Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 2

"'_Clincher_. d.a.m.n your Timothy!--I tell you, woman, your husband has _murdered me_--he has carried away my fine jubilee clothes.'

"So Bowles has been telling a story, too ('tis in the Quarterly), about the woods of 'Madeira,' and so forth. I shall be at Bowles again, if he is not quiet. He mis-states, or mistakes, in a point or two. The paper is finished, and so is the letter.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 393. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 9bre 9, 1820.

"The talent you approve of is an amiable one, and might prove a 'national service,' but unfortunately I must be angry with a man before I draw his real portrait; and I can't deal in '_generals_,'

so that I trust never to have provocation enough to make a _Gallery_. If '_the_ parson' had not by many little dirty sneaking traits provoked it, I should have been silent, though I _had observed_ him. Here follows an alteration: put--

Devil with _such_ delight in d.a.m.ning, That if at the resurrection Unto him the free election Of his future could be given, 'Twould be rather h.e.l.l than Heaven;

that is to say, if these two new lines do not too much lengthen out and weaken the amiability of the original thought and expression.

You have a discretionary power about showing. I should think that Croker would not disrelish a sight of these light little humorous things, and may be indulged now and then.

"Why, I do like one or two vices, to be sure; but I can back a horse and fire a pistol 'without thinking or blinking' like Major Sturgeon; I have fed at times for two months together on sheer biscuit and water (without metaphor); I can get over seventy or eighty miles a day _riding_ post, and _swim five_ at a stretch, as at Venice, in 1818, or at least I _could do_, and have done it ONCE.

"I know Henry Matthews: he is the image, to the very voice, of his brother Charles, only darker--his laugh his in particular. The first time I ever met him was in Scrope Davies's rooms after his brother's death, and I nearly dropped, thinking that it was his ghost. I have also dined with him in his rooms at King's College.

Hobhouse once purposed a similar Memoir; but I am afraid that the letters of Charles's correspondence with me (which are at Whitton with my other papers) would hardly do for the public: for our lives were not over strict, and our letters somewhat lax upon most subjects.[10]

"Last week I sent you a correspondence with Galignani, and some doc.u.ments on your property. You have now, I think, an opportunity of _checking_, or at least _limiting_, those _French republications_. You may let all your authors publish what they please _against me_ and _mine_. A publisher is not, and cannot be, responsible for all the works that issue from his printer's.

"The 'White Lady of Avenel' is not quite so good as a _real well authenticated_ ('Donna Bianca') White Lady of Colalto, or spectre in the Marca Trivigiana, who has been repeatedly seen. There is a man (a huntsman) now alive who saw her also. Hoppner could tell you all about her, and so can Rose, perhaps. I myself have _no doubt_ of the fact, historical and spectral.[11] She always appeared on particular occasions, before the deaths of the family, &c. &c. I heard Madame Benzoni say, that she knew a gentleman who had seen her cross his room at Colalto Castle. Hoppner saw and spoke with the huntsman who met her at the chase, and never _hunted_ afterwards. She was a girl attendant, who, one day dressing the hair of a Countess Colalto, was seen by her mistress to smile upon her husband in the gla.s.s. The Countess had her shut up in the wall of the castle, like Constance de Beverley. Ever after, she haunted them and all the Colaltos. She is described as very beautiful and fair. It is well authenticated."

[Footnote 10: Here follow some details respecting his friend Charles S.

Matthews, which have already been given in the first volume of this work.]

[Footnote 11: The ghost-story, in which he here professes such serious belief, forms the subject of one of Mr. Rogers's beautiful Italian sketches.--See "Italy," p. 43. edit. 1830.]

LETTER 399. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 9bre 18, 1820.

"The death of Waite is a shock to the--teeth, as well as to the feelings of all who knew him. Good G.o.d, he and _Blake_[12] both gone! I left them both in the most robust health, and little thought of the national loss in so short a time as five years. They were both as much superior to Wellington in rational greatness, as he who preserves the hair and the teeth is preferable to 'the b.l.o.o.d.y bl.u.s.tering warrior' who gains a name by breaking heads and knocking out grinders. Who succeeds him? Where is tooth-powder _mild_ and yet efficacious--where is _tincture_--where are clearing _roots_ and _brushes_ now to be obtained? Pray obtain what information you can upon these '_Tusc_ulan questions.' My jaws ache to think on't. Poor fellows! I antic.i.p.ated seeing both again; and yet they are gone to that place where both teeth and hair last longer than they do in this life. I have seen a thousand graves opened, and always perceived, that whatever was gone, the _teeth_ and _hair_ remained with those who had died with them. Is not this odd? They go the very first things in _youth_, and yet last the longest in the dust, if people will but _die_ to preserve them! It is a queer life, and a queer death, that of mortals.

"I knew that Waite had married, but little thought that the other decease was so soon to overtake him. Then he was such a delight, such a c.o.xcomb, such a jewel of a man! There is a tailor at Bologna so like him! and also at the top of his profession. Do not neglect this commission. _Who_ or _what_ can replace him? What says the public?

"I remand you the Preface. _Don't forget_ that the Italian extract from the Chronicle must _be translated_. With regard to what you say of retouching the Juans and the Hints, it is all very well; but I can't _furbish_. I am like the tiger (in poesy), if I miss the first spring, I go growling back to my jungle. There is no second; I can't correct; I can't, and I won't. n.o.body ever succeeds in it, great or small. Ta.s.so remade the whole of his Jerusalem; but who ever reads that version? all the world goes to the first. Pope _added_ to 'The Rape of the Lock,' but did not reduce it. You must take my things as they happen to be. If they are not likely to suit, reduce their _estimate_ accordingly. I would rather give them away than hack and hew them. I don't say that you are not right: I merely repeat that I cannot better them. I must 'either make a spoon, or spoil a horn;' and there's an end.

