Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 24

The last line--'a name never spoke but with curses or jeers'--must run either 'a name only uttered with curses or jeers,' or, 'a wretch never named but with curses or jeers.' Be_case_ as _how_, 'spoke' is not grammar, except in the House of Commons; and I doubt whether we can say 'a name _spoken_,' for _mentioned_. I have some doubts, too, about 'repay,'--'and for murder repay with a shout and a smile.' Should it not be, 'and for murder repay him with shouts and a smile, 'or '_reward_ him with shouts and a smile?'

"So, pray put your poetical pen through the MS. and take the least bad of the emendations. Also, if there be any further breaking of Priscian's head, will you apply a plaster? I wrote in the greatest hurry and fury, and sent it to you the day after; so, doubtless, there will be some awful constructions, and a rather lawless conscription of rhythmus.

"With respect to what Anna Seward calls 'the liberty of transcript,'--when complaining of Miss Matilda Muggleton, the accomplished daughter of a choral vicar of Worcester Cathedral, who had abused the said 'liberty of transcript,' by inserting in the Malvern Mercury Miss Seward's 'Elegy on the South Pole,' as her _own_ production, with her _own_ signature, two years after having taken a copy, by permission of the auth.o.r.ess--with regard, I say, to the 'liberty of transcript,' I by no means oppose an occasional copy to the benevolent few, provided it does not degenerate into such licentiousness of Verb and Noun as may tend to 'disparage my parts of speech' by the carelessness of the transcribblers.

"I do not think that there is much danger of the 'King's Press being abused' upon the occasion, if the publishers of journals have any regard for their remaining liberty of person. It is as pretty a piece of invective as ever put publisher in the way to 'Botany.'

Therefore, if _they_ meddle with it, it is at _their_ peril. As for myself, I will answer any jontleman--though I by no means recognise a 'right of search' into an unpublished production and unavowed poem. The same applies to things published _sans_ consent. I hope you like, at least, the concluding lines of the _Pome_?

"What are you doing, and where are you? in England? Nail Murray--nail him to his own counter, till he sh.e.l.ls out the thirteens. Since I wrote to you, I have sent him another tragedy--'Cain' by name--making three in MS. now in his hands, or in the printer's. It is in the Manfred, metaphysical style, and full of some t.i.tanic declamation;--Lucifer being one of the dram.

pers. who takes Cain a voyage among the stars, and afterwards to 'Hades,' where he shows him the phantoms of a former world, and its inhabitants. I have gone upon the notion of Cuvier, that the world has been destroyed three or four times, and was inhabited by mammoths, behemoths, and what not; but _not_ by man till the Mosaic period, as, indeed, is proved by the strata of bones found;--those of all unknown animals, and known, being dug out, but none of mankind. I have, therefore, supposed Cain to be shown, in the _rational_ Preadamites, beings endowed with a higher intelligence than man, but totally unlike him in form, and with much greater strength of mind and person. You may suppose the small talk which takes place between him and Lucifer upon these matters is not quite canonical.

"The consequence is, that Cain comes back and kills Abel in a fit of dissatisfaction, partly with the politics of Paradise, which had driven them all out of it, and partly because (as it is written in Genesis) Abel's sacrifice was the more acceptable to the Deity. I trust that the Rhapsody has arrived--it is in three acts, and ent.i.tled 'A Mystery,' according to the former Christian custom, and in honour of what it probably will remain to the reader.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 454. TO MR. MOORE.

"September 20. 1821.

"After the stanza on Grattan, concluding with 'His soul o'er the freedom implored and denied,' will it please you to cause insert the following 'Addenda,' which I dreamed of during to-day's Siesta:

"Ever glorious Grattan! &c. &c. &c.

I will tell you what to do. Get me twenty copies of the whole carefully and privately printed off, as _your_ lines were on the Naples affair. Send me _six_, and distribute the rest according to your own pleasure.

"I am in a fine vein, 'so full of pastime and prodigality!'--So here's to your health in a gla.s.s of grog. Pray write, that I may know by return of post--address to me at Pisa. The G.o.ds give you joy!

"Where are you? in Paris? Let us hear. You will take care that there be no printer's name, nor author's, as in the Naples stanza, at least for the present."

LETTER 455 TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, September 20. 1821.

