Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 6

"Read--rode--fired pistols--returned--dined--wrote--visited--heard music--talked nonsense--and went home.

"Wrote part of a Tragedy--advanced in Act 1st with 'all deliberate speed.' Bought a blanket. The weather is still muggy as a London May--mist, mizzle, the air replete with Scotticisms, which, though fine in the descriptions of Ossian, are somewhat tiresome in real, prosaic perspective. Politics still mysterious.

"January 17. 1821.

"Rode i' the forest--fired pistols--dined. Arrived a packet of books from England and Lombardy--English, Italian, French, and Latin. Read till eight--went out.

"January 18. 1821.

"To-day, the post arriving late, did not ride. Read letters--only two gazettes instead of twelve now due. Made Lega write to that negligent Galignani, and added a postscript. Dined.

"At eight proposed to go out. Lega came in with a letter about a bill _unpaid_ at Venice, which I thought paid months ago. I flew into a paroxysm of rage, which almost made me faint. I have not been well ever since. I deserve it for being such a fool--but it _was_ provoking--a set of scoundrels! It is, however, but five and twenty pounds.

"January 19. 1821.

"Rode. Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingrat.i.tude itself, though Shakspeare says otherwise. At least, I am so much more accustomed to meet with ingrat.i.tude than the north wind, that I thought the latter the sharper of the two. I had met with both in the course of the twenty-four hours, so could judge.

"Thought of a plan of education for my daughter Allegra, who ought to begin soon with her studies. Wrote a letter--afterwards a postscript.

Rather in low spirits--certainly hippish--liver touched--will take a dose of salts.

"I have been reading the Life, by himself and daughter, of Mr. R.L.

Edgeworth, the father of _the_ Miss Edgeworth. It is altogether a great name. In 1813, I recollect to have met them in the fas.h.i.+onable world of London (of which I then formed an item, a fraction, the segment of a circle, the unit of a million, the nothing of something) in the a.s.semblies of the hour, and at a breakfast of Sir Humphry and Lady Davy's, to which I was invited for the nonce. I had been the lion of 1812; Miss Edgeworth and Madame de Stael, with 'the Cossack,' towards the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the succeeding year.

"I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty--no, nor forty-eight even. I had seen poor Fitzpatrick not very long before--a man of pleasure, wit, eloquence, all things. He tottered--but still talked like a gentleman, though feebly. Edgeworth bounced about, and talked loud and long; but he seemed neither weakly nor decrepit, and hardly old.

"He began by telling 'that he had given Dr. Parr a dressing, who had taken him for an Irish bog-trotter,' &c. &c. Now I, who know Dr. Parr, and who know (_not_ by experience--for I never should have presumed so far as to contend with him--but by hearing him _with_ others, and _of_ others) that it is not so easy a matter to 'dress him,' thought Mr.

Edgeworth an a.s.sertor of what was not true. He could not have stood before Parr an instant. For the rest, he seemed intelligent, vehement, vivacious, and full of life. He bids fair for a hundred years.

"He was not much admired in London, and I remember a 'ryghte merrie' and conceited jest which was rife among the gallants of the day,--viz. a paper had been presented for the _recall of Mrs. Siddons to the stage_, (she having lately taken leave, to the loss of ages,--for nothing ever was, or can be, like her,) to which all men had been called to subscribe. Whereupon, Thomas Moore, of profane and poetical memory, did propose that a similar paper should be _sub_scribed and _circ.u.m_scribed 'for the recall of Mr. Edgeworth to Ireland.'[20]

"The fact was--every body cared more about _her_. She was a nice little una.s.suming 'Jeanie Deans'-looking body,' as we Scotch say--and, if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as herself. One would never have guessed she could write her name; whereas her father talked, not as if he could write nothing else, but as if nothing else was worth writing.

"As for Mrs. Edgeworth, I forget--except that I think she was the youngest of the party. Altogether, they were an excellent cage of the kind; and succeeded for two months, till the landing of Madame de Stael.

"To turn from them to their works, I admire them; but they excite no feeling, and they leave no love--except for some Irish steward or postilion. However, the impression of intellect and prudence is profound--and may be useful.

[Footnote 20: In this, I rather think he was misinformed; whatever merit there may be in the jest, I have not, as far as I can recollect, the slightest claim to it.]

"January 20. 1821.

"Rode--fired pistols. Read from Grimm's Correspondence. Dined--went out--heard music--returned--wrote a letter to the Lord Chamberlain to request him to prevent the theatres from representing the Doge, which the Italian papers say that they are going to act. This is pretty work--what! without asking my consent, and even in opposition to it!

January 21. 1821.

"Fine, clear frosty day--that is to say, an Italian frost, for their winters hardly get beyond snow; for which reason n.o.body knows how to skate (or skait)--a Dutch and English accomplishment. Rode out, as usual, and fired pistols. Good shooting--broke four common, and rather small, bottles, in four shots, at fourteen paces, with a common pair of pistols and indifferent powder. Almost as good wafering or shooting--considering the difference of powder and pistols--as when, in 1809, 1810, 1811, 1812, 1813, 1814, it was my luck to split walking-sticks, wafers, half-crowns, s.h.i.+llings, and even the eye of a walking-stick, at twelve paces, with a single bullet--and all by _eye_ and calculation; for my hand is not steady, and apt to change with the very weather. To the prowess which I here note, Joe Manton and others can bear testimony! for the former taught, and the latter has seen me do, these feats.

