Life of Lord Byron Volume III Part 9

I want my Moreri, and I want Athenaeus.

"P.S. I hope you sent back that poetical packet to the address which I forwarded to you on Sunday: if not, pray do; or I shall have the author screaming after his Epic."

LETTER 179. TO MR. MURRAY.

"April 26. 1814.

"I have no guess at your author,--but it is a n.o.ble poem[27], and worth a thousand odes of anybody's. I suppose I may keep this copy;--after reading it, I really regret having written my own. I say this very sincerely, albeit unused to think humbly of myself.

"I don't like the additional stanzas at _all_, and they had better be left out. The fact is, I can't do any thing I am asked to do, however gladly I _would_; and at the end of a week my interest in a composition goes off. This will account to you for my doing no better for your 'Stamp Duty' postscript.

"The S.R. is very civil--but what do they mean by Childe Harold resembling Marmion? and the next two, Giaour and Bride, _not_ resembling Scott? I certainly never intended to copy him; but, if there be any copyism, it must be in the two poems, where the same versification is adopted. However, they exempt The Corsair from all resemblance to any thing, though I rather wonder at his escape.

"If ever I did any thing original, it was in Childe Harold, which _I_ prefer to the other things always, after the first week.

Yesterday I re-read English Bards;--bating the _malice_, it is the _best_.

"Ever," &c.

[Footnote 27: A Poem by Mr. Stratford Canning, full of spirit and power, ent.i.tled "Buonaparte." In a subsequent note to Mr. Murray, Lord Byron says,--"I do not think less highly of 'Buonaparte' for knowing the author. I was aware that he was a man of talent, but did not suspect him of possessing _all_ the _family_ talents in such perfection."]

A resolution was, about this time, adopted by him, which, however strange and precipitate it appeared, a knowledge of the previous state of his mind may enable us to account for satisfactorily. He had now, for two years, been drawing upon the admiration of the public with a rapidity and success which seemed to defy exhaustion,--having crowded, indeed, into that brief interval the materials of a long life of fame.

But admiration is a sort of impost from which most minds are but too willing to relieve themselves. The eye grows weary of looking up to the same object of wonder, and begins to exchange, at last, the delight of observing its elevation for the less generous pleasure of watching and speculating on its fall. The reputation of Lord Byron had already begun to experience some of these consequences of its own prolonged and constantly renewed splendour. Even among that host of admirers who would have been the last to find fault, there were some not unwilling to repose from praise; while they, who had been from the first reluctant eulogists, took advantage of these apparent symptoms of satiety to indulge in blame.[28]

The loud outcry raised, at the beginning of the present year, by his verses to the Princess Charlotte, had afforded a vent for much of this reserved venom; and the tone of disparagement in which some of his a.s.sailants now affected to speak of his poetry was, however absurd and contemptible in itself, precisely that sort of attack which was the most calculated to wound his, at once, proud and diffident spirit. As long as they confined themselves to blackening his moral and social character, so far from offending, their libels rather fell in with his own shadowy style of self-portraiture, and gratified the strange inverted ambition that possessed him. But the slighting opinion which they ventured to express of his genius,--seconded as it was by that inward dissatisfaction with his own powers, which they whose standard of excellence is highest are always the surest to feel,--mortified and disturbed him; and, being the first sounds of ill augury that had come across his triumphal career, startled him, as we have seen, into serious doubts of its continuance.

Had he been occupying himself, at the time, with any new task, that confidence in his own energies, which he never truly felt but while in the actual exercise of them, would have enabled him to forget these humiliations of the moment in the glow and excitement of antic.i.p.ated success. But he had just pledged himself to the world to take a long farewell of poesy,--had sealed up that only fountain from which his heart ever drew refreshment or strength,--and thus was left, idly and helplessly, to brood over the daily taunts of his enemies, without the power of avenging himself when they insulted his person, and but too much disposed to agree with them when they made light of his genius. "I am afraid, (he says, in noticing these attacks in one of his letters,) what you call _trash_ is plaguily to the purpose, and very good sense into the bargain; and, to tell the truth, for some little time past, I have been myself much of the same opinion."

In this sensitive state of mind,--which he but ill disguised or relieved by an exterior of gay defiance or philosophic contempt,--we can hardly feel surprised that he should have, all at once, come to the resolution, not only of persevering in his determination to write no more in future, but of purchasing back the whole of his past copyrights, and suppressing every page and line he had ever written. On his first mention of this design, Mr. Murray naturally doubted as to its seriousness; but the arrival of the following letter, enclosing a draft for the amount of the copyrights, put his intentions beyond question.

[Footnote 28: It was the fear of this sort of back-water current to which so rapid a flow of fame seemed liable, that led some even of his warmest admirers, ignorant as they were yet of the boundlessness of his resources, to tremble a little at the frequency of his appearances before the public. In one of my own letters to him, I find this apprehension thus expressed:--"If you did not write so well,--as the Royal wit observed,--I should say you write too much; at least, too much in the same strain. The Pythagoreans, you know, were of opinion that the reason why we do not hear or heed the music of the heavenly bodies is that they are always sounding in our ears; and I fear that even the influence of _your_ song may be diminished by falling upon the world's dull ear too constantly."