"You need not send 'The Blues,' which is a mere buffoonery, never meant for publication.[53]

"The papers to which I allude, in case of survivors.h.i.+p, are collections of letters, &c. since I was sixteen years old, contained in the trunks in the care of Mr. Hobhouse. This collection is at least doubled by those I have now here, all received since my last ostracism. To these I should wish the editor to have access, _not_ for the purpose of _abusing confidences_, nor of _hurting_ the feelings of correspondents living, nor the memories of the dead; but there are things which would do neither, that I have left unnoticed or unexplained, and which (like all such things) time only can permit to be noticed or explained, though some are to my credit. The task will, of course, require delicacy; but that will not be wanting, if Moore and Hobhouse survive me, and, I may add, yourself; and that you may all three do so, is, I a.s.sure you, my very sincere wish. I am not sure that long life is desirable for one of my temper and const.i.tutional depression of spirits, which of course I suppress in society; but which breaks out when alone, and in my writings, in spite of myself. It has been deepened, perhaps, by some long-past events (I do not allude to my marriage, &c.--on the contrary, that raised them by the persecution giving a fillip to my spirits); but I call it const.i.tutional, as I have reason to think it. You know, or you do _not_ know, that my maternal grandfather (a very clever man, and amiable, I am told) was strongly suspected of suicide (he was found drowned in the Avon at Bath), and that another very near relative of the same branch took poison, and was merely saved by antidotes. For the first of these events there was no apparent cause, as he was rich, respected, and of considerable intellectual resources, hardly forty years of age, and not at all addicted to any unhinging vice. It was, however, but a strong suspicion, owing to the manner of his death and his melancholy temper. The _second had_ a cause, but it does not become me to touch upon it: it happened when I was far too young to be aware of it, and I never heard of it till after the death of that relative, many years afterwards. I think, then, that I may call this dejection _const.i.tutional_. I had always been told that I resembled more my maternal grandfather than any of my _father's_ family--that is, in the gloomier part of his temper, for he was what you call a good-natured man, and I am not.

"The Journal here I sent to Moore the other day; but as it is a mere diary, only _parts_ of it would ever do for publication. The other Journal, of the Tour in 1816, I should think Augusta might let you have a copy of.

"I am much mortified that Gifford don't take to my new dramas. To be sure, they are as opposite to the English drama as one thing can be to another; but I have a notion that, if understood, they will in time find favour (though _not_ on the stage) with the reader.

The simplicity of plot is intentional, and the avoidance of _rant_ also, as also the compression of the speeches in the more severe situations. What I seek to show in 'The Foscaris' is the _suppressed_ pa.s.sions, rather than the rant of the present day. For that matter--

"Nay, if thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou--

would not be difficult, as I think I have shown in my younger productions--_not dramatic_ ones, to be sure. But, as I said before, I am mortified that Gifford don't like them; but I see no remedy, our notions on that subject being so different. How is he?--well, I hope? let me know. I regret his demur the more that he has been always my grand patron, and I know no praise which would compensate me in my own mind for his censure. I do not mind _Reviews_, as I can work them at their own weapons.

"Yours, &c.

"Address to me at _Pisa_, whither I am going. The reason is, that all my Italian friends here have been exiled, and are met there for the present, and I go to join them, as agreed upon, for the winter."

[Footnote 53: This short satire, which is wholly unworthy of his pen, appeared afterwards in the Liberal.]

LETTER 456. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, September 24. 1821.

"I have been thinking over our late correspondence, and wish to propose to you the following articles for our future:--

"1stly. That you shall write to me of yourself, of the health, wealth, and welfare of all friends; but of _me_ (_quoad me_) little or nothing.

"2dly. That you shall send me soda-powders, tooth-powder, tooth-brushes, or any such anti-odontalgic or chemical articles, as heretofore,'ad libitum,' upon being reimbursed for the same.

"3dly. That you shall not send me any modern, or (as they are called) _new_ publications, in _English whatsoever_, save and excepting any writing, prose or verse, of (or reasonably presumed to be of) Walter Scott, Crabbe, Moore, Campbell, Rogers, Gifford, Joanna Baillie, _Irving_ (the American), Hogg, Wilson (Isle of Palms man), or _any_ especial _single_ work of fancy which is thought to be of considerable merit; _Voyages_ and _Travels_, provided that they are _neither in Greece, Spain, Asia Minor, Albania, nor Italy_, will be welcome. Having travelled the countries mentioned, I know that what is said of them can convey nothing farther which I desire to know about them.--No other English works whatsoever.

"4thly. That you send me no periodical works whatsoever--_no_ Edinburgh, Quarterly, Monthly, nor any review, magazine, or newspaper, English or foreign, of any description.