"Dined--visited--came home--read. Remarked on an anecdote in Grimm's Correspondence, which says that 'Regnard et la plupart des poetes comiques etaient gens bilieux et melancoliques; et que M. de Voltaire, qui est tres gai, n'a jamais fait que des tragedies--et que la comedie gaie est le seul genre ou il n'ait point reussi. C'est que celui qui rit et celui qui fait rire sont deux hommes fort differens.'--Vol. VI.

"At this moment I feel as bilious as the best comic writer of them all, (even as Regnard himself, the next to Moliere, who has written some of the best comedies in any language, and who is supposed to have committed suicide,) and am not in spirits to continue my proposed tragedy of Sardanapalus, which I have, for some days, ceased to compose.

"To-morrow is my birth-day--that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, midnight, _i.e._ in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty and three years of age!!!--and I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived so long, and to so little purpose.

"It is three minutes past twelve.--'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,' and I am now thirty-three!

"Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume, Labuntur anni;--

but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I _might_ have done.

"Through life's road, so dim and dirty, I have dragged to three-and-thirty.

What have these years left to me?

Nothing--except thirty-three.

"January 22. 1821.

1821.

Here lies interred in the Eternity of the Past, from whence there is no Resurrection for the Days--whatever there may be for the Dust-- the Thirty-Third Year of an ill-spent Life, Which, after a lingering disease of many months, sunk into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D.

Leaving a successor Inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its Existence.

"January 23. 1821.

"Fine day. Read--rode--fired pistols, and returned. Dined--read. Went out at eight--made the usual visit. Heard of nothing but war,--'the cry is still, They come.' The Cari. seem to have no plan--nothing fixed among themselves, how, when, or what to do. In that case, they will make nothing of this project, so often postponed, and never put in action.

"Came home, and gave some necessary orders, in case of circ.u.mstances requiring a change of place. I shall act according to what may seem proper, when I hear decidedly what the Barbarians mean to do. At present, they are building a bridge of boats over the Po, which looks very warlike. A few days will probably show. I think of retiring towards Ancona, nearer the northern frontier; that is to say, if Teresa and her father are obliged to retire, which is most likely, as all the family are Liberals. If not, I shall stay. But my movements will depend upon the lady's wishes--for myself, it is much the same.

"I am somewhat puzzled what to do with my little daughter, and my effects, which are of some quant.i.ty and value,--and neither of them do in the seat of war, where I think of going. But there is an elderly lady who will take charge of _her_, and T. says that the Marchese C. will undertake to hold the chattels in safe keeping. Half the city are getting their affairs in marching trim. A pretty Carnival! The blackguards might as well have waited till Lent.

"January 24. 1821.

"Returned--met some masques in the Corso--'Vive la bagatelle!'--the Germans are on the Po, the Barbarians at the gate, and their masters in council at Leybach (or whatever the eructation of the sound may syllable into a human p.r.o.nunciation), and lo! they dance and sing and make merry, 'for to-morrow they may die.' Who can say that the Arlequins are not right? Like the Lady Baussiere, and my old friend Burton--I 'rode on.'

"Dined--(d.a.m.n this pen!)--beef tough--there is no beef in Italy worth a curse; unless a man could eat an old ox with the hide on, singed in the sun.

"The princ.i.p.al persons in the events which may occur in a few days are gone out on a _shooting party_. If it were like a '_highland_ hunting,'

a pretext of the chase for a grand re-union of counsellors and chiefs, it would be all very well. But it is nothing more or less than a real snivelling, popping, small-shot, water-hen waste of powder, ammunition, and shot, for their own special amus.e.m.e.nt: a rare set of fellows for 'a man to risk his neck with,' as 'Marishall Wells' says in the Black Dwarf.

"If they gather,--'whilk is to be doubted,'--they will not muster a thousand men. The reason of this is, that the populace are not interested,--only the higher and middle orders. I wish that the peasantry were: they are a fine savage race of two-legged leopards. But the Bolognese won't--the Romagnuoles can't without them. Or, if they try--what then? They will try, and man can do no more--and, if he _would_ but try his utmost, much might be done. The Dutch, for instance, against the Spaniards--_then_ the tyrants of Europe, since, the slaves, and, lately, the freedmen.

"The year 1820 was not a fortunate one for the individual me, whatever it may be for the nations. I lost a lawsuit, after two decisions in my favour. The project of lending money on an Irish mortgage was finally rejected by my wife's trustee after a year's hope and trouble. The Rochdale lawsuit had endured fifteen years, and always prospered till I married; since which, every thing has gone wrong--with me at least.

"In the same year, 1820, the Countess T.G. nata Ga. Gi. in despite of all I said and did to prevent it, _would_ separate from her husband, Il Cavalier Commendatore Gi. &c. &c. &c. and all on the account of 'P.P.