Life of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 6

"La Mira, Venice, July 10. 1817.

"Murray, the Mokanna of booksellers, has contrived to send me extracts from Lalla Rookh by the post. They are taken from some magazine, and contain a short outline and quotations from the two first Poems. I am very much delighted with what is before me, and very thirsty for the rest. You have caught the colours as if you had been in the rainbow, and the tone of the East is perfectly preserved. I am glad you have changed the t.i.tle from 'Persian Tale.'

"I suspect you have written a devilish fine composition, and I rejoice in it from my heart; because 'the Douglas and the Percy both together are confident against a world in arms.' I hope you won't be affronted at my looking on us as 'birds of a feather;'

though on whatever subject you had written, I should have been very happy in your success.

"There is a simile of an orange-tree's 'flowers and fruits,' which I should have liked better if I did not believe it to be a reflection on * * *.

"Do you remember Thurlow's poem to Sam--'_When_ Rogers;' and that d----d supper of Rancliffe's that ought to have been a _dinner_?

'Ah, Master Shallow, we have heard the chimes at midnight.' But

"My boat is on the sh.o.r.e, And my bark is on the sea; But, before I go, Tom Moore, Here's a double health to thee!

"Here's a sigh to those who love me, And a smile to those who hate; And whatever sky's above me, Here's a heart for every fate.

"Though the ocean roar around me, Yet it still shall bear me on; Though a desert should surround me, It hath springs that may be won.

"Were't the last drop in the well, As I gasp'd upon the brink, Ere my fainting spirit fell, 'Tis to thee that I would drink.

"With that water, as this wine, The libation I would pour, Should be--peace with thine and mine, And a health to thee, Tom Moore.

"This should have been written fifteen moons ago--the first stanza was. I am just come out from an hour's swim in the Adriatic; and I write to you with a black-eyed Venetian girl before me, reading Boccacio.

"Last week I had a row on the road (I came up to Venice from my casino, a few miles on the Paduan road, this blessed day, to bathe) with a fellow in a carriage, who was impudent to my horse. I gave him a swingeing box on the ear, which sent him to the police, who dismissed his complaint. Witnesses had seen the transaction. He first shouted, in an unseemly way, to frighten my palfry. I wheeled round, rode up to the window, and asked him what he meant. He grinned, and said some foolery, which produced him an immediate slap in the face, to his utter discomfiture. Much blasphemy ensued, and some menace, which I stopped by dismounting and opening the carriage door, and intimating an intention of mending the road with his immediate remains, if he did not hold his tongue. He held it.

"Monk Lewis is here--'how pleasant!'[5] He is a very good fellow, and very much yours. So is Sam--so is every body--and amongst the number,

"Yours ever,

"B.

"P.S. What think you of Manfred?"

[Footnote 5: An allusion (such as often occurs in these letters) to an anecdote with which he had been amused.]

LETTER 290. TO MR. MURRAY.

"La Mira, near Venice, July 15. 1817.

"I have finished (that is, written--the file comes afterwards) ninety and eight stanzas of the fourth Canto, which I mean to be the concluding one. It will probably be about the same length as the _third_, being already of the dimensions of the first or second Cantos. I look upon parts of it as very good, that is, if the three former are good, but this we shall see; and at any rate, good or not, it is rather a different style from the last--less metaphysical--which, at any rate, will be a variety. I sent you the shaft of the column as a specimen the other day, _i.e._ the first stanza. So you may be thinking of its arrival towards autumn, whose winds will not be the only ones to be raised, _if so be as how that_ it is ready by that time.

"I lent Lewis, who is at Venice, (in or on the Ca.n.a.laccio, the Grand Ca.n.a.l,) your extracts from Lalla Rookh and Manuel[6], and, out of contradiction, it may be, he likes the last, and is not much taken with the first, of these performances. Of Manuel, I think, with the exception of a few capers, it is as heavy a nightmare as was ever bestrode by indigestion.

"Of the extracts I can but judge as extracts, and I prefer the 'Peri' to the 'Silver Veil.' He seems not so much at home in his versification of the 'Silver Veil,' and a little embarra.s.sed with his horrors; but the conception of the character of the impostor is fine, and the plan of great scope for his genius,--and I doubt not that, as a whole, it will be very Arabesque and beautiful.

"Your late epistle is not the most abundant in information, and has not yet been succeeded by any other; so that I know nothing of your own concerns, or of any concerns, and as I never hear from any body but yourself who does not tell me something as disagreeable as possible, I should not be sorry to hear from you: and as it is not very probable,--if I can, by any device or possible arrangement with regard to my personal affairs, so arrange it,--that I shall return soon, or reside ever in England, all that you tell me will be all I shall know or enquire after, as to our beloved realm of Grub Street, and the black brethren and blue sisterhood of that extensive suburb of Babylon. Have you had no new babe of literature sprung up to replace the dead, the distant, the tired, and the _re_tired? no prose, no verse, no _nothing_?"

