Life of Lord Byron Volume II Part 14

"Sir,

"I have just been honoured with your letter.--I feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the 'evil works of my nonage,' as the thing is suppressed voluntarily, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale a.s.sertions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities: he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I thought the "Lay." He said his own opinion was nearly similar. In speaking of the others, I told him that I thought you more particularly the poet of _Princes_, as _they_ never appeared more fascinating than in 'Marmion' and the 'Lady of the Lake.' He was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on the description of your Jameses as no less royal than poetical. He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of the Turks and your humble servant) you were in very good company. I defy Murray to have exaggerated his Royal Highness's opinion of your powers, nor can I pretend to enumerate all he said on the subject; but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to _manners_, certainly superior to those of any living _gentleman_.

"This interview was accidental. I never went to the levee; for having seen the courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed; and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, 'no business there.' To be thus praised by your Sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately and sincerely,

"Your obliged and obedient servant,

"BYRON.

"P.S.--Excuse this scrawl, scratched in a great hurry, and just after a journey."

During the summer of this year, he paid visits to some of his n.o.ble friends, and, among others, to the Earl of Jersey and the Marquis of Lansdowne. "In 1812," he says, "at Middleton (Lord Jersey's), amongst a goodly company of lords, ladies, and wits, &c., there was (* * *.) [49]

"Erskine, too! Erskine was there; good, but intolerable. He jested, he talked, he did every thing admirably, but then he would be applauded for the same thing twice over. He would read his own verses, his own paragraph, and tell his own story again and again; and then the 'Trial by Jury!!!' I almost wished it abolished, for I sat next him at dinner.

As I had read his published speeches, there was no occasion to repeat them to me.

"C * * (the fox-hunter), nicknamed '_Cheek_ C * *,' and I, sweated the claret, being the only two who did so. C * *, who loves his bottle, and had no notion of meeting with a 'bon-vivant' in a scribbler[50], in making my eulogy to somebody one evening, summed it up in--'By G----d he drinks like a man.'

"n.o.body drank, however, but C * * and I. To be sure, there was little occasion, for we swept off what was on the table (a most splendid board, as may be supposed, at Jersey's) very sufficiently. However, we carried our liquor discreetly, like the Baron of Bradwardine."

[Footnote 49: A review, somewhat too critical, of some of the guests is here omitted.]

[Footnote 50: For the first day or two, at Middleton, he did not join his n.o.ble host's party till after dinner, but took his scanty repast of biscuits and soda water in his own room. Being told by somebody that the gentleman above mentioned had p.r.o.nounced such habits to be "effeminate,"

he resolved to show the "fox-hunter" that he could be, on occasion, as good a _bon-vivant_ as himself, and, by his prowess at the claret next day, after dinner, drew forth from Mr. C * * the eulogium here recorded.]

In the month of August this year, on the completion of the new Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the Committee of Management, desirous of procuring an Address for the opening of the theatre, took the rather novel mode of inviting, by an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the newspapers, the compet.i.tion of all the poets of the day towards this object. Though the contributions that ensued were sufficiently numerous, it did not appear to the Committee that there was any one among the number worthy of selection. In this difficulty it occurred to Lord Holland that they could not do better than have recourse to Lord Byron, whose popularity would give additional vogue to the solemnity of their opening, and to whose transcendant claims, as a poet, it was taken for granted, (though without sufficient allowance, as it proved, for the irritability of the brotherhood,) even the rejected candidates themselves would bow without a murmur. The first result of this application to the n.o.ble poet will be learned from what follows.

LETTER 96. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"Cheltenham, September 10. 1812.

"My dear Lord,

"The lines which I sketched off on your hint are still, or rather _were_, in an unfinished state, for I have just committed them to a flame more decisive than that of Drury. Under all the circ.u.mstances, I should hardly wish a contest with Philo-drama--Philo-Drury--Asbestos, H * *, and all the anonymes and synonymes of Committee candidates. Seriously, I think you have a chance of something much better; for prologuising is not my forte, and, at all events, either my pride or my modesty won't let me incur the hazard of having my rhymes buried in next month's Magazine, under 'Essays on the Murder of Mr. Perceval,' and 'Cures for the Bite of a Mad Dog,' as poor Goldsmith complained of the fate of far superior performances.

"I am still sufficiently interested to wish to know the successful candidate; and, amongst so many, I have no doubt some will be excellent, particularly in an age when writing verse is the easiest of all attainments.

