Life of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 7

Croker's cover. You have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the poem by omitting the last line of Manfred's speaking; and why this was done, I know not. Why you persist in saying nothing of the thing itself, I am equally at a loss to conjecture. If it is for fear of telling me something disagreeable, you are wrong; because sooner or later I must know it, and I am not so new, nor so raw, nor so inexperienced, as not to be able to bear, not the mere paltry, petty disappointments of authors.h.i.+p, but things more serious,--at least I hope so, and that what you may think irritability is merely mechanical, and only acts like galvanism on a dead body, or the muscular motion which survives sensation.

"If it is that you are out of humour, because I wrote to you a sharp letter, recollect that it was partly from a misconception of your letter, and partly because you did a thing you had no right to do without consulting me.

"I have, however, heard good of Manfred from two other quarters, and from men who would not be scrupulous in saying what they thought, or what was said; and so 'good morrow to you, good Master Lieutenant.'

"I wrote to you twice about the fourth Canto, which you will answer at your pleasure. Mr. Hobhouse and I have come up for a day to the city; Mr. Lewis is gone to England; and I am

"Yours."

LETTER 294. TO MR. MURRAY.

"La Mira, near Venice, August 21. 1817.

"I take you at your word about Mr. Hanson, and will feel obliged if you will _go_ to him, and request Mr. Davies also to visit him by my desire, and repeat that I trust that neither Mr. Kinnaird's absence nor mine will prevent his taking all proper steps to accelerate and promote the sale of Newstead and Rochdale, upon which the whole of my future personal comfort depends. It is impossible for me to express how much any delays upon these points would inconvenience me; and I do not know a greater obligation that can be conferred upon me than the pressing these things upon Hanson, and making him act according to my wishes. I wish you would _speak out_, at least to _me_, and tell me what you allude to by your cold way of mentioning him. All mysteries at such a distance are not merely tormenting but mischievous, and may be prejudicial to my interests; so, pray expound, that I may consult with Mr.

Kinnaird when he arrives; and remember that I prefer the most disagreeable certainties to hints and innuendoes. The devil take every body: I never can get any person to be explicit about any thing or any body, and my whole life is pa.s.sed in conjectures of what people mean: you all talk in the style of C * * L * *'s novels.

"It is not Mr. St. John, but _Mr. St. Aubyn_, son of Sir John St.

Aubyn. _Polidori_ knows him, and introduced him to me. He is of Oxford, and has got my parcel. The Doctor will ferret him out, or ought. The parcel contains many letters, some of Madame de Stael's, and other people's, besides MSS., &c. By ----, if I find the gentleman, and he don't find the parcel, I will say something he won't like to hear.

"You want a 'civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedy? Take it--

"Dear Doctor, I have read your play, Which is a good one in its way,-- Purges the eyes and moves the bowels, And drenches handkerchiefs like towels With tears, that, in a flux of grief, Afford hysterical relief To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses, Which your catastrophe convulses.

"I like your moral and machinery; Your plot, too, has such scope for scenery!

Your dialogue is apt and smart; The play's concoction full of art; Your hero raves, your heroine cries, All stab, and every body dies.

In short, your tragedy would be The very thing to hear and see: And for a piece of publication, If I decline on this occasion, It is not that I am not sensible To merits in themselves ostensible, But--and I grieve to speak it--plays Are drugs, mere drugs, sir--now-a-days.

I had a heavy loss by 'Manuel,'-- Too lucky if it prove not annual,-- And S * *, with his 'Orestes,'

(Which, by the by, the author's best is,) Has lain so very long on hand That I despair of all demand.

I've advertised, but see my books, Or only watch my shopman's looks;-- Still Ivan, Ina, and such lumber, My back-shop glut, my shelves enc.u.mber.

"There's Byron too, who once did better, Has sent me, folded in a letter, A sort of--it's no more a drama Than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama; So alter'd since last year his pen is, I think he's lost his wits at Venice.

In short, sir, what with one and t'other, I dare not venture on another.

I write in haste; excuse each blunder; The coaches through the street so thunder!

My room's so full--we've Gifford here Reading MS., with Hookham Frere, p.r.o.nouncing on the nouns and particles Of some of our forthcoming Articles.

