Rejected Addresses Part 12

{5} Between 1807 and 1810. The Monthly Mirror was edited by Edward Du Bois, author of "My Pocket-Book," and by Thomas Hill; the original Paul Pry; and the Hull of Mr. Theodore Hook's novel of "Gilbert Gurney."

{6} Miss Lydia White, celebrated for her lively wit and for her blue-stocking parties, unrivalled, it is said, in "the soft realm of BLUE May Fair." She died in 1827, and is mentioned in the diaries of Scott and Byron.

{7} See note on "The Beautiful Incendiary," p. 56.

{7a} "The first piece, under the name of the loyal Mr. Fitzgerald, though as good we suppose as the original, is not very interesting.

Whether it be very like Mr. Fitzgerald or not, however, it must be allowed that the vulgarity, servility, and gross absurdity of the newspaper scribblers is well rendered."--JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

WILLIAM THOMAS FITZGERALD.--The annotator's first personal knowledge of this gentleman was at Harry Greville's Pic-Nic Theatre, in Tottenham-street, where he personated Zanga in a wig too small for his head. The second time of seeing him was at the table of old Lord Dudley, who familiarly called him Fitz, but forgot to name him in his will. The Viscount's son (recently deceased), however, liberally supplied the omission by a donation of five thousand pounds. The third and last time of encountering him was at an anniversary dinner of the Literary Fund, at the Freemasons' Tavern. Both parties, as two of the stewards, met their brethren in a small room about half an hour before dinner. The lampooner, out of delicacy, kept aloof from the poet. The latter, however, made up to him, when the following dialogue took place:

Fitzgerald (with good humour). "Mr.--, I mean to recite after dinner."

Mr. -. "Do you?"

Fitzgerald. "Yes: you'll have more of 'G.o.d bless the Regent and the Duke of York!'"

The whole of this imitation, after a lapse of twenty years, appears to the Authors too personal and sarcastic; but they may shelter themselves under a very broad mantle:

"Let hoa.r.s.e Fitzgerald bawl His creaking couplets in a tavern-hall."--Byron.

Fitzgerald actually sent in an address to the Committee on the 31st of August, 1812. It was published among the other Genuine Rejected Addresses, in one volume, in that year. The following is an extract:-

"The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near, Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear."

What a pity that, like Sterne's recording angel, it did not succeed in blotting the fire out for ever! That failing, why not adopt Gulliver's remedy?

{8} Mr. B. Wyatt, architect of Drury Lane Theatre, son of James Wyatt, architect of the Pantheon.

{9} In plain English, the Halfpenny hatch, then a footway through fields; but now, as the same bards sing elsewhere -

"St. George's Fields are fields no more, The trowel supersedes the plough; Swamps huge and inundate of yore, Are changed to civic villas now."

{10} Covent Garden Theatre was burnt down 20th September, 1808; Drury Lane Theatre (as before stated) 24th February, 1809.

{11} The east end of St. James's Palace was destroyed by fire, 21 Jan., 1809. The wardrobe of Lady Charlotte Finch (alluded to in the next line) was burnt in the fire.

{12} Honourable William Wellesley Pole, now (1854) Earl of Mornington, married, 14th March, 1812, Catherine, daughter and heir of Sir James Tylney Long, Bart; upon which occasion he a.s.sumed the additional names of Tylney and Long.

{13} "The author does not, in this instance, attempt to copy any of the higher attributes of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry; but has succeeded perfectly in the imitation of his mawkish affectations of childish simplicity and nursery stammering. We hope it will make him ashamed of his Alice Fell, and the greater part of his last volumes--of which it is by no means a parody, but a very fair, and indeed we think a flattering, imitation."--JEFFERY, Edinburgh Review.

{14} Jack and Nancy, as it was afterwards remarked to the Authors, are here made to come into the world at periods not sufficiently remote. The writers were then bachelors. One of them [James], unfortunately, still continues so, as he has thus recorded in his niece's alb.u.m:

"Should I seek Hymen's tie, As a poet I die - Ye Bened.i.c.ks, mourn my distresses!

For what little fame Is annexed to my name Is derived from Rejected Addresses."

The blunder, notwithstanding, remains unrectified. The reader of poetry is always dissatisfied with emendations: they sound discordantly upon the ear, like a modern song, by Bishop or Braham, introduced in Love in a Village.

{15} This alludes to the Young Betty mania. The writer was in the stage-box at the height of this young gentleman's popularity. One of the other occupants offered, in a loud voice, to prove that Young Betty did not understand Shakespeare. "Silence!" was the cry; but he still proceeded. "Turn him out!" was the next e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. He still vociferated. "He does not understand Shakespeare;" and was consequently shouldered into the lobby. "I'll prove it to you," said the critic to the doorkeeper. "Prove what, sir?" "That he does not understand Shakespeare." This was Moliere's housemaid with a vengeance.

Young Betty may now [1833] be seen walking about town--a portly personage, aged about forty--clad in a furred and frogged surtout; probably muttering to himself (as he has been at college), "O mihi praeteritos!" &c. [He is still alive, 1854. Master Betty, or the "Young Roscius," was born in 1791, and made his first appearance on a London stage as Achmet in "Barbarossa," at Covent Garden Theatre, on the lst of December, 1804. He was, therefore, "not quite thirteen."

He lasted two seasons.]

{16} A "Phoenix" was perhaps excusable. The first theatre in Drury Lane was called "The c.o.c.k-pit or Phoenix Theatre." Whitbread himself wrote an address, it is said, for the occasion; like the others, it had of course a Phoenix. "But Whitbread," said Sheridan, "made more of the bird than any of them; he entered into particulars, and described its wings, beak, tail, &c.; in short, it was a POULTERER'S description of a Phoenix."

{17} For an account of this anonymous gentleman, see Preface, xiii.

{18} "The author has succeeded better in copying the melody and misanthropic sentiments of Childe Harold, than the nervous and impetuous diction in which his n.o.ble biographer has embodied them.

The attempt, however, indicates very considerable power; and the flow of the verse and the construction of the poetical period are imitated with no ordinary skill."--JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{19} This would seem to show that poet and prophet are synonymous, the n.o.ble bard having afterwards returned to England, and again quitted it, under domestic circ.u.mstances painfully notorious. His good-humoured forgiveness of the Authors has already been alluded to in the Preface. Nothing of this ill.u.s.trious poet, however trivial, can be otherwise than interesting. "We know him well." At Mr.

Murray's dinner-table the annotator met him and Sir John Malcolm.

Lord Byron talked of intending to travel in Persia. "What must I do when I set off?" said he to Sir John. "Cut off your b.u.t.tons!" "My b.u.t.tons! what, these metal ones!" "Yes; the Persians are in the main very honest fellows; but if you go thus bedizened, you will infallibly be murdered for your b.u.t.tons!" At a dinner at Monk Lewis's chambers in the Albany, Lord Byron expressed to the writer his determination not to go there again, adding, "I never will dine with a middle-aged man who fills up his table with young ensigns, and has looking-gla.s.s panels to his book-cases." Lord Byron, when one of the Drury-lane Committee of Management, challenged the writer to sing alternately (like the swains in Virgil) the praises of Mrs. Mardyn, the actress, who, by-the-bye, was hissed off the stage for an imputed intimacy of which she was quite innocent.

The contest ran as fellows:

"Wake, muse of fire, your ardent lyre, Pour forth your amorous ditty, But first profound, in duly bound, Applaud the new Committee; Their scenic art from Thespis' cart All jaded nags discarding, To London drove this queen of love, Enchanting Mrs. Mardyn.

Though tides of love around her rove, I fear she'll choose Pactolus - In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge.

So I must e'en swim solus.

'Out, out, alas!' ill-fated gas, That s.h.i.+n'st round Covent Garden, Thy ray how flat, compared with that From eye of Mrs. Mardyn!"

And so on. The reader has, no doubt, already discovered "which is the justice, and which is the thief."

Lord Byron at that time wore a very narrow cravat of white sarsnet, with the s.h.i.+rt-collar falling over it; a black coat and waist-coat, and very broad white trousers to hide his lame foot--these were of Russia duck in the morning, and jean in the evening. His watch-chain had a number of small gold seals appended to it, and was looped up to a b.u.t.ton of his waistcoat. His face was void of colour; he wore no whiskers. His eyes were grey, fringed with long black lashes; and his air was imposing, but rather supercilious. He under-valued David Hume; denying his claim to genius on account of his bulk, and calling him, from the Heroic Epistle,

"The fattest hog in Epicurus' sly.'

One of this extraordinary man's allegations was, that "fat is an oily dropsy." To stave off its visitation, he frequently chewed tobacco in lieu of dinner, alleging that it absorbed the gastric juice of the stomach, and prevented hunger. "Pa.s.s your hand down my side," said his Lords.h.i.+p to the writer; "can you count my ribs?" "Every one of them." "I am delighted to hear you say so. I called last week on Lady -; 'Ah, Lord Byron,' said she, 'how fat you grow!' But you know Lady -- is fond of saying spiteful timings!" Let this gossip be summed up with the words of Lord Chesterfield, in his character of Bolingbroke: "Upon the whole, on a survey of this extraordinary character, what can we say, but 'Alas, poor human nature!'"

His favourite Pope's description of man is applicable to Byron individually:

"Chaos of thought and pa.s.sion all confused, Still by himself abused or disabused; Created part to rise and part to fall, Great lord of all things, yet a slave to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled - The glory, jest, and riddle of the world."

The writer never heard him allude to his deformed foot except upon one occasion, when, entering the green-room of Drury-lane, he found Lord Byron alone, the younger Byrne and Miss Smith the dancer having just left him, after an angry conference about a pas suel. "Had you been here a minute sooner," said Lord B., "you would have heard a question about dancing referred to me:- me! (looking mournfully downward) whom fate from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step."

{20} The first stanza (see Preface) was written by James Smith; the remainder by Horace.

{21} See Note, p. 8. ({15})