Life of Lord Byron Volume III Part 14

"Yours (or theirs), &c.

"B."

LETTER 194. TO MR. MURRAY.

"August 5. 1814.

"The Edinburgh Review is arrived--thanks. I enclose Mr. Hobhouse's letter, from which you will perceive the work you have made.

However, I have done: you must send my rhymes to the devil your own way. It seems, also, that the 'faithful and spirited likeness' is another of your publications. I wish you joy of it; but it is no likeness--that is the point. Seriously, if I have delayed your journey to Scotland, I am sorry that you carried your complaisance so far; particularly as upon trifles you have a more summary method;--witness the grammar of Hobhouse's 'bit of prose,' which has put him and me into a fever.

"Hogg must translate his own words: '_lifting_' is a quotation from his letter, together with 'G.o.d d----n,' &c., which I suppose requires no translation.

"I was unaware of the contents of Mr. Moore's letter; I think your offer very handsome, but of that you and he must judge. If he can get more, you won't wonder that he should accept it.

"Out with Lara, since it must be. The tome looks pretty enough--on the outside, I shall be in town next week, and in the mean time wish you a pleasant journey.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 195. TO MR. MOORE.

"August 12. 1814.

"I was _not_ alone, nor will be while I can help it. Newstead is not yet decided. Claughton is to make a grand effort by Sat.u.r.day week to complete,--if not, he must give up twenty-five thousand pounds and the estate, with expenses, &c. &c. If I resume the Abbacy, you shall have due notice, and a cell set apart for your reception, with a pious welcome. Rogers I have not seen, but Larry and Jacky came out a few days ago. Of their effect I know nothing.

"There is something very amusing in _your_ being an Edinburgh Reviewer. You know, I suppose, that T * * is none of the placidest, and may possibly enact some tragedy on being told that he is only a fool. If, now, Jeffery were to be slain on account of an article of yours, there would be a fine conclusion. For my part, as Mrs.

Winifred Jenkins says, 'he has done the handsome thing by me,'

particularly in his last number; so, he is the best of men and the ablest of critics, and I won't have him killed,--though I dare say many wish he were, for being so good-humoured.

"Before I left Hastings I got in a pa.s.sion with an ink bottle, which I flung out of the window one night with a vengeance;--and what then? Why, next morning I was horrified by seeing that it had struck, and split upon, the petticoat of Euterpe's graven image in the garden, and grimed her as if it were on purpose[45]. Only think of my distress,--and the epigrams that might be engendered on the Muse and her misadventure.

"I had an adventure almost as ridiculous, at some private theatricals near Cambridge--though of a different description--since I saw you last. I quarrelled with a man in the dark for asking me who I was (insolently enough to be sure), and followed him into the green-room (a _stable_) in a rage, amongst a set of people I never saw before. He turned out to be a low comedian, engaged to act with the amateurs, and to be a civil-spoken man enough, when he found out that nothing very pleasant was to be got by rudeness. But you would have been amused with the row, and the dialogue, and the dress--or rather the undress--of the party, where I had introduced myself in a devil of a hurry, and the astonishment that ensued. I had gone out of the theatre, for coolness, into the garden;--there I had tumbled over some dogs, and, coming away from them in very ill humour, encountered the man in a worse, which produced all this confusion.

"Well--and why don't you 'launch?'--Now is your time. The people are tolerably tired with me, and not very much enamoured of * *, who has just sp.a.w.ned a quarto of metaphysical blank verse, which is nevertheless only a part of a poem.

"Murray talks of divorcing Larry and Jacky--a bad sign for the authors, who, I suppose, will be divorced too, and throw the blame upon one another. Seriously, I don't care a cigar about it, and I don't see why Sam should.

"Let me hear from and of you and my G.o.dson. If a daughter, the name will do quite as well.

"Ever," &c.

[Footnote 45: His servant had brought him up a large jar of ink, into which, not supposing it to be full, he had thrust his pen down to the very bottom. Enraged, on finding it come out all smeared with ink, he flung the bottle out of the window into the garden, where it lighted, as here described, upon one of eight leaden Muses, that had been imported, some time before, from Holland,--the ninth having been, by some accident, left behind.]

LETTER 196. TO MR. MOORE.

"August 13. 1814.

"I wrote yesterday to Mayfield, and have just now enfranked your letter to mamma. My stay in town is so uncertain (not later than next week) that your packets for the north may not reach me; and as I know not exactly where I am going--however, _Newstead_ is my most probable destination, and if you send your despatches before Tuesday, I can forward them to our new ally. But, after that day, you had better not trust to their arrival in time.

