Life of Lord Byron Volume II Part 15

"You will think there is no end to my villanous emendations. The fifth and sixth lines I think to alter thus:--

"Ye who beheld--oh sight admired and mourn'd, Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd;

because 'night' is repeated the next line but one; and, as it now stands, the conclusion of the paragraph, 'worthy him (Shakspeare) and _you_,' appears to apply the '_you_' to those only who were out of bed and in Covent Garden Market on the night of conflagration, instead of the audience or the discerning public at large, all of whom are intended to be comprised in that comprehensive and, I hope, comprehensible p.r.o.noun.

"By the by, one of my corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom--

"When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write.

Ceasing to _live_ is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first; therefore I will let the old couplet stand, with its half rhymes 'sought' and 'wrote.'[51] Second thoughts in every thing are best, but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss. I am very anxious on this business, and I do hope that the very trouble I occasion you will plead its own excuse, and that it will tend to show my endeavour to make the most of the time allotted. I wish I had known it months ago, for in that case I had not left one line standing on another. I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as much as I can, but never sufficiently; and, latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning. When I began 'Childe Harold,' I had never tried Spenser's measure, and now I cannot scribble in any other.

"After all, my dear Lord, if you can get a decent Address elsewhere, don't hesitate to put this aside. Why did you not trust your own Muse? I am very sure she would have been triumphant, and saved the Committee their trouble--''tis a joyful one' to me, but I fear I shall not satisfy even myself. After the account you sent me, 'tis no compliment to say you would have beaten your candidates; but I mean that, in _that_ case, there would have been no occasion for their being beaten at all.

"There are but two decent prologues in our tongue--Pope's to Cato--Johnson's to Drury Lane. These, with the epilogue to the 'Distrest Mother,' and, I think, one of Goldsmith's, and a prologue of old Colman's to Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, are the best things of the kind we have.

"P.S.--I am diluted to the throat with medicine for the stone; and Boisragon wants me to try a warm climate for the winter--but I won't."

[Footnote 51:

"Such are the names that here your plaudits sought, When Garrick acted, and when Brinsley wrote."

At present the couplet stands thus:--

"Dear are the days that made our annals bright, Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to write."

LETTER 100. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"September 27. 1812.

"I have just received your very kind letter, and hope you have met with a second copy corrected and addressed to Holland House, with some omissions and this new couplet,

"As glared each rising flash[52], and ghastly shone The skies with lightnings awful as their own.

As to remarks, I can only say I will alter and acquiesce in any thing. With regard to the part which Whitbread wishes to omit, I believe the Address will go off _quicker_ without it, though, like the agility of the Hottentot, at the expense of its vigour. I leave to your choice entirely the different specimens of stucco-work; and a _brick_ of your own will also much improve my Babylonish turret.

I should like Elliston to have it, with your leave. 'Adorn' and 'mourn' are lawful rhymes in Pope's Death of the unfortunate Lady.--Gray has 'forlorn' and 'mourn;'--and 'torn' and 'mourn' are in Smollet's famous Tears of Scotland.

"As there will probably be an outcry amongst the rejected, I hope the committee will testify (if it be needful) that I sent in nothing to the congress whatever, with or without a name, as your Lords.h.i.+p well knows. All I have to do with it is with and through you; and though I, of course, wish to satisfy the audience, I do a.s.sure you my first object is to comply with your request, and in so doing to show the sense I have of the many obligations you have conferred upon me. Yours ever, B."

[Footnote 52: At present, "As glared the volumed blaze."]

LETTER 103. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"September 29. 1812.

"Shakspeare certainly ceased to reign in _one_ of his kingdoms, as George III. did in America, and George IV. may in Ireland.[53] Now, we have nothing to do out of our own realms, and when the monarchy was gone, his majesty had but a barren sceptre. I have _cut away_, you will see, and altered, but make it what you please; only I do implore, for my _own_ gratification, one lash on those accursed quadrupeds--'a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love me.' I have altered 'wave,' &c., and the 'fire,' and so forth for the timid.

"Let me hear from you when convenient, and believe me, &c.

"P.S.--Do let _that_ stand, and cut out elsewhere. I shall choke, if we must overlook their d----d menagerie."

[Footnote 53: Some objection, it appears from this, had been made to the pa.s.sage, "and Shakspeare _ceased to reign_."]

LETTER 105. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"Far be from him that hour which asks in vain Tears such as flow for Garrick in his strain;

_or_,

"Far be that hour that vainly asks in turn {_crown'd his_} Such verse for him as { wept o'er } Garrick's urn.

"September 30. 1812.

"Will you choose between these added to the lines on Sheridan?[54]

I think they will wind up the panegyric, and agree with the train of thought preceding them.

"Now, one word as to the Committee--how could they resolve on a rough copy of an Address never sent in, unless you had been good enough to retain in memory, or on paper, the thing they have been good enough to adopt? By the by, the circ.u.mstances of the case should make the Committee less 'avidus glorias,' for all praise of them would look plaguy suspicious. If necessary to be stated at all, the simple facts bear them out. They surely had a right to act as they pleased. My sole object is one which, I trust, my whole conduct has shown; viz. that I did nothing insidious--sent in no Address _whatever_--but, when applied to, did my best for them and myself; but, above all, that there was no undue partiality, which will be what the rejected will endeavour to make out.

Fortunately--most fortunately--I sent in no lines on the occasion.

For I am sure that had they, in that case, been preferred, it would have been a.s.serted that _I_ was known, and owed the preference to private friends.h.i.+p. This is what we shall probably have to encounter; but, if once spoken and approved, we sha'n't be much embarra.s.sed by their brilliant conjectures; and, as to criticism, an _old_ author, like an old bull, grows cooler (or ought) at every baiting.

"The only thing would be to avoid a party on the night of delivery--afterwards, the more the better, and the whole transaction inevitably tends to a good deal of discussion. Murray tells me there are myriads of ironical Addresses ready--_some_, in imitation of what is called _my style_. If they are as good as the Probationary Odes, or Hawkins's Pipe of Tobacco, it will not be bad fun for the imitated.

"Ever," &c.

[Footnote 54: These added lines, as may be seen by reference to the printed Address, were not retained.]

The time comprised in the series of letters to Lord Holland, of which the above are specimens, Lord Byron pa.s.sed, for the most part, at Cheltenham; and during the same period, the following letters to other correspondents were written.

LETTER 107. TO MR. MURRAY.

"High Street, Cheltenham, Sept. 5. 1812.

"Pray have the goodness to send those despatches, and a No. of the Edinburgh Review with the rest. I hope you have written to Mr.

Thompson, thanked him in my name for his present, and told him that I shall be truly happy to comply with his request.--How do you go on? and when is the graven image, 'with _bays and wicked rhyme upon 't,'_ to grace, or disgrace, some of our tardy editions?

"Send me '_Rokeby_.' Who the devil is he?--no matter, he has good connections, and will be well introduced. I thank you for your enquiries: I am so so, but my thermometer is sadly below the poetical point. What will you give _me_ or _mine_ for a poem of six cantos, (_when complete_--_no_ rhyme, _no_ recompense,) as like the last two as I can make them? I have some ideas that one day may be embodied, and till winter I shall have much leisure.

"P.S.--My last question is in the true style of Grub Street; but, like Jeremy Diddler, I only 'ask for information.'--Send me Adair on Diet and Regimen, just republished by Ridgway."