[Footnote 6: A tragedy, by the Rev. Mr. Maturin.]

LETTER 291. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, July 20. 1817.

"I write to give you notice that I have completed the _fourth_ and _ultimate_ Canto of Childe Harold. It consists of 126 stanzas, and is consequently the longest of the four. It is yet to be copied and polished; and the notes are to come, of which it will require more than the _third_ Canto, as it necessarily treats more of works of art than of nature. It shall be sent towards autumn;--and now for our barter. What do you bid? eh? you shall have samples, an' it so please you: but I wish to know what I am to expect (as the saying is) in these hard times, when poetry does not let for half its value. If you are disposed to do what Mrs. Winifred Jenkins calls 'the handsome thing,' I may perhaps throw you some odd matters to the lot,--translations, or slight originals; there is no saying what may be on the anvil between this and the booking season.

Recollect that it is the _last_ Canto, and completes the work; whether as good as the others, I cannot judge, in course--least of all as yet,--but it shall be as little worse as I can help. I may, perhaps, give some little gossip in the notes as to the present state of Italian literati and literature, being acquainted with some of their _capi_--men as well as books;--but this depends upon my humour at the time. So, now, p.r.o.nounce: I say nothing.

"When you have got the whole _four_ Cantos, I think you might venture on an edition of the whole poem in quarto, with spare copies of the two last for the purchasers of the old edition of the first two. There is a hint for you, worthy of the Row; and now, perpend--p.r.o.nounce.

"I have not received a word from you of the fate of 'Manfred' or 'Ta.s.so,' which seems to me odd, whether they have failed or succeeded.

"As this is a scrawl of business, and I have lately written at length and often on other subjects, I will only add that I am,"

&c.

LETTER 292. TO MR. MURRAY.

"La Mira, near Venice, August 7, 1817

"Your letter of the 18th, and, what will please you, as it did me, the parcel sent by the good-natured aid and abetment of Mr. Croker, are arrived.--Messrs. Lewis and Hobhouse are here: the former in the same house, the latter a few hundred yards distant.

"You say nothing of Manfred, from which its failure may be inferred; but I think it odd you should not say so at once. I know nothing, and hear absolutely nothing, of any body or any thing in England; and there are no English papers, so that all you say will be news--of any person, or thing, or things. I am at present very anxious about Newstead, and sorry that Kinnaird is leaving England at this minute, though I do not tell him so, and would rather he should have _his_ pleasure, although it may not in this instance tend to my profit.

"If I understand rightly, you have paid into Morland's 1500 _pounds_: as the agreement in the paper is two thousand _guineas_, there will remain therefore _six_ hundred _pounds_, and not five hundred, the odd hundred being the extra to make up the specie. Six hundred and thirty pounds will bring it to the like for Manfred and Ta.s.so, making a total of twelve hundred and thirty, I believe, for I am not a good calculator. I do not wish to press you, but I tell you fairly that it will be a convenience to me to have it paid as soon as it can be made convenient to yourself.

"The new and last Canto is 130 stanzas in length; and may be made more or less. I have fixed no price, even in idea, and have no notion of what it may be good for. There are no metaphysics in it; at least, I think not. Mr. Hobhouse has promised me a copy of Ta.s.so's Will, for notes; and I have some curious things to say about Ferrara, and Parisina's story, and perhaps a farthing candle's worth of light upon the present state of Italian literature. I shall hardly be ready by October; but that don't matter. I have all to copy and correct, and the notes to write.

"I do not know whether Scott will like it; but I have called him the '_Ariosto_ of the North' in my _text_. _If he should not, say so in time._

"An Italian translation of 'Glenarvon' came lately to be printed at Venice. The censor (Sr. Petrotini) refused to sanction the publication till he had seen me on the subject. I told him that I did not recognise the slightest relation between that book and myself; but that, whatever opinions might be upon that subject, _I_ would never prevent or oppose the publication of _any_ book, in _any_ language, on my own private account; and desired him (against his inclination) to permit the poor translator to publish his labours. It is going forwards in consequence. You may say this, with my compliments, to the author.

"Yours."

LETTER 293. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, August 12. 1817.

"I have been very sorry to hear of the death of Madame de Stael, not only because she had been very kind to me at Copet, but because now I can never requite her. In a general point of view, she will leave a great gap in society and literature.

"With regard to death, I doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes.

"The copies of Manfred and Ta.s.so are arrived, thanks to Mr.