"* * has been exiled from Paris, _on dit_, for saying the Bourbons were old women. The Bourbons might have been content, I think, with returning the compliment.

"I told you all about Jacky and Larry yesterday;--they are to be separated,--at least, so says the grand M., and I know no more of the matter. Jeffrey has done me more than 'justice;' but as to tragedy--um!--I have no time for fiction at present. A man cannot paint a storm with the vessel under bare poles on a lee-sh.o.r.e. When I get to land, I will try what is to be done, and, if I founder, there be plenty of mine elders and betters to console Melpomene.

"When at Newstead, you must come over, if only for a day--should Mrs. M. be _exigeante_ of your presence. The place is worth seeing, as a ruin, and I can a.s.sure you there _was_ some fun there, even in my time; but that is past. The ghosts [46], however, and the gothics, and the waters, and the desolation, make it very lively still.

"Ever, dear Tom, yours," &c.

[Footnote 46: It was, if I mistake not, during his recent visit to Newstead, that he himself actually fancied he saw the ghost of the Black Friar, which was supposed to have haunted the Abbey from the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, and which he thus describes, from the recollection perhaps of his own fantasy, in Don Juan:--

"It was no mouse, but, lo! a monk, array'd In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd, Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade, With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard: His garments only a slight murmur made: He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird, But slowly; and as he pa.s.s'd Juan by, Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye."

It is said, that the Newstead ghost appeared, also, to Lord Byron's cousin, Miss f.a.n.n.y Parkins, and that she made a sketch of him from memory.]

LETTER 197. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Newstead Abbey, Septembers. 1814.

"I am obliged by what you have sent, but would rather not see any thing of the kind[47]; we have had enough of these things already, good and bad, and next month you need not trouble yourself to collect even the _higher_ generation--on my account. It gives me much pleasure to hear of Mr. Hobhouse's and Mr. Merivale's good entreatment by the journals you mention.

"I still think Mr. Hogg and yourself might make out an alliance.

_Dodsley's_ was, I believe, the last decent thing of the kind, and _his_ had great success in its day, and lasted several years; but then he had the double advantage of editing and publis.h.i.+ng. The Spleen, and several of _Gray's_ odes, much of _Shenstone_, and many others of good repute, made their first appearance in his collection. Now, with the support of Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, &c., I see little reason why you should not do as well; and, if once fairly established, you would have a.s.sistance from the youngsters, I dare say. Stratford Canning (whose 'Buonaparte' is excellent), and many others, and Moore, and Hobhouse, and I, would try a fall now and then (if permitted), and you might coax Campbell, too, into it. By the by, _he_ has an unpublished (though printed) poem on a scene in Germany, (Bavaria, I think,) which I saw last year, that is perfectly magnificent, and equal to himself.

I wonder he don't publish it.

"Oh!--do you recollect S * *, the engraver's, mad letter about not engraving Phillips's picture of Lord _Foley_? (as he blundered it;) well, I have traced it, I think. It seems, by the papers, a preacher of Johanna Southcote's is named _Foley_; and I can no way account for the said S * *'s confusion of words and ideas, but by that of his head's running on Johanna and her apostles. It was a mercy he did not say Lord _Tozer_. You know, of course, that S * *

is a believer in this new (old) virgin of spiritual impregnation.

"I long to know what she will produce[48]; her being with child at sixty-five is indeed a miracle, but her getting any one to beget it, a greater.

"If you were not going to Paris or Scotland, I could send you some game: if you remain, let me know.

"P.S. A word or two of 'Lara,' which your enclosure brings before me. It is of no great promise separately; but, as connected with the other tales, it will do very well for the volumes you mean to publish. I would recommend this arrangement--Childe Harold, the smaller Poems, Giaour, Bride, Corsair, Lara; the last completes the series, and its very likeness renders it necessary to the others.

Cawthorne writes that they are publis.h.i.+ng _English Bards in Ireland:_ pray enquire into this; because _it must_ be stopped."

[Footnote 47: The reviews and magazines of the month.]

[Footnote 48: The following characteristic note, in reference to this pa.s.sage, appears, in Mr. Gifford's hand-writing, on the copy of the above letter:--"It is a pity that Lord B. was ignorant of Jonson. The old poet has a Satire on the Court Pucelle that would have supplied him with some pleasantry on Johanna's pregnancy."]

LETTER 198. TO MR. MURRAY.