Life of Lord Byron Volume III Part 37

"If there is no remedy in law, there is at least the equitable one of making known his _guilt_,--that is, his silver-_gilt_, and be d----d to him.

"I shall carefully preserve all the purchases I made of him on that occasion for my return, as the plague in Turkey is a barrier to travelling there at present, or rather the endless quarantine which would be the consequence before one could land in coming back. Pray state the matter to him with due ferocity.

"I sent you the other day some extracts from a kind of Drama which I had begun in Switzerland and finished here; you will tell me if they are received. They were only in a letter. I have not yet had energy to copy it out, or I would send you the whole in different covers.

"The Carnival closed this day last week.

"Mr. Hobhouse is still at Rome, I believe. I am at present a little unwell;--sitting up too late and some subsidiary dissipations have lowered my blood a good deal; but I have at present the quiet and temperance of Lent before me.

"Believe me, &c.

"P.S. Remember me to Mr. Gifford--I have not received your parcel or parcels.--Look into 'Moore's (Dr. Moore's) View of Italy' for me; in one of the volumes you will find an account of the _Doge Valiere_ (it ought to be Falieri) and his conspiracy, or the motives of it. Get it transcribed for me, and send it in a letter to me soon. I want it, and cannot find so good an account of that business here; though the veiled patriot, and the place where he was crowned, and afterwards decapitated, still exist and are shown.

I have searched all their histories; but the policy of the old aristocracy made their writers silent on his motives, which were a private grievance against one of the patricians.

"I mean to write a tragedy on the subject, which appears to me very dramatic; an old man, jealous, and conspiring against the state of which he was the actually reigning chief. The last circ.u.mstance makes it the most remarkable and only fact of the kind in all history of all nations."

LETTER 263. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, February 28. 1817.

"You will, perhaps, complain as much of the frequency of my letters now, as you were wont to do of their rarity. I think this is the fourth within as many moons. I feel anxious to hear from you, even more than usual, because your last indicated that you were unwell.

At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The Carnival--that is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o'nights, had knocked me up a little. But it is over,--and it is now Lent, with all its abstinence and sacred music.

"The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went, as also to most of the ridottos, &c. &c.; and, though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine.

"So, we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword out-wears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon.

I have lately had some news of litter_atoor_, as I heard the editor of the Monthly p.r.o.nounce it once upon a time. I hear that W.W. has been publis.h.i.+ng and responding to the attacks of the Quarterly, in the learned Perry's Chronicle. I read his poesies last autumn, and, amongst them, found an epitaph on his bull-dog, and another on _myself_. But I beg leave to a.s.sure him (like the astrologer Partridge) that I am not only alive now, but was alive also at the time he wrote it. Hobhouse has (I hear, also) expectorated a letter against the Quarterly, addressed to me. I feel awkwardly situated between him and Gifford, both being my friends.

"And this is your month of going to press--by the body of Diana! (a Venetian oath,) I feel as anxious--but not fearful for you--as if it were myself coming out in a work of humour, which would, you know, be the antipodes of all my previous publications. I don't think you have any thing to dread but your own reputation. You must keep up to that. As you never showed me a line of your work, I do not even know your measure; but you must send me a copy by Murray forthwith, and then you shall hear what I think. I dare say you are in a pucker. Of all authors, you are the only really _modest_ one I ever met with,--which would sound oddly enough to those who recollect your morals when you were young--that is, when you were _extremely_ young--don't mean to stigmatise you either with years or morality.

"I believe I told you that the E.R. had attacked me, in an article on Coleridge (I have not seen it)--'_Et tu_, Jeffrey?'--'there is nothing but roguery in villanous man.' But I absolve him of all attacks, present and future; for I think he had already pushed his clemency in my behoof to the utmost, and I shall always think well of him. I only wonder he did not begin before, as my domestic destruction was a fine opening for all the world, of which all who could did well to avail themselves.

"If I live ten years longer, you will see, however, that it is not over with me--I don't mean in literature, for that is nothing; and it may seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But you will see that I shall do something or other--the times and fortune permitting--that, 'like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.' But I doubt whether my const.i.tution will hold out. I have, at intervals, ex_or_cised it most devilishly.

"I have not yet fixed a time of return, but I think of the spring.

I shall have been away a year in April next. You never mention Rogers, nor Hodgson, your clerical neighbour, who has lately got a living near you. Has he also got a child yet?--his desideratum, when I saw him last.

"Pray let me hear from you, at your time and leisure, believing me ever and truly and affectionately," &c.

LETTER 264. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, March 3. 1817.

"In acknowledging the arrival of the article from the 'Quarterly[129],' which I received two days ago, I cannot express myself better than in the words of my sister Augusta, who (speaking of it) says, that it is written in a spirit 'of the most feeling and kind nature.' It is, however, something more; it seems to me (as far as the subject of it may be permitted to judge) to be _very well_ written as a composition, and I think will do the journal no discredit, because even those who condemn its partiality must praise its generosity. The temptations to take another and a less favourable view of the question have been so great and numerous, that, what with public opinion, politics, &c. he must be a gallant as well as a good man, who has ventured in that place, and at this time, to write such an article even anonymously. Such things are, however, their own reward; and I even flatter myself that the writer, whoever he may be (and I have no guess), will not regret that the perusal of this has given me as much gratification as any composition of that nature could give, and more than any other has given,--and I have had a good many in my time of one kind or the other. It is not the mere praise, but there is a _tact_ and a _delicacy_ throughout, not only with regard to me, but to _others_, which, as it had not been observed _elsewhere_, I had till now doubted whether it could be observed _any where_.

"Perhaps some day or other you will know or tell me the writer's name. Be a.s.sured, had the article been a harsh one, I should not have asked it.

"I have lately written to you frequently, with _extracts_, &c., which I hope you have received, or will receive, with or before this letter.--Ever since the conclusion of the Carnival I have been unwell, (do not mention this, on any account, to Mrs. Leigh; for if I grow worse, she will know it too soon, and if I get better, there is no occasion that she should know it at all,) and have hardly stirred out of the house. However, I don't want a physician, and if I did, very luckily those of Italy are the worst in the world, so that I should still have a chance. They have, I believe, one famous surgeon, Vacca, who lives at Pisa, who might be useful in case of dissection:--but he is some hundred miles off. My malady is a sort of lowish fever, originating from what my 'pastor and master,' Jackson, would call 'taking too much out of one's self.'

However, I am better within this day or two.

"I missed seeing the new Patriarch's procession to St. Mark's the other day (owing to my indisposition), with six hundred and fifty priests in his rear--a 'goodly army.' The admirable government of Vienna, in its edict from thence, authorising his installation, prescribed, as part of the pageant, 'a _coach_ and four horses.' To show how very, very '_German_ to the matter' this was, you have only to suppose our parliament commanding the Archbishop of Canterbury to proceed from Hyde Park Corner to St. Paul's Cathedral in the Lord Mayor's barge, or the Margate hoy. There is but St.

Mark's Place in all Venice broad enough for a carriage to move, and it is paved with large smooth flag-stones, so that the chariot and horses of Elijah himself would be puzzled to manoeuvre upon it.

Those of Pharaoh might do better; for the ca.n.a.ls--and particularly the Grand Ca.n.a.l--are sufficiently capacious and extensive for his whole host. Of course, no coach could be attempted; but the Venetians, who are very nave as well as arch, were much amused with the ordinance.

"The Armenian Grammar is published; but my Armenian studies are suspended for the present till my head aches a little less. I sent you the other day, in two covers, the first Act of 'Manfred,' a drama as mad as Nat. Lee's Bedlam tragedy, which was in 25 acts and some odd scenes:--mine is but in Three Acts.

"I find I have begun this letter at the wrong end: never mind; I must end it, then, at the right.

"Yours ever very truly and obligedly," &c.

[Footnote 129: An article in No. 31. of this Review, written, as Lord Byron afterwards discovered, by Sir Walter Scott, and well meriting, by the kind and generous spirit that breathes through it, the warm and lasting grat.i.tude it awakened in the n.o.ble poet.]

LETTER 265. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, March 9. 1817.

"In remitting the third Act of the sort of dramatic poem of which you will by this time have received the two first (at least I hope so), which were sent within the last three weeks, I have little to observe, except that you must not publish it (if it ever is published) without giving me previous notice. I have really and truly no notion whether it is good or bad; and as this was not the case with the princ.i.p.al of my former publications, I am, therefore, inclined to rank it very humbly. You will submit it to Mr. Gifford, and to whomsoever you please besides. With regard to the question of copyright (if it ever comes to publication), I do not know whether you would think _three hundred_ guineas an over-estimate; if you do, you may diminish it: I do not think it worth more; so you may see I make some difference between it and the others.

"I have received your two Reviews (but not the 'Tales of my Landlord'); the Quarterly I acknowledged particularly to you, on its arrival, ten days ago. What you tell me of Perry petrifies me; it is a rank imposition. In or about February or March, 1816, I was given to understand that Mr. Croker was not only a coadjutor in the attacks of the Courier in 1814, but the author of some lines tolerably ferocious, then recently published in a morning paper.

Upon this I wrote a reprisal. The whole of the lines I have forgotten, and even the purport of them I scarcely remember; for on _your_ a.s.suring me that he was not, &c. &c., I put them into the _fire before your face_, and there _never was_ but that _one rough_ copy. Mr. Davies, the only person who ever heard them read, wanted a copy, which I refused. If, however, by some _impossibility_, which I cannot divine, the ghost of these rhymes should walk into the world, I never will deny what I have really written, but hold myself personally responsible for satisfaction, though I reserve to myself the right of disavowing all or any _fabrications_. To the previous facts you are a witness, and best know how far my recapitulation is correct; and I request that you will inform Mr.

Perry from me, that I wonder he should permit such an abuse of my name in his paper; I say an _abuse_, because my absence, at least, demands some respect, and my presence and positive sanction could alone justify him in such a proceeding, even were the lines mine; and if false, there are no words for him. I repeat to you that the original was burnt before you on your _a.s.surance_, and there _never_ was a _copy_, nor even a verbal repet.i.tion,--very much to the discomfort of some zealous Whigs, who bored me for them (having heard it bruited by Mr. Davies that there were such matters) to no purpose; for, having written them solely with the notion that Mr.

Croker was the aggressor, and for _my own_ and not party reprisals, I would not lend me to the zeal of any sect when I was made aware that he was not the writer of the offensive pa.s.sages. _You know_, if there was such a thing, I would not deny it. I mentioned it openly at the time to you, and you will remember why and where I destroyed it; and no power nor wheedling on earth should have made, or could make, me (if I recollected them) give a copy after that, unless I was well a.s.sured that Mr. Croker was really the author of that which you a.s.sured me he was not.

"I intend for England this spring, where I have some affairs to adjust; but the post hurries me. For this month past I have been unwell, but am getting better, and thinking of moving homewards towards May, without going to Rome, as the unhealthy season comes on soon, and I can return when I have settled the business I go upon, which need not be long. I should have thought the a.s.syrian tale very succeedable.

"I saw, in Mr. W.W.'s poetry, that he had written my epitaph; I would rather have written his.

"The thing I have sent you, you will see at a glimpse, could never be attempted or thought of for the stage; I much doubt it for publication even. It is too much in my old style; but I composed it actually with a _horror_ of the stage, and with a view to render the thought of it impracticable, knowing the zeal of my friends that I should try that for which I have an invincible repugnance, viz. a representation.

"I certainly am a devil of a mannerist, and must leave off; but what could I do? Without exertion of some kind, I should have sunk under my imagination and reality. My best respects to Mr. Gifford, to Walter Scott, and to all friends.

"Yours ever."

LETTER 266. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, March 10. 1817.