The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume I Part 34

[Footnote 2: A third letter to Jackson, written from Newstead, December 12, 1808, runs as follows:--

"My Dear Jack,--You will get the greyhound from the owner at any price, and as many more of the same breed (male or female) as you can collect.

"Tell D'Egville his dress shall be returned--I am obliged to him for the pattern. I am sorry you should have so much trouble, but I was not aware of the difficulty of procuring the animals in question. I shall have finished part of my mansion in a few weeks, and, if you can pay me a visit at Christmas, I shall be very glad to see you.

Believe me, etc."

In a bill, for 1808, sent in to Byron by Messrs. Finn and Johnson, tailors, of Nottingham, appears the following item: "Masquerade Jackett with belt and rich Turban, 11:9:6." This is probably the dress made from d'Egville's pattern.

James d'Egville learned dancing from Gaetano Vestris, well known at the Court of Frederick the Great, and from Gardel, the Court teacher of Marie Antoinette. He, his brother Louis, and his sister Madame Michau, were the most famous teachers of the day in England. The real name of the family was Hervey; that of d'Egville was a.s.sumed for professional purposes. James d'Egville enjoyed a great reputation, both as an actor and a dancer, in Paris and London. He was Acting-Manager and Director of the King's Theatre (October, 1807, to January, 1808), but was dismissed, owing to a disagreement between the managers, in the course of which he was accused of French proclivities and republican principles (see Waters's 'Opera-Gla.s.s', pp. 133-145). A man of taste and cultivation, he produced some musical extravaganzas and ballets; 'e.g. Don Quichotte ou les Noces de Gamache, L'Elevement d'Adonis, The Rape of Dejanira', etc.

A coloured print, in the possession of his great-nephew, Mr. Louis d'Egville, represents him, with Deshayes, in one of his most successful appearances, the ballet-pantomime of 'Achille et Deidamie'. He was an enthusiastic sportsman.]

100.--To his Mother.

Newstead Abbey, Notts, October 7, 1808.

Dear Madam,--I have no beds for the Hansons or any body else at present. The Hansons sleep at Mansfield. I do not know that I resemble Jean Jacques Rousseau. [1] I have no ambition to be like so ill.u.s.trious a madman--but this I know, that I shall live in my own manner, and as much alone as possible. When my rooms are ready I shall be glad to see you: at present it would be improper, and uncomfortable to both parties. You can hardly object to my rendering my mansion habitable, notwithstanding my departure for Persia in March (or May at farthest), since _you_ will be _tenant_ till my return; and in case of any accident (for I have already arranged my will to be drawn up the moment I am twenty-one), I have taken care you shall have the house and manor for _life_, besides a sufficient income. So you see my improvements are not entirely selfish. As I have a friend here, we will go to the Infirmary Ball on the 12th; we will drink tea with Mrs.

Byron [2] at eight o'clock, and expect to see you at the ball. If that lady will allow us a couple of rooms to dress in, we shall be highly obliged:--if we are at the ball by ten or eleven, it will be time enough, and we shall return to Newstead about three or four. Adieu.

Believe me, yours very truly,

BYRON.

[Footnote 1: In Byron's 'Detached Thoughts', quoted by Moore ('Life', p.

72), he thus refers to the comparison with Rousseau:--

"My mother, before I was twenty, would have it that I was like Rousseau, and Madame de Stael used to say so too in 1813, and the 'Edinburgh Review' has something of the sort in its critique on the fourth canto of 'Childe Harold'. I can't see any point of resemblance:--he wrote prose, I verse: he was of the people; I of the aristocracy: he was a philosopher; I am none: he published his first work at forty; I mine at eighteen: his first essay brought him universal applause; mine the contrary: he married his housekeeper; I could not keep house with my wife: he thought all the world in a plot against him; my little world seems to think me in a plot against it, if I may judge by their abuse in print and coterie: he liked botany; I like flowers, herbs, and trees, but know nothing of their pedigrees: he wrote music; I limit my knowledge of it to what I catch by _ear_--I never could learn any thing by _study_, not even a _language_--it was all by rote and ear, and memory: he had a _bad_ memory; I _had_, at least, an excellent one (ask Hodgson the poet--a good judge, for he has an astonis.h.i.+ng one): he wrote with hesitation and care; I with rapidity, and rarely with pains: _he_ could never ride, nor swim, nor 'was cunning of fence;' _I_ am an excellent swimmer, a decent, though not at all a das.h.i.+ng, rider, (having staved in a rib at eighteen, in the course of scampering,) and was sufficient of fence, particularly of the Highland broadsword,--not a bad boxer, when I could keep my temper, which was difficult, but which I strove to do ever since I knocked down Mr. Purling, and put his knee-pan out (with the gloves on), in Angelo's and Jackson's rooms in 1806, during the sparring, --and I was, besides, a very fair cricketer,--one of the Harrow eleven, when we played against Eton in 1805. Besides, Rousseau's way of life, his country, his manners, his whole character, were so very different, that I am at a loss to conceive how such a comparison could have arisen, as it has done three several times, and all in rather a remarkable manner. I forgot to say that _he_ was also short-sighted, and that hitherto my eyes have been the contrary, to such a degree that, in the largest theatre of Bologna, I distinguished and read some busts and inscriptions, painted near the stage, from a box so distant and so _darkly_ lighted, that none of the company (composed of young and very bright-eyed people, some of them in the same box,) could make out a letter, and thought it was a trick, though I had never been in that theatre before.

"Altogether, I think myself justified in thinking the comparison not well founded. I don't say this out of pique, for Rousseau was a great man; and the thing, if true, were flattering enough;--but I have no idea of being pleased with the chimera."]

