The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 32

On Monday, after sitting up all night, I saw Bellingham launched into eternity [1], and at three the same day I saw * * * launched into the country.

I believe, in the beginning of June, I shall be down for a few days in Notts. If so, I shall beat you up 'en pa.s.sant' with Hobhouse, who is endeavouring, like you and every body else, to keep me out of sc.r.a.pes.

I meant to have written you a long letter, but I find I cannot. If any thing remarkable occurs, you will hear it from me--if good; if _bad_, there are plenty to tell it. In the mean time, do you be happy.

Ever yours, etc.

P.S.--My best wishes and respects to Mrs. Moore;--she is beautiful. I may say so even to you, for I was never more struck with a countenance.

[Footnote 1: Bellingham, while engaged in the timber trade at Archangel, fancied himself wronged by the Russian Government, and the British Amba.s.sador at St. Petersburg, Lord G. Leveson-Gower. Returning to England, he set up in Liverpool as an insurance broker, continuing to press his claims against Russia on the Ministry without success. On May 11, 1812, he shot Spencer Perceval, First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, dead in the lobby of the House of Commons.

Bellingham was hanged before Newgate on May 18. Byron took a window, says Moore ('Life', p. 164), to see the execution. He

"was accompanied on the occasion by his old schoolfellows, Mr. Bailey and Mr. John Madocks. They went together from some a.s.sembly, and, on their arriving at the spot, about three o'clock in the morning, not finding the house that was to receive them open, Mr. Madocks undertook to rouse the inmates, while Lord Byron and Mr. Bailey sauntered, arm in arm, up the street. During this interval, rather a painful scene occurred. Seeing an unfortunate woman lying on the steps of a door, Lord Byron, with some expression of compa.s.sion, offered her a few s.h.i.+llings; but, instead of accepting them, she violently pushed away his hand, and, starting up with a yell of laughter, began to mimic the lameness of his gait. He did not utter a word; but 'I could feel,'

said Mr. Bailey, 'his arm trembling within mine, as we left her.'"

In Byron's 'Detached Thoughts' is an anecdote of Baillie, whose name is here misspelt by Moore:

"Baillie (commonly called 'Long' Baillie, a very clever man, but odd) complained in riding, to our friend Scrope Davies, that he had a 'st.i.tch' in his side. 'I don't wonder at it,' said Scrope, 'for you ride like a _tailor_.' Whoever has seen B. on horseback, with his very tall figure on a small nag, would not deny the justice of the repartee."]

238.--To Bernard Barton [1].

8, St. James's St., June 1, 1812.

The most satisfactory answer to the concluding part of your letter is that Mr. Murray will republish your volume, if you still retain your inclination for the experiment, which I trust will be successful. Some weeks ago my friend Mr. Rogers showed me some of the stanzas in MS., and I then expressed my opinion of their merit, which a further perusal of the printed volume has given me no reason to revoke. I mention this, as it may not be disagreeable to you to learn that I entertained a very favourable opinion of your powers, before I was aware that such sentiments were reciprocal.

Waiving your obliging expressions as to my own productions, for which I thank you very sincerely, and a.s.sure you that I think not lightly of the praise of one whose approbation is valuable, will you allow me to talk to you candidly, not critically, on the subject of yours? You will not suspect me of a wish to discourage, since I pointed out to the publisher the propriety of complying with your wishes. I think more highly of your poetical talents than it would, perhaps, gratify you to hear expressed, for I believe, from what I observe of your mind, that you are above flattery. To come to the point, you deserve success, but we know, before Addison wrote his Cato', that desert does not always command it. But, suppose it attained:

"You know what ills the author's life a.s.sail, Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail." [2]

Do not renounce writing, but never trust entirely to authors.h.i.+p. If you have a possession, retain it; it will be, like Prior's fellows.h.i.+p [3], a last and sure resource. Compare Mr. Rogers with other authors of the day; a.s.suredly he is amongst the first of living poets, but is it to that he owes his station in society, and his intimacy in the best circles? No, it is to his prudence and respectability; the world (a bad one, I own) courts him because he has no occasion to court it. He is a poet, nor is he less so because he was something more. I am not sorry to hear that you are not tempted by the vicinity of Capel Loft, Esq're.

[4], though, if he had done for you what he has done for the Bloomfields, I should never have laughed at his rage for patronising.

But a truly const.i.tuted mind will ever be independent. That you may be so is my sincere wish, and, if others think as well of your poetry as I do, you will have no cause to complain of your readers.

Believe me, etc.

[Footnote 1: Bernard Barton (1784-1849), the friend of Charles Lamb, and the Quaker poet, to whose 'Poems and Letters' (1849) Edward FitzGerald prefixed a biographical introduction, published 'Metrical Effusions'

(1812), 'Poems by an Amateur' (1817), 'Poems' (1820), and several other works. He was for many years a clerk in a bank at Woodbridge, in Suffolk. Byron's advice to him was that of Lamb: "Keep to your bank, and your bank will keep you." Two letters, written by him to Byron in 1814, showing his admiration of the poet, and his appreciation of the generosity of his character, and part of the draft of Byron's answer, are given in Appendix IV.]

[Footnote 2:

"There mark what ills the scholar's life a.s.sail,-- Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail."

Johnson's 'Vanity of Human Wishes', line 159.]

[Footnote 3: Matthew Prior (1664-1721) became a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1688.]

[Footnote 4: For Capell Lofft and the Bloomfields, see 'Letters', vol.

i. p. 337, 'notes' I and 2 [Footnotes 4 and 5 of Letter 167.]]

239.--To Lord Holland.

June 25, 1812.

MY DEAR LORD,--I must appear very ungrateful, and have, indeed, been very negligent, but till last night I was not apprised of Lady Holland's restoration, and I shall call to-morrow to have the satisfaction, I trust, of hearing that she is well.--I hope that neither politics nor gout have a.s.sailed your Lords.h.i.+p since I last saw you, and that you also are "as well as could be expected."

The other night, at a ball, I was presented by order to our gracious Regent, who honoured me with some conversation, and professed a predilection for poetry [1].--I confess it was a most unexpected honour, and I thought of poor Brummell's [2] adventure, with some apprehension of a similar blunder. I have now great hope, in the event of Mr. Pye's [3] decease, of "warbling truth at court," like Mr. Mallet [4] of indifferent memory.--Consider, one hundred marks a year! besides the wine and the disgrace; but then remorse would make me drown myself in my own b.u.t.t before the year's end, or the finis.h.i.+ng of my first dithyrambic.--So that, after all, I shall not meditate our laureate's death by pen or poison.

Will you present my best respects to Lady Holland? and believe me, hers and yours very sincerely.

[Footnote 1: The ball was given in June, 1812, at Miss Johnson's (see 'Memoir of John Murray', vol. i. p. 212). In the words "predilection for poetry" Byron probably refers to the phrase in the Regent's letter to the Duke of York (February 13, 1812): "I have no predilections to indulge, no resentments to gratify." Moore, in the 'Twopenny Post-bag', twice fastens on the phrase. In "The Insurrection of the Papers", a dream suggested by Lord Castlereagh's speech--"It would be impossible for His Royal Highness to disengage his person from the acc.u.mulating pile of papers that encompa.s.sed it"--he writes:

"But, oh, the basest of defections!

His Letter about 'predilections'-- His own dear Letter, void of grace, Now flew up in its parent's face!"