"I cannot answer your intelligence with the 'like comfort,' unless, as you are deeply theatrical, you may wish to hear of Mr. * *, whose acting is, I fear, utterly inadequate to the London engagement into which the managers of Covent Garden have lately entered. His figure is fat, his features flat, his voice unmanageable, his action ungraceful, and, as Diggory says, 'I defy him to _ex_tort that d----d m.u.f.fin face of his into madness.' I was very sorry to see him in the character of the 'Elephant on the slack rope;' for, when I last saw him, I was in raptures with his performance. But then I was sixteen--an age to which all London condescended to subside. After all, much better judges have admired, and may again; but I venture to 'prognosticate a prophecy'

(see the Courier) that he will not succeed.

"So, poor dear Rogers has stuck fast on 'the brow of the mighty Helvellyn'--I hope not for ever. My best respects to Lady H.:--her departure, with that of my other friends, was a sad event for me, now reduced to a state of the most cynical solitude. 'By the waters of Cheltenham I sat down and _drank_, when I remembered thee, oh Georgiana Cottage! As for our _harps_, we hanged them up upon the willows that grew thereby. Then they said, Sing us a song of Drury Lane,' &c.;--but I am dumb and dreary as the Israelites. The waters have disordered me to my heart's content--you _were_ right, as you always are. Believe me ever your obliged and affectionate servant,

"BYRON."

The request of the Committee for his aid having been, still more urgently, repeated, he, at length, notwithstanding the difficulty and invidiousness of the task, from his strong wish to oblige Lord Holland, consented to undertake it; and the quick succeeding notes and letters, which he addressed, during the completion of the Address, to his n.o.ble friend, afford a proof (in conjunction with others of still more interest, yet to be cited) of the pains he, at this time, took in improving and polis.h.i.+ng his first conceptions, and the importance he wisely attached to a judicious choice of epithets as a means of enriching both the music and the meaning of his verse. They also show,--what, as an ill.u.s.tration of his character, is even still more valuable,--the exceeding pliancy and good humour with which he could yield to friendly suggestions and criticisms; nor can it be questioned, I think, but that the docility thus invariably exhibited by him, on points where most poets are found to be tenacious and irritable, was a quality natural to his disposition, and such as might have been turned to account in far more important matters, had he been fortunate enough to meet with persons capable of understanding and guiding him.

The following are a few of those hasty notes, on the subject of the Address, which I allude to:--

TO LORD HOLLAND.

"September 22. 1812.

"My dear Lord,

"In a day or two I will send you something which you will still have the liberty to reject if you dislike it. I should like to have had more time, but will do my best,--but too happy if I can oblige _you_, though I may offend a hundred scribblers and the discerning public. Ever yours.

"Keep _my name_ a _secret_; or I shall be beset by all the rejected, and, perhaps, d.a.m.ned by a party."

LETTER 97. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"Cheltenham, September 23. 1812.

"Ecco!--I have marked some pa.s.sages with _double_ readings--choose between them--_cut_--_add_--_reject_--or _destroy_--do with them as you will--I leave it to you and the Committee--you cannot say so called 'a _non committendo_.' What will _they_ do (and I do) with the hundred and one rejected Troubadours? 'With trumpets, yea, and with shawms,' will you be a.s.sailed in the most diabolical doggerel.

I wish my name not to transpire till the day is decided. I shall not be in town, so it won't much matter; but let us have a good _deliverer_. I think Elliston should be the man, or Pope; _not_ Raymond, I implore you, by the love of Rhythmus!

"The pa.s.sages marked thus ==, above and below, are for you to choose between epithets, and such like poetical furniture. Pray write me a line, and believe me ever, &c.

"My best remembrances to Lady H. Will you be good enough to decide between the various readings marked, and erase the other; or our deliverer may be as puzzled as a commentator, and belike repeat both. If these _versicles_ won't do, I will hammer out some more endecasyllables.

"P.S.--Tell Lady H. I have had sad work to keep out the Phoenix--I mean the Fire Office of that name. It has insured the theatre, and why not the Address?"

TO LORD HOLLAND.

"September 24.

"I send a recast of the four first lines of the concluding paragraph.

"This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd, The drama's homage by her Herald paid, Receive _our welcome too_, whose every tone Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own.

The curtain rises, &c. &c.

And do forgive all this trouble. See what it is to have to do even with the _genteelest_ of us. Ever," &c.

LETTER 99. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"September 26. 1812.