[Footnote 2: The Hon. Mrs. George Byron, 'nee' Frances Levett, Byron's great-aunt, widow of the Hon. George Byron, fourth brother of William, fifth Lord Byron.]

101.--To his Mother.

Newstead Abbey, November 2, 1808.

DEAR MOTHER,--If you please, we will forget the things you mention. I have no desire to remember them. When my rooms are finished, I shall be happy to see you; as I tell but the truth, you will not suspect me of evasion. I am furnis.h.i.+ng the house more for you than myself, and I shall establish you in it before I sail for India, which I expect to do in March, if nothing particularly obstructive occurs. I am now fitting up the _green_ drawing-room; the red for a bed-room, and the rooms over as sleeping-rooms. They will be soon completed;--at least I hope so.

I wish you would inquire of Major Watson (who is an old Indian) what things will be necessary to provide for my voyage. I have already procured a friend to write to the Arabic Professor at Cambridge, [1]

for some information I am anxious to procure. I can easily get letters from government to the amba.s.sadors, consuls, etc., and also to the governors at Calcutta and Madras. I shall place my property and my will in the hands of trustees till my return, and I mean to appoint you one. From Hanson I have heard nothing--when I do, you shall have the particulars.

After all, you must own my project is not a bad one. If I do not travel now, I never shall, and all men should one day or other. I have at present no connections to keep me at home; no wife, or unprovided sisters, brothers, etc. I shall take care of you, and when I return I may possibly become a politician. A few years' knowledge of other countries than our own will not incapacitate me for that part. If we see no nation but our own, we do not give mankind a fair chance;--it is from _experience_, not books, we ought to judge of them. There is nothing like inspection, and trusting to our own senses.

Yours, etc.

[Footnote 1: The Rev. John Palmer, Fellow of St. John's, Adam's Professor of Arabic (1804-19).]

102.--To Francis Hodgson. [1]

Newstead Abbey, Notts., Nov. 3, 1808.

My Dear Hodgson,--I expected to have heard ere this the event of your interview with the mysterious Mr. Haynes, my volunteer correspondent; however, as I had no business to trouble you with the adjustment of my concerns with that ill.u.s.trious stranger, I have no right to complain of your silence.

You have of course seen Drury, [2] in all the pleasing palpitations of antic.i.p.ated wedlock. Well! he has still something to look forward to, and his present extacies are certainly enviable. "Peace be with him and with his spirit," and his flesh also, at least just now ...

Hobhouse and your humble are still here. Hobhouse hunts, etc., and I do nothing; we dined the other day with a neighbouring Esquire (not Collet of Staines), and regretted your absence, as the Bouquet of Staines was scarcely to be compared to our last "feast of reason." You know, laughing is the sign of a rational animal; so says Dr. Smollett.

I think so, too, but unluckily my spirits don't always keep pace with my opinions. I had not so much scope for risibility the other day as I could have wished, for I was seated near a woman, to whom, when a boy, I was as much attached as boys generally are, and more than a man should be. [3] I knew this before I went, and was determined to be valiant, and converse with _sang froid_; but instead I forgot my valour and my nonchalance, and never opened my lips even to laugh, far less to speak, and the lady was almost as absurd as myself, which made both the object of more observation than if we had conducted ourselves with easy indifference. You will think all this great nonsense; if you had seen it, you would have thought it still more ridiculous. What fools we are! We cry for a plaything, which, like children, we are never satisfied with till we break open, though like them we cannot get rid of it by putting it in the fire.

I have tried for Gifford's _Epistle to Pindar_,[4] and the bookseller says the copies were cut up for _waste paper_; if you can procure me a copy I shall be much obliged. Adieu!

Believe me, my dear Sir, yours ever sincerely,

BYRON.

[Footnote 1: Francis Hodgson (1781-1852), educated at Eton (1794-99) and at King's College, Cambridge, Scholar (1799), Fellow (1802), hesitated between literature and the bar as his profession. For three years he was a private tutor, for one (1806) a master at Eton. In 1807 he became a resident tutor at King's. It was not till 1812 that he decided to take orders. Two years later he married Miss Tayler, a sister of Mrs. Henry Drury, and took a country curacy. In 1816 he was given the Eton living of Bakewell, in Derbys.h.i.+re, became Archdeacon of Derby in 1836, and in 1840 Provost of Eton. At Eton he died December 29, 1852.

Hodgson's literary facility was extraordinary. He rhymed with an ease which almost rivals that of Byron, and from 1807 to 1818 he poured out quant.i.ties of verse, English and Latin, original and translated, besides writing articles for the 'Quarterly', the 'Monthly', and the 'Critical'

Reviews. He published his 'Translation of Juvenal' in 1807, in which he was a.s.sisted by Drury and Merivale; 'Lady Jane Grey', a Tale; and other Poems (1809); 'Sir Edgar, a Tale' (1810); 'Leaves of Laurel' (1812); 'Charlemagne, an Epic Poem' (1815), translated from the original of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, by S. Butler and Francis Hodgson; 'The Friends, a Poem in Four Books; Mythology for Versification' (1831); 'A Charge, as Archdeacon of Derby' (1837); 'Sermons' (1846); and other works.

His acquaintance with Byron began in 1807, when Byron was meditating 'British Bards', and Hodgson, provoked by a review of his 'Juvenal' in the 'Edinburgh Review', was composing his 'Gentle Alterative prepared for the Reviewers', which appears on pp. 56, 57 of 'Lady Jane Grey'.

There are some curious points of resemblance between the two poems, though Hodgson's lines can hardly be compared for force and sting to 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers'. Like Byron (see 'English Bards, etc'., line 513, note 7), he makes merry over the blunder of the 'Edinburgh' reviewer, who, in an article on Payne Knight's 'Principles of Taste', severely criticized some Greek lines which he attributed to Knight, but which, in fact, were by Pindar:--