Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 33

This is what I regret, and what with all my influence I would deprecate a repet.i.tion of. _Now_, do you understand me?

"As to your solemn peroration, 'the truth is, my dear Moore, &c. &c.'

meaning neither more nor less than that I give into the cant of the world, it only proves, alas! the melancholy fact, that you and I are hundreds of miles asunder. Could you hear me speak my opinions instead of coldly reading them, I flatter myself there is still enough of honesty and fun in this face to remind you that your friend Tom Moore--whatever else he may be,--is no Canter."

LETTER 484. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, March 6. 1822.

"You will long ago have received a letter from me (or should), declaring my opinion of the treatment you have met with about the recent publication. I think it disgraceful to those who have persecuted _you_. I make peace with you, though our war was for other reasons than this same controversy. I have written to Moore by this post to forward to you the tragedy of' Werner.' I shall not make or propose any present bargain about it or the new Mystery till we see if they succeed. If they don't sell (which is not unlikely), you sha'n't pay; and I suppose this is fair play, if you choose to risk it.

"Bartolini, the celebrated sculptor, wrote to me to desire to take my bust: I consented, on condition that he also took that of the Countess Guiccioli. He has taken both, and I think it will be allowed that _hers_ is beautiful. I shall make you a present of them both, to show that I don't bear malice, and as a compensation for the trouble and squabble you had about Thorwaldsen's. Of my own I can hardly speak, except that it is thought very like what I _now am_, which is different from what I was, of course, since you saw me. The sculptor is a famous one; and as it was done by _his own_ particular request, will be done well, probably.

"What is to be done about * * and his Commentary? He will die if he is _not_ published; he will be d.a.m.ned, if he _is_; but that _he_ don't mind. We must publish him.

"All the _row_ about _me_ has no otherwise affected me than by the attack upon yourself, which is ungenerous in Church and State: but as all violence must in time have its proportionate re-action, you will do better by and by. Yours very truly,

"NOEL BYRON."

LETTER 485. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, March 8. 1822.

"You will have had enough of my letters by this time--yet one word in answer to your present missive. You are quite wrong in thinking that your '_advice_' had offended me; but I have already replied (if not answered) on that point.

"With regard to Murray, as I really am the meekest and mildest of men since Moses (though the public and mine 'excellent wife' cannot find it out), I had already pacified myself and subsided back to Albemarle Street, as my yesterday's _ye_pistle will have informed you. But I thought that I had explained my causes of bile--at least to you. Some instances of vacillation, occasional neglect, and troublesome sincerity, real or imagined, are sufficient to put your truly great author and man into a pa.s.sion. But reflection, with some aid from h.e.l.lebore, hath already cured me 'pro tempore;' and, if it had not, a request from you and Hobhouse would have come upon me like two out of the 'tribus Anticyris,'--with which, however, Horace despairs of purging a poet. I really feel ashamed of having bored you so frequently and fully of late. But what could I do? You are a friend--an absent one, alas!--and as I trust no one more, I trouble you in proportion.

"This war of 'Church and State' has astonished me more than it disturbs; for I really thought 'Cain' a speculative and hardy, but still a harmless, production. As I said before, I am really a great admirer of tangible religion; and am breeding one of my daughters a Catholic, that she may have her hands full. It is by far the most elegant wors.h.i.+p, hardly excepting the Greek mythology. What with incense, pictures, statues, altars, shrines, relics, and the real presence, confession, absolution,--there is something sensible to grasp at. Besides, it leaves no possibility of doubt; for those who swallow their Deity, really and truly, in transubstantiation, can hardly find any thing else otherwise than easy of digestion.

"I am afraid that this sounds flippant, but I don't mean it to be so; only my turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then. Still, I do a.s.sure you that I am a very good Christian.

Whether you will believe me in this, I do not know; but I trust you will take my word for being

"Very truly and affectionately yours, &c.

"P.S. Do tell Murray that one of the conditions of peace is, that he publisheth (or obtaineth a publisher for) * * *'s Commentary on Dante, against which there appears in the trade an unaccountable repugnance. It will make the man so exuberantly happy. He dines with me and half-a-dozen English to-day; and I have not the heart to tell him how the bibliopolar world shrink from his Commentary;--and yet it is full of the most orthodox religion and morality. In short, I make it a point that he shall be in print. He is such a good-natured, heavy-* * Christian, that we must give him a shove through the press. He naturally thirsts to be an author, and has been the happiest of men for these two months, printing, correcting, collating, dating, antic.i.p.ating, and adding to his treasures of learning. Besides, he has had another fall from his horse into a ditch the other day, while riding out with me into the country."

LETTER 486. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, March 15. 1822.

"I am glad that you and your friends approve of my letter of the 8th ultimo. You may give it what publicity you think proper in the circ.u.mstances. I have since written to you twice or thrice.

"As to 'a Poem in the old way,' I shall attempt of that kind nothing further. I follow the bias of my own mind, without considering whether women or men are or are not to be pleased; but this is nothing to my publisher, who must judge and act according to popularity.

"Therefore let the things take their chance: if _they pay,_ you will pay me in proportion; and if they don't, I must.

"The Noel affairs, I hope, will not take me to England. I have no desire to revisit that country, unless it be to keep you out of a prison (if this can be effected by my taking your place), or perhaps to get myself into one, by exacting satisfaction from one or two persons who take advantage of my absence to abuse me.

Further than this, I have no business nor connection with England, nor desire to have, _out_ of my own family and friends, to whom I wish all prosperity. Indeed, I have lived upon the whole so little in England (about five years since I was one-and-twenty), that my habits are too continental, and your climate would please me as little as the society.

"I saw the Chancellor's Report in a French paper. Pray, why don't they prosecute the translation of _Lucretius_? or the original with its

"'Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor,'

or

"'Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum?'

"You must really get something done for Mr. * *'s Commentary: what can I say to him?

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 487. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, April 13. 1822.

"Mr. Kinnaird writes that there has been an 'excellent Defence' of 'Cain,' against 'Oxoniensis;' you have sent me nothing but a not very excellent _of_-fence of the same poem. If there be such a 'Defender of the Faith,' you may send me his thirty-nine articles, as a counterbalance to some of your late communications.

"Are you to publish, or not, what Moore and Mr. Kinnaird have in hand, and the 'Vision of Judgment?' If you publish the latter in a very cheap edition, so as to baffle the pirates by a low price, you will find that it will do. The 'Mystery' I look upon as good, and 'Werner' too, and I expect that you will publish them speedily. You need not put your name to _Quevedo,_ but publish it as a foreign edition, and let it make its way. Douglas Kinnaird has it still, with the preface, I believe.

"I refer you to him for doc.u.ments on the late row here. I sent them a week ago.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 488. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, April 18. 1822.

"I have received the Defence of 'Cain.' Who is my Warburton?--for he has done for me what the bishop did for the poet against Crousaz. His reply seems to me conclusive; and if you understood your own interest, you would print it together with the poem.

"It is very odd that I do not hear from you. I have forwarded to Mr. Douglas Kinnaird the doc.u.ments on a squabble here, which occurred about a month ago. The affair is still going on; but they make nothing of it hitherto. I think, what with home and abroad, there has been hot water enough for one while. Mr. Dawkins, the English minister, has behaved in the handsomest and most gentlemanly manner throughout the whole business.

"Yours ever, &c.

"P.S. I have got Lord Glenbervie's book, which is very amusing and able upon the topics which he touches upon, and part of the preface pathetic. Write soon."

LETTER 489. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, April 22. 1822.