The opinion, however, which a great writer of our day (himself one of the few to whom his remark replies) had the generosity, as well as sagacity, to p.r.o.nounce on this point, at a time when Lord Byron was indulging in the fullest lavishment of his powers, must be regarded, after all, as the most judicious and wise:--"But they cater ill for the public," says Sir Walter Scott, "and give indifferent advice to the poet, supposing him possessed of the highest qualities of his art, who do not advise him to labour while the laurel around his brows yet retains its freshness. Sketches from Lord Byron are more valuable than finished pictures from others; nor are we at all sure that any labour which he might bestow in revisal would not rather efface than refine those outlines of striking and powerful originality which they exhibit when flung rough from the hand of a master."--_Biographical Memoirs_, by SIR W. SCOTT.]

LETTER 180. TO MR. MURRAY.

"2. Albany, April 29. 1814.

"Dear Sir,

"I enclose a draft for the money; when paid, send the copyright. I release you from the thousand pounds agreed on for The Giaour and Bride, and there's an end.

"If any accident occurs to me, you may do then as you please; but, with the exception of two copies of each for _yourself_ only, I expect and request that the advertis.e.m.e.nts be withdrawn, and the remaining copies of _all_ destroyed; and any expense so incurred I will be glad to defray.

"For all this, it might be as well to a.s.sign some reason. I have none to give, except my own caprice, and I do not consider the circ.u.mstances of consequence enough to require explanation.

"In course, I need hardly a.s.sure you that they never shall be published with my consent, directly, or indirectly, by any other person whatsoever,--that I am perfectly satisfied, and have every reason so to be, with your conduct in all transactions between us as publisher and author.

"It will give me great pleasure to preserve your acquaintance, and to consider you as my friend. Believe me very truly, and for much attention,

"Your obliged and very obedient servant,

"BYRON.

"P.S. I do not think that I have overdrawn at Hammersley's; but if _that_ be the case, I can draw for the superflux on h.o.a.re's. The draft is 5_l._ short, but that I will make up. On payment--_not_ before--return the copyright papers."

In such a conjuncture, an appeal to his good nature and considerateness was, as Mr. Murray well judged, his best resource; and the following prompt reply, will show how easily, and at once, it succeeded.

LETTER 181. TO MR. MURRAY.

"May 1. 1814.

"Dear Sir,

"If your present note is serious, and it really would be inconvenient, there is an end of the matter; tear my draft, and go on as usual: in that case, we will recur to our former basis. That _I_ was perfectly _serious_, in wis.h.i.+ng to suppress all future publication, is true; but certainly not to interfere with the convenience of others, and more particularly your own. Some day, I will tell you the reason of this apparently strange resolution. At present, it may be enough to say that I recall it at your suggestion; and as it appears to have annoyed you, I lose no time in saying so.

"Yours truly,

"B."

During my stay in town this year, we were almost daily together; and it is in no spirit of flattery to the dead I say, that the more intimately I became acquainted with his disposition and character, the more warmly I felt disposed to take an interest in every thing that concerned him.

Not that, in the opportunities thus afforded me of observing more closely his defects, I did not discover much to lament, and not a little to condemn. But there was still, in the neighbourhood of even his worst faults, some atoning good quality, which was always sure, if brought kindly and with management into play, to neutralise their ill effects.

The very frankness, indeed, with which he avowed his errors seemed to imply a confidence in his own power of redeeming them,--a consciousness that he could afford to be sincere. There was also, in such entire unreserve, a pledge that nothing worse remained behind; and the same quality that laid open the blemishes of his nature gave security for its honesty. "The cleanness and purity of one's mind," says Pope, "is never better proved than in discovering its own faults, at first view; as when a stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water."

The theatre was, at this time, his favourite place of resort. We have seen how enthusiastically he expresses himself on the subject of Mr.

Kean's acting, and it was frequently my good fortune, during this season, to share in his enjoyment of it,--the orchestra being, more than once, the place where, for a nearer view of the actor's countenance, we took our station. For Kean's benefit, on the 25th of May, a large party had been made by Lady J * *, to which we both belonged; but Lord Byron having also taken a box for the occasion, so anxious was he to enjoy the representation uninterrupted, that, by rather an unsocial arrangement, only himself and I occupied his box during the play, while every other in the house was crowded almost to suffocation; nor did we join the remainder of our friends till supper. Between the two parties, however, Mr. Kean had no reason to complain of a want of homage to his talents; as Lord J * *, on that occasion, presented him with a hundred pound share in the theatre; while Lord Byron sent him, next day, the sum of fifty guineas[29]; and, not long after, on seeing him act some of his favourite parts, made him presents of a handsome snuff-box and a costly Turkish sword.

Such effect had the pa.s.sionate energy of Kean's acting on his mind, that, once, in seeing him play Sir Giles Overreach, he was so affected as to be seized with a sort of convulsive fit; and we shall find him, some years after, in Italy, when the representation of Alfieri's tragedy of Mirra had agitated him in the same violent manner, comparing the two instances as the only ones in his life when "any thing under reality"

had been able to move him so powerfully.

The following are a few of the notes which I received from him during this visit to town.

[Footnote 29: To such lengths did he, at this time, carry his enthusiasm for Kean, that when Miss O'Neil soon after appeared, and, by her matchless representation of feminine tenderness, attracted all eyes and hearts, he was not only a little jealous of her reputation, as interfering with that of his favourite, but, in order to guard himself against the risk of becoming a convert, refused to go to see her act. I endeavoured sometimes to persuade him into witnessing, at least, one of her performances; but his answer was, (punning upon Shakspeare's word, "unanealed,") "No--I'm resolved to continue _un-Oneiled_."

To the great queen of all actresses, however, it will be seen, by the following extract from one of his journals, he rendered due justice:--

"Of actors, Cooke was the most natural, Kemble the most supernatural,--Kean the medium between the two. But Mrs. Siddons was worth them all put together."--_Detached Thoughts_.]