 4: Machiavelli's 'Opere', 13 vols., 'in russia, Milan' (1804); Sismondi's 'De la Litterature du Midi', 4 vols., 'in russia', Paris (1813); and Chardin's 'Voyages en Perse', 10 vols. and Atlas (1811), appear in the Catalogue of Sale.]

[Footnote 5:

"It is no slight consolation to us, while suffering under alternate reproaches for ill-timed severity, and injudicious praise, to reflect that no very mischievous effects have as yet resulted to the literature of the country, from this imputed misbehaviour on our part.

Powerful genius, we are persuaded, will not be repressed even by unjust castigation; nor will the most excessive praise that can be lavished by sincere admiration ever abate the efforts that are fitted to attain to excellence. Our alleged severity upon a youthful production has not prevented the n.o.ble author from becoming the first poet of his time."

'Edinburgh Review', vol. xxii. p. 416.]

[Footnote 6: Mackintosh wrote (1) a 'History of England' for Lardner's 'Cabinet Cyclopaedia' (1830); (2) a 'History of the Revolution in England' (1834).]

[Footnote 7: Afterwards fifth, and last, Duke of Gordon. He died in May, 1836.]

[Footnote 8:

"Fuseli's picture of Ezzelin Bracciaferro musing over Meduna, slain by him for disloyalty during his absence in the Holy Land, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780. Mr. Knowles, in his 'Life' of the painter, relates the following anecdote: 'Fuseli frequently invented the subject of his pictures without the aid of the poet or historian, as in his composition of Ezzelin, Belisaire, and some others: these he denominated "philosophical ideas intuitive, or sentiment personified."

On one occasion he was much amused by the following inquiry of Lord Byron: "I have been looking in vain, Mr. Fuseli, for some months, in the poets and historians of Italy, for the subject of your picture of Ezzelin: pray where is it to be found?" "Only in my brain, my Lord,"

was the answer: "for I invented it"' (vol. i. p. 403)" (Moore).]

Tuesday, March 22.

Last night, _party_ at Lansdowne House. To-night, _party_ at Lady Charlotte Greville's [1]--deplorable waste of time, and something of temper. Nothing imparted--nothing acquired--talking without ideas:--if any thing like _thought_ in my mind, it was not on the subjects on which we were gabbling. Heigho!--and in this way half London pa.s.s what is called life. To-morrow there is Lady Heathcote's--shall I go? yes--to punish myself for not having a pursuit.

Let me see--what did I see? The only person who much struck me was Lady S--d's [Stafford's] eldest daughter, Lady C. L. [2] [Charlotte Leveson].

They say she is _not_ pretty. I don't know--every thing is pretty that pleases; but there is an air of _soul_ about her--and her colour changes--and there is that shyness of the antelope (which I delight in) in her manner so much, that I observed her more than I did any other woman in the rooms, and only looked at any thing else when I thought she might perceive and feel embarra.s.sed by my scrutiny. After all, there may be something of a.s.sociation in this. She is a friend of Augusta's, and whatever she loves I can't help liking.

Her mother, the Marchioness, talked to me a little; and I was twenty times on the point of asking her to introduce me to _sa fille_, but I stopped short. This comes of that affray with the Carlisles.

Earl Grey told me laughingly of a paragraph in the last _Moniteur_, which has stated, among other symptoms of rebellion, some particulars of the _sensation_ occasioned in all our government gazettes by the "tear"

lines,--_only_ amplifying, in its re-statement, an epigram (by the by, no epigram except in the _Greek_ acceptation of the word) into a _roman_. I wonder the _Couriers_, etc., etc., have not translated that part of the _Moniteur_, with additional comments. [3]

The Princess of Wales has requested Fuseli to paint from 'The Corsair'--leaving to him the choice of any pa.s.sage for the subject: so Mr. Locke tells me. Tired, jaded, selfish, and supine--must go to bed.

_Roman_, at least _Romance_, means a song sometimes, as in the Spanish.

I suppose this is the _Moniteur's_ meaning, unless he has confused it with 'The Corsair'.

[Footnote 1: Daughter of William Henry Cavendish, third Duke of Portland, married, in 1793, to Charles Greville.]

[Footnote 2: Afterwards Countess of Surrey.]

[Footnote 3:

"Londres le 9 Mars... On vient de publier une caricature insolente et grossiere centre le mariage projete (de la Princesse de Galles) et centre le Prince d'Orange. En commentant cette gravure, le 'Town Talk'

a ose avancer que la Princesse Charlotte detestait son epoux futur, et que ses veritables affections etaient sacrifices a des vues politiques. Le Lord Byron a fait de ce bruit populaire le sujet d'une romance."