"The Quarterly--Ah, sir, if you Had but the genius to review!-- A smart critique upon St. Helena, Or if you only would but tell in a Short compa.s.s what--but, to resume: As I was saying, sir, the room-- The room's so full of wits and bards, Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards, And others, neither bards nor wits:-- My humble tenement admits All persons in the dress of gent., From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent.

"A party dines with me to-day, All clever men, who make their way; They're at this moment in discussion On poor De Stael's late dissolution.

Her book, they say, was in advance-- Pray Heaven, she tell the truth of France!

"Thus run our time and tongues away.-- But, to return, sir, to your play: Sorry, sir, but I cannot deal, Unless 'twere acted by O'Neill.

My hands so full, my head so busy, I'm almost dead, and always dizzy; And so, with endless truth and hurry, Dear Doctor, I am yours,

"JOHN MURRAY.

"P.S. I've done the fourth and last Canto, which amounts to 133 stanzas. I desire you to name a price; if you don't, _I_ will; so I advise you in time.

"Yours, &c.

"There will be a good many notes."

Among those minor misrepresentations of which it was Lord Byron's fate to be the victim, advantage was, at this time, taken of his professed distaste to the English, to accuse him of acts of inhospitality, and even rudeness, towards some of his fellow-countrymen. How far different was his treatment of all who ever visited him, many grateful testimonies might be collected to prove; but I shall here content myself with selecting a few extracts from an account given me by Mr.

Henry Joy of a visit which, in company with another English gentleman, he paid to the n.o.ble poet this summer, at his villa on the banks of the Brenta. After mentioning the various civilities they had experienced from Lord Byron; and, among others, his having requested them to name their own day for dining with him,--"We availed ourselves," says Mr.

Joy, "of this considerate courtesy by naming the day fixed for our return to Padua, when our route would lead us to his door; and we were welcomed with all the cordiality which was to be expected from so friendly a bidding. Such traits of kindness in such a man deserve to be recorded on account of the numerous slanders thrown upon him by some of the tribes of tourists, who resented, as a personal affront, his resolution to avoid their impertinent inroads upon his retirement. So far from any appearance of indiscriminate aversion to his countrymen, his enquiries about his friends in England (_quorum pars magna fuisti_) were most anxious and particular.

"He expressed some opinions," continues my informant, "on matters of taste, which cannot fail to interest his biographer. He contended that Sculpture, as an art, was vastly superior to Painting;--a preference which is strikingly ill.u.s.trated by the fact that, in the fourth Canto of Childe Harold, he gives the most elaborate and splendid account of several statues, and none of any pictures; although Italy is, emphatically, the land of painting, and her best statues are derived from Greece. By the way, he told us that there were more objects of interest in Rome alone than in all Greece from one extremity to the other. After regaling us with an excellent dinner, (in which, by the by, a very English joint of roast beef showed that he did not extend his antipathies to all John-Bullisms,) he took me in his carriage some miles of our route towards Padua, after apologising to my fellow-traveller for the separation, on the score of his anxiety to hear all he could of his friends in England; and I quitted him with a confirmed impression of the strong ardour and sincerity of his attachment to those by whom he did not fancy himself slighted or ill treated."

LETTER 295. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Sept. 4. 1817.

"Your letter of the 15th has conveyed with its contents the impression of a seal, to which the 'Saracen's Head' is a seraph, and the 'Bull and Mouth' a delicate device. I knew that calumny had sufficiently _blackened_ me of later days, but not that it had given the features as well as complexion of a negro. Poor Augusta is not less, but rather more, shocked than myself, and says 'people seem to have lost their recollection strangely' when they engraved such a 'blackamoor.' Pray don't seal (at least to me) with such a caricature of the human numskull altogether; and if you don't break the seal-cutter's head, at least crack his libel (or likeness, if it should be a likeness) of mine.

"Mr. Kinnaird is not yet arrived, but expected. He has lost by the way all the tooth-powder, as a letter from Spa informs me.

"By Mr. Rose I received safely, though tardily, magnesia and tooth-powder, and * * * *. Why do you send me such trash--worse than trash, the Sublime of Mediocrity? Thanks for Lalla, however, which is good; and thanks for the Edinburgh and Quarterly, both very amusing and well-written. Paris in 1815, &c.--good. Modern Greece--good for nothing; written by some one who has never been there, and not being able to manage the Spenser stanza, has invented a thing of his own, consisting of two elegiac stanzas, an heroic line, and an Alexandrine, twisted on a string. Besides, why '_modern_?' You may say _modern Greeks_, but surely _Greece_ itself is rather more ancient than ever it was. Now for business.

"You offer 1500 guineas for the new Canto: I won't take it. I ask two thousand five hundred guineas for it, which you will either give or not, as you think proper. It concludes the poem, and consists of 144 stanzas. The notes are numerous, and chiefly written by Mr. Hobhouse, whose researches have been indefatigable; and who, I will venture to say, has more real knowledge of Rome and its environs than any Englishman who has been there since Gibbon.

By the way, to prevent any mistakes, I think it necessary to state the fact that _he_, Mr. Hobhouse, has no interest whatever in the price or profit to be derived from the copyright of either poem or notes directly or indirectly; so that you are not to suppose that it is by, for, or through him, that I require more for this Canto than the preceding.--No: but if Mr. Eustace was to have had two thousand for a poem on Education; if Mr. Moore is to have three thousand for Lalla, &c.; if Mr. Campbell is to have three thousand for his prose on poetry--I don't mean to disparage these gentlemen in their labours--but I ask the aforesaid price for mine. You will tell me that their productions are considerably _longer_: very true, and when they shorten them, I will lengthen mine, and ask less. You shall submit the MS. to Mr. Gifford, and any other two gentlemen to be named by you, (Mr. Frere, or Mr. Croker, or whomever you please, except such fellows as your * *s and * *s,) and if they p.r.o.nounce this Canto to be inferior as a _whole_ to the preceding, I will not appeal from their award, but burn the ma.n.u.script, and leave things as they are.

"Yours very truly.

"P.S. In answer to a former letter, I sent you a short statement of what I thought the state of our present copyright account, viz. six hundred _pounds_ still (or lately) due on Childe Harold, and six hundred _guineas_, Manfred and Ta.s.so, making a total of twelve hundred and thirty pounds. If we agree about the new poem, I shall take the liberty to reserve the choice of the manner in which it should be published, viz. a quarto, certes."

LETTER 296. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"La Mira, Sept. 12. 1817.

"I set out yesterday morning with the intention of paying my respects, and availing myself of your permission to walk over the premises.[7] On arriving at Padua, I found that the march of the Austrian troops had engrossed so many horses[8], that those I could procure were hardly able to crawl; and their weakness, together with the prospect of finding none at all at the post-house of Monselice, and consequently either not arriving that day at Este, or so late as to be unable to return home the same evening, induced me to turn aside in a second visit to Arqua, instead of proceeding onwards; and even thus I hardly got back in time.

"Next week I shall be obliged to be in Venice to meet Lord Kinnaird and his brother, who are expected in a few days. And this interruption, together with that occasioned by the continued march of the Austrians for the next few days, will not allow me to fix any precise period for availing myself of your kindness, though I should wish to take the earliest opportunity. Perhaps, if absent, you will have the goodness to permit one of your servants to show me the grounds and house, or as much of either as may be convenient; at any rate, I shall take the first occasion possible to go over, and regret very much that I was yesterday prevented.

"I have the honour to be your obliged," &c.

[Footnote 7: A country-house on the Euganean hills, near Este, which Mr.

Hoppner, who was then the English Consul-General at Venice, had for some time occupied, and which Lord Byron afterwards rented of him, but never resided in it.]

[Footnote 8: So great was the demand for horses, on the line of march of the Austrians, that all those belonging to private individuals were put in requisition for their use, and Lord Byron himself received an order to send his for the same purpose. This, however, he positively refused to do, adding, that if an attempt were made to take them by force, he would shoot them through the head in the middle of the road, rather than submit to such an act of tyranny upon a foreigner who was merely a temporary resident in the country. Whether his answer was ever reported to the higher authorities I know not; but his horses were suffered to remain unmolested in his stables.]

LETTER 297. TO MR. MURRAY.

"September 15. 1817.

"I enclose a sheet for correction, if ever you get to another edition. You will observe that the blunder in printing makes it appear as if the Chateau was _over_ St. Gingo, instead of being on the opposite sh.o.r.e of the Lake, over Clarens. So, separate the paragraphs, otherwise my _to_pography will seem as inaccurate as your _ty_pography on this occasion.