The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 94

[Footnote 89: In all editions, previous to the fifth, it was, "Kemble lives to tread." Byron used to say, that, of actors, "Cooke was the most natural, Kemble the most supernatural, Kean the medium between the two; but that Mrs. Siddons was worth them all put together." Such effect, however, had Kean's acting on his mind, that once, on seeing him play Sir Giles Overreach, he was seized with a fit.]

[Footnote 90: See 'supra', line 562.]

[Footnote 91: Andrew Cherry (1762-1812) acted many parts in Ireland and in the provinces, and for a few years appeared at Drury Lane. He was popular in Dublin, where he was known as "Little Cherry." He was painted as Lazarillo in Jephson's 'Two Strings to Your Bow'. He wrote 'The Travellers' (1806), 'Peter the Great' (1807), and other plays.]]

[Footnote 92: Mr. [now Sir Lumley] Skeffington is the ill.u.s.trious author of 'The Sleeping Beauty;' and some comedies, particularly 'Maids and Bachelors: Baccalaurii' baculo magis quam lauro digni.

[Lumley St. George (afterwards Sir Lumley) Skeffington (1768-1850).

Besides the plays mentioned in the note, he wrote 'The Maid of Honour'

(1803) and 'The Mysterious Bride' (1808). 'Amatory Verses, by Tom Shuffleton of the Middle Temple' (1815), are attributed to his pen. They are prefaced by a dedicatory letter to Byron, which includes a coa.r.s.e but clever skit in the style of 'English Bards'. "Great Skeffington" was a great dandy. According to Capt. Gronow ('Reminiscences', i. 63), "he used to paint his face so that he looked like a French toy; he dressed 'a la Robespierre', and practised all the follies;... was remarkable for his politeness and courtly manners... You always knew of his approach by an 'avant courier' of sweet smell." His play 'The Sleeping Beauty' had a considerable vogue.]]

[Footnote 93: Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841), natural son of Charles Dibdin the elder, made his first appearance on the stage at the age of four, playing Cupid to Mrs. Siddons' Venus at the Shakespearian Jubilee in 1775. One of his best known pieces is 'The Jew and the Doctor'

(1798). His pantomime, 'Mother Goose', in which Grimaldi took a part, was played at Covent Garden in 1807, and is said to have brought the management 20,000.]

[Footnote 94: Mr. Greenwood is, we believe, scene-painter to Drury Lane theatre--as such, Mr. Skeffington is much indebted to him.]

[Footnote 95: Naldi and Catalani require little notice; for the visage of the one, and the salary of the other, will enable us long to recollect these amusing vagabonds. Besides, we are still black and blue from the squeeze on the first night of the Lady's appearance in trousers. [Guiseppe Naldi (1770-1820) made his 'debut' on the London stage at the King's Theatre in April, 1806. In conjunction with Catalani and Braham, he gave concerts at Willis' Rooms. Angelica Catalani (circ.

1785-1849), a famous soprano, Italian by birth and training, made her 'debut' at Venice in 1795. She remained in England for eight years (1806-14). Her first appearance in England was at the King's Theatre, in Portogallo's 'Semiramide,' in 1806. Her large salary was one of the causes which provoked the O. P. (Old Prices) Riots in December, 1809, at Covent Garden. Praed says of his 'Ball Room Belle'--

"She warbled Handel: it was grand; She made the Catalani jealous."]

[Footnote 96: Moore says that the following twenty lines were struck off one night after Lord Byron's return from the Opera, and sent the next morning to the printer. The date of the letter to Dallas, with which the lines were enclosed, suggests that the representation which provoked the outburst was that of 'I Villegiatori Rezzani,' at the King's Theatre, February 21, 1809. The first piece, in which Naldi and Catalani were the princ.i.p.al singers, was followed by d'Egville's musical extravaganza, 'Don Quichotte, on les Noces de Gamache.' In the 'corps de ballet' were Deshayes, for many years master of the 'ballet' at the King's Theatre; Miss Gayton, who had played a Sylph at Drury Lane as early as 1806 (she was married, March 18, 1809, to the Rev. William Murray, brother of Sir James Pulteney, Bart.--'Morning Chronicle,' December 30, 1810), and Mademoiselle Angiolini, "elegant of figure, 'pet.i.te', but finely formed, with the manner of Vestris." Mademoiselle Presle does not seem to have taken part in 'Don Quichotte;' but she was well known as 'premiere danseuse' in 'La Belle Laitiere, La Fete Chinoise,' and other ballets.]]

[Footnote 97: For "whet" Editions 1-5 read "raise." Lines 632-637 are marked "good" in the Annotated Fourth Edition.]

[Footnote 98: To prevent any blunder, such as mistaking a street for a man, I beg leave to state, that it is the inst.i.tution, and not the Duke of that name, which is here alluded to.

A gentleman, with whom I am slightly acquainted, lost in the Argyle Rooms several thousand pounds at Backgammon.[A] It is but justice to the manager in this instance to say, that some degree of disapprobation was manifested: but why are the implements of gaming allowed in a place devoted to the society of both s.e.xes? A pleasant thing for the wives and daughters of those who are blessed or cursed with such connections, to hear the Billiard-b.a.l.l.s rattling in one room, and the dice in another!

That this is the case I myself can testify, as a late unworthy member of an Inst.i.tution which materially affects the morals of the higher orders, while the lower may not even move to the sound of a tabor and fiddle, without a chance of indictment for riotous behaviour. [The Argyle Inst.i.tution, founded by Colonel Greville, flourished many years before the Argyll Rooms were built by Nash in 1818. This mention of Greville's name caused him to demand an explanation from Byron, but the matter was amicably settled by Moore and G. F. Leckie, who acted on behalf of the disputants (see 'Life', pp. 160, 161).]]