"Yours.

"P.S. Of the praises of that little * * * Keats. I shall observe as Johnson did when Sheridan the actor got a _pension_: 'What! has _he_ got a pension? Then it is time that I should give up _mine_!'

n.o.body could be prouder of the praise of the Edinburgh than I was, or more alive to their censure, as I showed in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. At present _all the men_ they have ever praised are degraded by that insane article. Why don't they review and praise 'Solomon's Guide to Health?' it is better sense and as much poetry as Johnny Keats.

"Bowles must be _bowled_ down. 'Tis a sad match at cricket if he can get any notches at Pope's expense. If he once get into '_Lord's_ ground,' (to continue the pun, because it is foolish,) I think I could beat him in one innings. You did not know, perhaps, that I was once (_not metaphorically_, but _really_,) a good cricketer, particularly in _batting_, and I played in the Harrow match against the Etonians in 1805, gaining more notches (as one of our chosen eleven) than any, except Lord Ipswich and Brookman, on our side."

[Footnote 12: A celebrated hair-dresser.]

LETTER 400. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 9bre 23, 1820.

"The 'Hints,' Hobhouse says, will require a good deal of slas.h.i.+ng to suit the times, which will be a work of time, for I don't feel at all laborious just now. Whatever effect they are to have would perhaps be greater in a separate form, and they also must have my name to them. Now, if you publish them in the same volume with Don Juan, they identify Don Juan as mine, which I don't think worth a Chancery suit about my daughter's guardians.h.i.+p, as in your present code a facetious poem is sufficient to take away a man's rights over his family.

"Of the state of things here it would be difficult and not very prudent to speak at large, the Huns opening all letters. I wonder if they can read them when they have opened them; if so, they may see, in my MOST LEGIBLE HAND, THAT I THINK THEM d.a.m.nED SCOUNDRELS AND BARBARIANS, and THEIR EMPEROR a FOOL, and themselves more fools than he; all which they may send to Vienna for any thing I care.

They have got themselves masters of the Papal police, and are bullying away; but some day or other they will pay for all: it may not be very soon, because these unhappy Italians have no consistency among themselves; but I suppose that Providence will get tired of them at last, * *

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 401. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, Dec. 9. 1820.

"Besides this letter, you will receive _three_ packets, containing, in all, 18 more sheets of Memoranda, which, I fear, will cost you more in postage than they will ever produce by being printed in the next century. Instead of waiting so long, if you could make any thing of them _now_ in the way of _reversion_, (that is, after _my_ death,) I should be very glad,--as, with all due regard to your progeny, I prefer you to your grandchildren. Would not Longman or Murray advance you a certain sum _now_, pledging themselves _not_ to have them published till after _my_ decease, think you?--and what say you?

"Over these latter sheets I would leave you a discretionary power[13]; because they contain, perhaps, a thing or two which is too sincere for the public. If I consent to your disposing of their reversion _now_, where would be the harm? Tastes may change. I would, in your case, make my essay to dispose of them, _not_ publish, now; and if _you_ (as is most likely) survive me, add what you please from your own knowledge; and, _above all, contradict_ any thing, if I have _mis_-stated; for my first object is the truth, even at my own expense.

"I have some knowledge of your countryman Muley Moloch, the lecturer. He wrote to me several letters upon Christianity, to convert me: and, if I had not been a Christian already, I should probably have been now, in consequence. I thought there was something of wild talent in him, mixed with a due leaven of absurdity,--as there must be in all talent, let loose upon the world, without a martingale.

"The ministers seem still to persecute the Queen * * * but they _won't_ go out, the sons of b----es. d.a.m.n Reform--I want a place--what say you? You must applaud the honesty of the declaration, whatever you may think of the intention.

"I have quant.i.ties of paper in England, original and translated--tragedy, &c. &c. and am now copying out a fifth Canto of Don Juan, 149 stanzas. So that there will be near _three thin_ Albemarle, or _two thick_ volumes of all sorts of my Muses. I mean to plunge thick, too, into the contest upon Pope, and to lay about me like a dragon till I make manure of * * * for the top of Parna.s.sus.

"These rogues are right--_we do_ laugh at _t'others_--eh?--don't we?[14] You shall see--you shall see what things I'll say, an' it pleases Providence to leave us leisure. But in these parts they are all going to war; and there is to be liberty, and a row, and a const.i.tution--when they can get them. But I won't talk politics--it is low. Let us talk of the Queen, and her bath, and her bottle--that's the only _motley_ nowadays.

"If there are any acquaintances of mine, salute them. The priests here are trying to persecute me,--but no matter. Yours," &c.

[Footnote 13: The power here meant is that of omitting pa.s.sages that might be thought objectionable. He afterwards gave me this, as well as every other right, over the whole of the ma.n.u.script.]

[Footnote 14: He here alludes to a humorous article, of which I had told him, in Blackwood's Magazine, where the poets of the day were all grouped together in a variety of fantastic shapes, with "Lord Byron and little Moore laughing behind, as if they would split," at the rest of the fraternity.]

LETTER 402. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, Dec. 9. 1820.

"I open my letter to tell you a fact, which will show the state of this country better than I can. The commandant of the troops is _now_ lying _dead_ in my house. He was shot at a little past eight o'clock, about two hundred paces from my door. I was putting on my great-coat to visit Madame la Contessa G. when I heard the shot. On coming into the hall, I found all my servants on the balcony, exclaiming that a man was murdered. I immediately ran down, calling on t.i.ta (the bravest of them) to follow me. The rest wanted to hinder us from going, as it is the custom for every body here, it seems, to run away from 'the stricken deer.'