The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 8

Dear Hodgson,--I have been a good deal in your company lately, for I have been reading 'Juvenal' and 'Lady Jane', [1] etc., for the first time since my return. The Tenth Sat'e has always been my favourite, as I suppose indeed of everybody's. It is the finest recipe for making one miserable with his life, and content to walk out of it, in any language.

I should think it might be redde with great effect to a man dying without much pain, in preference to all the stuff that ever was said or sung in churches. But you are a deacon, and I say no more. Ah! you will marry and become lethargic, like poor Hal of Harrow, [2] who yawns at 10 o' nights, and orders caudle annually.

I wrote an answer to yours fully some days ago, and, being quite alone and able to frank, you must excuse this subsequent epistle, which will cost nothing but the trouble of deciphering. I am expectant of agents to accompany me to Rochdale, a journey not to be antic.i.p.ated with pleasure; though I feel very restless where I am, and shall probably s.h.i.+p off for Greece again; what nonsense it is to talk of Soul, when a cloud makes it _melancholy_ and wine makes it _mad_.

Collet of Staines, your "most kind host," has lost that girl you saw of his. She grew to five feet eleven, and might have been G.o.d knows how high if it had pleased Him to renew the race of Anak; but she fell by a ptisick, a fresh proof of the folly of begetting children. You knew Matthews. Was he not an intellectual giant? I knew few better or more intimately, and none who deserved more admiration in point of ability.

Scrope Davies has been here on his way to Harrowgate; I am his guest in October at King's, where we will "drink deep ere we depart." "Won't you, won't you, won't you, won't you come, Mr. Mug?" [3] We did not amalgamate properly at Harrow; it was somehow rainy, and then a wife makes such a damp; but in a seat of celibacy I will have revenge. Don't you hate helping first, and losing the wings of chicken? And then, conversation is always flabby. Oh! in the East women are in their proper sphere, and one has--no conversation at all. My house here is a delightful matrimonial mansion. When I wed, my spouse and I will be so happy!--one in each wing.

I presume you are in motion from your Herefords.h.i.+re station, [4] and Drury must be gone back to Gerund Grinding. I have not been at Cambridge since I took my M.A. degree in 1808. _Eheu fugaces!_ I look forward to meeting you and Scrope there with the feelings of other times. Capt.

Hobhouse is at Enniscorthy in Juverna. I wish he was in England.

Yours ever,

B.

[Footnote 1: See 'Letters', vol. i. p. 195, 'note' I. [Footnote 1 of Letter 102]]

[Footnote 2: For Henry Drury, see 'Letters', vol. i. p. 41, 'note' 2.

[Footnote 1 of Letter 14]]

[Footnote 3: Byron may possibly allude to "Matthew Mug," a character in Foote's 'Mayor of Garratt', said to be intended for the Duke of Newcastle. In act ii. sc. 2 of the comedy occurs this pa.s.sage--

"'Heel-Tap'. Now, neighbours, have a good caution that this Master Mug does not cajole you; he is a d.a.m.n'd palavering fellow."

But there is no pa.s.sage in the play which exactly corresponds with Byron's quotation.]

[Footnote 4: Hodgson was staying with his uncle, the Rev. Richard c.o.ke, of Lower Moor, Herefords.h.i.+re.]

183.--To R.C. Dallas.

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 10, 1811.

Dear Sir,--I rather think in one of the opening stanzas of 'Childe Harold' there is this line:

'Tis said at times the sullen tear would start.

Now, a line or two after, I have a repet.i.tion of the epithet "_sullen_ reverie;" so (if it be so) let us have "speechless reverie," or "silent reverie;" but, at all events, do away the recurrence.

Yours ever,

B.

184.--To Francis Hodgson.

Newstead Abbey, September 13, 1811.

My Dear Hodgson,--I thank you for your song, or, rather, your two songs,--your new song on love, and your _old song_ on _religion_. [1] I admire the _first_ sincerely, and in turn call upon you to _admire_ the following on Anacreon Moore's new operatic farce, [2] or farcical opera--call it which you will:

Good plays are scarce, So Moore writes _Farce_; Is Fame like his so brittle?

We knew before That "_Little's" Moore_, But now _'tis Moore_ that's _Little_.

I won't dispute with you on the Arcana of your new calling; they are Bagatelles like the King of Poland's rosary. One remark, and I have done; the basis of your religion is _injustice_; the _Son_ of _G.o.d_, the _pure_, the _immaculate_, the _innocent_, is sacrificed for the _Guilty_. This proves _His_ heroism; but no more does away _man's_ guilt than a schoolboy's volunteering to be flogged for another would exculpate the dunce from negligence, or preserve him from the Rod. You degrade the Creator, in the first place, by making Him a begetter of children; and in the next you convert Him into a Tyrant over an immaculate and injured Being, who is sent into existence to suffer death for the benefit of some millions of Scoundrels, who, after all, seem as likely to be d.a.m.ned as ever. As to miracles, I agree with Hume that it is more probable men should _lie_ or be _deceived_, than that things out of the course of Nature should so happen. Mahomet wrought miracles, Brothers [3] the prophet had _proselytes_, and so would Breslaw [4] the conjuror, had he lived in the time of Tiberius.

Besides I trust that G.o.d is not a _Jew_, but the G.o.d of all Mankind; and as you allow that a virtuous Gentile may be saved, you do away the necessity of being a Jew or a Christian.

I do not believe in any revealed religion, because no religion is revealed: and if it pleases the Church to d.a.m.n me for not allowing a _nonent.i.ty_, I throw myself on the mercy of the "_Great First Cause, least understood_," who must do what is most proper; though I conceive He never made anything to be tortured in another life, whatever it may in this. I will neither read _pro_ nor _con_. G.o.d would have made His will known without books, considering how very few could read them when Jesus of Nazareth lived, had it been His pleasure to ratify any peculiar mode of wors.h.i.+p. As to your immortality, if people are to live, why die?

And our carcases, which are to rise again, are they worth raising? I hope, if mine is, that I shall have a better _pair of legs_ than I have moved on these two-and-twenty years, or I shall be sadly behind in the squeeze into Paradise. Did you ever read "Malthus on Population"? If he be right, war and pestilence are our best friends, to save us from being eaten alive, in this "best of all possible Worlds." [5]

I will write, read, and think no more; indeed, I do not wish to shock your prejudices by saying all I do think. Let us make the most of life, and leave dreams to Emanuel Swedenborg. Now to dreams of another genus--Poesies. I like your song much; but I will say no more, for fear you should think I wanted to scratch you into approbation of my past, present, or future acrostics. I shall not be at Cambridge before the middle of October; but, when I go, I should certes like to see you there before you are dubbed a deacon. Write to me, and I will rejoin.

Yours ever, BYRON.

[Footnote 1: The lines in which Hodgson answered Byron's letter on his religious opinions are quoted in the 'Memoir of the Rev. F. Hodgson', vol. i. pp. 199, 200.]

[Footnote 2: Moore's 'M.P., or The Bluestocking', was played at the Lyceum, September 9, 1811, but was soon withdrawn.]