"5thly. That you send me no opinions whatsoever, either _good_, _bad_, or _indifferent_, of yourself, or your friends, or others, concerning any work, or works, of mine, past, present, or to come.

"6thly. That all negotiations in matters of business between you and me pa.s.s through the medium of the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, my friend and trustee, or Mr. Hobhouse, as 'alter ego,' and tantamount to myself during my absence--or presence.

"Some of these propositions may at first seem strange, but they are founded. The quant.i.ty of trash I have received as books is incalculable, and neither amused nor instructed. Reviews and magazines are at the best but ephemeral and superficial reading: who thinks of the _grand article of last year_ in any _given Review_? In the next place, if they regard myself, they tend to increase _egotism_. If favourable, I do not deny that the praise _elates_, and if unfavourable, that the abuse _irritates_. The latter may conduct me to inflict a species of satire which would neither do good to you nor to your friends: _they_ may smile _now_, and so may _you_; but if I took you all in hand, it would not be difficult to cut you up like gourds. I did as much by as powerful people at nineteen years old, and I know little as yet, in three-and-thirty, which should prevent me from making all your ribs gridirons for your hearts, if such were my propensity: but it is _not_; therefore let me hear none of your provocations. If any thing occurs so very gross as to require my notice, I shall hear of it from my legal friends. For the rest, I merely request to be left in ignorance.

"The same applies to opinions, _good_, _bad_, or _indifferent_, of persons in conversation or correspondence. These do not _interrupt_, but they _soil_ the _current_ of my _mind_. I am sensitive enough, but _not_ till I am _troubled_; and here I am beyond the touch of the short arms of literary England, except the few feelers of the polypus that crawl over the channels in the way of extract.

"All these precautions _in_ England would be useless; the libeller or the flatterer would there reach me in spite of all; but in Italy we know little of literary England, and think less, except what reaches us through some garbled and brief extract in some miserable gazette. For _two years_ (excepting two or three articles cut out and sent to _you_ by the post) I never read a newspaper which was not forced upon me by some accident, and know, upon the whole, as little of England as you do of Italy, and G.o.d knows _that_ is little enough, with all your travels, &c. &c. &c. The English travellers _know Italy as you_ know Guernsey: how much is _that_?

"If any thing occurs so violently gross or personal as requires notice, Mr. Douglas Kinnaird will let me _know_; but of _praise_ I desire to hear _nothing_.

"You will say, 'to what tends all this?' I will answer THAT;--to keep my mind _free and unbia.s.sed_ by all paltry and personal irritabilities of praise or censure--to let my genius take its natural direction, while my feelings are like the dead, who know nothing and feel nothing of all or aught that is said or done in their regard.

"If you can observe these conditions, you will spare yourself and others some pain: let me not be worked upon to rise up; for if I do, it will not be for a little. If you _cannot_ observe these conditions, we shall cease to be correspondents,--but not _friends_, for I shall always be yours ever and truly,

"BYRON.

"P.S. I have taken these resolutions not from any irritation against you or _yours_, but simply upon reflection that all reading, either praise or censure, of myself has done me harm. When I was in Switzerland and Greece, I was out of the way of hearing either, and _how I wrote there!_--In Italy I am out of the way of it too; but latterly, partly through my fault, and partly through your kindness in wis.h.i.+ng to send me the _newest_ and most periodical publications, I have had a crowd of Reviews, &c. thrust upon me, which have bored me with their jargon, of one kind or another, and taken off my attention from greater objects. You have also sent me a parcel of trash of poetry, for no reason that I can conceive, unless to provoke me to write a new 'English Bards.' Now _this_ I wish to avoid; for if ever I _do_, it will be a strong production; and I desire peace as long as the fools will keep their nonsense out of my way."[54]

[Footnote 54: It would be difficult to describe more strongly or more convincingly than Lord Byron has done in this letter the sort of petty, but thwarting obstructions and distractions which are at present thrown across the path of men of real talent by that swarm of minor critics and pretenders with whom the want of a vent in other professions has crowded all the walks of literature. Nor is it only the writers of the day that suffer from this multifarious rush into the mart;--the readers also, from having (as Lord Byron expresses it in another letter) "the superficies of too many things presented to them at once," come to lose by degrees their powers of discrimination; and, in the same manner as the palate becomes confused in trying various wines, so the public taste declines in proportion as the impressions to which it is exposed multiply.]

LETTER 457. TO MR. MOORE.

"September 27. 1821.