[Sub-Footnote A: "True. It was Billy Way who lost the money. I knew him, and was a subscriber to the Argyle at the time of this event."--B., 1816.]

[Footnote 99: Petronius, "Arbiter elegantiarum" to Nero, "and a very pretty fellow in his day," as Mr. Congreve's "Old Bachelor" saith of Hannibal.]

[Footnote 100: "We are authorised to state that Mr. Greville, who has a small party at his private a.s.sembly rooms at the Argyle, will receive from 10 to 12 [p.m.] masks who have Mrs. Chichester's Inst.i.tution tickets.--Morning Post, June 7, 1809.]

[Footnote 101: See note on line 686, infra.]

[Footnote 102: 'Clodius'--"Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur."--['MS']

[The allusion is to the well-known incidents of his intrigue with Pompeia, Caesar's wife, and his sacrilegious intrusion into the mysteries of the Bona Dea. The Romans had a proverb, "Clodius accuset Moechos?"

(Juv., 'Sat.' ii. 27). That "Steenie" should lecture on the "turpitude of incontinence!" ('The Fortunes of Nigel,' cap. x.x.xii.)]]

[Footnote 103: I knew the late Lord Falkland well. On Sunday night I beheld him presiding at his own table, in all the honest pride of hospitality; on Wednesday morning, at three o'clock, I saw stretched before me all that remained of courage, feeling, and a host of pa.s.sions.

He was a gallant and successful officer: his faults were the faults of a sailor--as such, Britons will forgive them. ["His behaviour on the field was worthy of a better fate, and his conduct on the bed of death evinced all the firmness of a man without the farce of repentance--I say the farce of repentance, for death-bed repentance is a farce, and as little serviceable to the soul at such a moment as the surgeon to the body, though both may be useful if taken in time. Some hireling in the papers forged a tale about an agonized voice, etc. On mentioning the circ.u.mstance to Mr. Heaviside, he exclaimed, 'Good G.o.d! what absurdity to talk in this manner of one who died like a lion!'--he did more."--'MS'] He died like a brave man in a better cause; for had he fallen in like manner on the deck of the frigate to which he was just appointed, his last moments would have been held up by his countrymen as an example to succeeding heroes.

[Charles John Carey, ninth Viscount Falkland, died from a wound received in a duel with Mr. A. Powell on Feb. 28, 1809. (See Byron's letter to his mother, March 6, 1809.) The story of "the agonized voice" may be traced to a paragraph in the 'Morning Post,' March 2, 1809: "Lord Falkland, after hearing the surgeon's opinion, said with a faltering voice and as intelligibly as the agonized state of his body and mind permitted, "I acquit Mr. Powell of all blame; in this transaction I alone am culpable.'"]]

[Footnote 104: "Yes: and a precious chase they led me."--B., 1816.]

[Footnote 105: "'Fool' enough, certainly, then, and no wiser since."--B., 1816.]

[Footnote 106: What would be the sentiments of the Persian Anacreon, HAFIZ, could he rise from his splendid sepulchre at Sheeraz (where he reposes with FERDOUSI and SADI, the Oriental Homer and Catullus), and behold his name a.s.sumed by one STOTT of DROMORE, the most impudent and execrable of literary poachers for the Daily Prints?]

[Footnote 107: Miles Peter Andrews (d. 1824) was the owner of large powder-mills at Dartford. He was M.P. for Bewdley. He held a good social position, but his intimate friends were actors and playwrights. His 'Better Late than Never' (which Reynolds and Topham helped him to write) was played for the first time at Drury Lane, October 17, 1790, with Kemble as Saville, and Mrs. Jordan as Augusta. He is mentioned in 'The Baviad', l. 10; and in a note Gifford satirizes his prologue to 'Lorenzo', and describes him as an "industrious paragraph-monger."]]

[Footnote 108: In a ma.n.u.script fragment, bound in the same volume as 'British Bards', we find these lines:--

"In these, our times, with daily wonders big, A Lettered peer is like a lettered pig; Both know their Alphabet, but who, from thence, Infers that peers or pigs have manly sense?

Still less that such should woo the graceful nine; Parna.s.sus was not made for lords and swine."]

[Footnote 109: Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1634-1685), author of many translations and minor poems, endeavoured (circ. 1663) to found an English literary academy.]

[Footnote 110: John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave (1658), Marquis of Normanby (1694), Duke of Buckingham (1703) (1649-1721), wrote an 'Essay upon Poetry', and several other works.]

[Footnote 111: Lines 727-740 were added after 'British Bards' had been printed, and are included in the First Edition, but the appearance in 'British Bards' of lines 723-726 and 741-746, which have been cut out from Mr. Murray's MS., forms one of many proofs as to the ident.i.ty of the text of the 'MS'. and the printed Quarto.]]

[Footnote 112: Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, K.G. (1748-1825), Viceroy of Ireland, 1780-1782, and Privy Seal, etc., published 'Tragedies and Poems', 1801. He was Byron's first cousin once removed, and his guardian. 'Poems Original and Translated,' were dedicated to Lord Carlisle, and, as an erased MS. addition to 'British Bards'

testifies, he was to have been excepted from the roll of t.i.tled poetasters--

"Ah, who would take their t.i.tles from their rhymes?

On 'one' alone Apollo deigns to smile, And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle."