The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 104

But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why, Is not to be put hastily together; And as my object is Morality (Whatever people say), I don't know whether I'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry, But harrow up his feelings till they wither, And hew out a huge monument of pathos, As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos.[650]

Lx.x.xVII.

Here the twelfth canto of our Introduction Ends. When the body of the Book's begun, You'll find it of a different construction From what some people say 't will be when done; The plan at present 's simply in concoction.

I can't oblige you, reader, to read on; That's your affair, not mine: a real spirit Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.

Lx.x.xVIII.

And if my thunderbolt not always rattles, Remember, reader! you have had before, The worst of tempests and the best of battles, That e'er were brewed from elements or gore, Besides the most sublime of--Heaven knows what else; An usurer could scarce expect much more-- But my best canto--save one on astronomy-- Will turn upon "Political Economy."[651]

Lx.x.xIX.

_That_ is your present theme for popularity: Now that the public hedge hath scarce a stake, It grows an act of patriotic charity, To show the people the best way to break.

_My plan_ (but I, if but for singularity, Reserve it) will be very sure to take.

Meantime, read all the National-Debt sinkers, And tell me what you think of our great thinkers.[652]

FOOTNOTES:

{455}[613] [See letter to Douglas Kinnaird, dated Genoa, January 18, 1823.]

[614] [Johnson would not believe that "a complete miser is a happy man."

"That," he said, "is flying in the face of all the world, who have called an avaricious man a _miser_, because he is miserable. No, sir; a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments."--Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, 1876, p. 605.]

{456}[615] [The _Descamisados_, or Sansculottes of the Spanish Revolution of 1820-1823. For Spanish "Liberals," see _Quarterly Review_, April, 1823, vol. xxix. pp. 270-276.]

[616] [_Hamlet_, act i. sc. 1, line 116.]

[617] [See _The Age of Bronze_, line 678, sq., _Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 573, note 3.]

[618] [Jacques Laffitte (1767-1844), as Governor of the Bank of France, advanced sums to Parisians to meet their enforced contributions to the allies, and, in 1817, advocated liberal measures as a Deputy.]

{458}[lg] _Were not worth one whereon their profile s.h.i.+nes_.--[MS.

erased.]

[619] ["They say that 'Knowledge is Power';--I used to think so; but I now know that they meant Money ... every guinea is a philosopher's stone, or at least his _touch_-stone. You will doubt me the less, when I p.r.o.nounce my pious belief--that _Cash is Virtue_."--Letter to Kinnaird, February 6, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 11.]

[620] [_Lay of the Last Minstrel_, Canto III. stanza ii. lines 4-6.]

{459}[621] [See G.o.dwin's Essay _Of Population_, 1820 (pp. 18, 19, et pa.s.sim), in which he renews his attack on Malthus's _Essay on the Principles of Population_.]

[622] ["We have no notion that Lord B[yron] had any mischievous intention in these publications--and readily acquit him of any wish to corrupt the morals, or impair the happiness of his readers ... but it is our duty ... to say, that much of what he has published appears to us to have this tendency.... How opposite to this is the system, or the temper, of the great author of Waverley!"--_Edinburgh Review_, February, 1822, vol. 36, p. 451.]

[lh]

---- _for his moral pen_ _Held up to me by Jeffrey as example_.

_Of which with profit--as you'll soon see by a sample_.--[MS. erased.]

{460}[623] [In the case of Murray v. Benbow (February 9, 1822), the Lord Chancellor (Lord Eldon) refused the motion for an injunction to restrain the defendant from publis.h.i.+ng a pirated edition of Lord Byron's poem of Cain (Jacob's _Reports_, p. 474, note). Hence (see _var._ i.) the allusion to "Law" and "Equity." The "suit" and the "appeal" (vide ibid.) refer to legal proceedings taken, or intended to be taken, with regard to certain questions arising out of the disposition of property under Lady Noel's will. (See letters to Charles Hanson, September 21, November 30, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 115, 146.)]

[li]

_That suit in Chancery--have a Chancery suit-- In right good earnest--also an appeal Before the Lords, whose Chancellor's more acute In Law than Equity--as I can feel Because my Cases put his Lords.h.i.+p to 't And--though no doubt 't is for the Public weal, His Lords.h.i.+p's Justice is not that of Solomon-- Not that I deem our Chief Judge is a hollow man_.--[MS. erased.]

[624] See [William] Mitford's Greece (1829, v. 314, 315), _"Graecia Verax."_ His great pleasure consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, spelling oddly, and writing quaintly; and what is strange, after all, _his_ is the best modern history of Greece in any language, and he is perhaps the best of all modern historians whatsoever. Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his virtues--learning, labour, research, wrath, and partiality. I call the latter virtues in a writer, because they make him write in earnest.

[Byron consulted Mitford when he was at work on _Sardanapalus_. (See Extracts from a Diary, January 5, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 152, note 1.)]

{461}[625] [Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) married, in 1804, Harriet, daughter of John Eckersall of Claverton House, near Bath. There were three children of the marriage, of whom two survived him. Byron may be alluding to the apocryphal story of "his eleven daughters," related by J.L.A. Cherbuliez, in the _Journal des economistes_ (1850, vol. xxv. p.

135): "Un soir ... il y avait cercle chez M. de Sismondi, a sa maison de campagne pres de Geneve.... Enfin, on annonce le _reverend Malthus et sa famille_. Sa famille!... Alors on voit entrer une charmante jeune fille, puis une seconde, puis une troisieme, puis une quatrieme, puis ... Il n'y en avait, ma fois, pas moins de onze!" See _Malthus and his Work_, by James Bonar, 1885, pp. 412, 413. See, too, _Nouveau Dictionnaire de L'economie Politique_, 1892, art. "Malthus."]

[626] [Compare--

"How commentators each dark pa.s.sage shun, And hold their farthing candle to the sun."

_Love of Fame, the Universal Pa.s.sion_, by Edward Young, _Sat_. vii.

lines 97, 98.]

{462}[627] [Philo-_pro_genitiveness. Spurzheim and Gall discover the organ of this name in a b.u.mp behind the ears, and say it is remarkably developed in the bull.]

[lj] _He played and paid, made love without much sin_.--[MS. erased.]

{463}[lk] _Themselves on seldom yielding to temptation_.--[MS. erased.]

{464}[628] [Henry Hallam (1778-1859) published his _View of the State of Europe in the Middle Ages_ in 1818.]

{465}[ll] _A drunken Gentleman of forty's sure._--[MS.]

[629] This line may puzzle the commentators more than the present generation.

[lm]

_If he can hiccup nonsense at a ball._ or, _If he goes after dinner to a ball_.-[MS. erased.]

{466}[630] [_As You Like It_, act ii. sc. 7, line 156; and _Hamlet_, act ii. sc. 2, lines, 97, 98.]

[ln] _But first of little Leilah----._--[MS.]

[631] [For the allusion to "unsunned snows," vide ante, p. 275, note 1.]

{467}[632] [The reference may be to Hobhouse and the "Zoili of Albemarle Street," who did their best to "tutor" him with regard to "blazing indiscretions" in _Don Juan_.]

[lo]

_That--but I will not listen, by your leave, Unto a single syllable_----.--[MS.]

[633] [For another instance of this curious mistake, see letter to Hodgson, December 8, 1811, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 85; et ibid., p. 31, note 1.]

{469}[lp]

_Painted and gilded--or, as it will tell More Muse-like--say--like Cytherea's sh.e.l.l_.--[MS.]

{470}[634] [Vide ante, Preface to Cantos VI., VII., and VIII., p. 266.]