Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 10

Here scatter'd oft, the _earliest_ of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The red-breast loves to build and warble here, And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'

As fine a stanza as any in his elegy. I wonder that he could have the heart to omit it.

"Last night I suffered horribly--from an indigestion, I believe. I _never_ sup--that is, never at home. But, last night, I was prevailed upon by the Countess Gamba's persuasion, and the strenuous example of her brother, to swallow, at supper, a quant.i.ty of boiled c.o.c.kles, and to dilute them, _not_ reluctantly, with some Imola wine. When I came home, apprehensive of the consequences, I swallowed three or four gla.s.ses of spirits, which men (the venders) call brandy, rum, or hollands, but which G.o.ds would ent.i.tle spirits of wine, coloured or sugared. All was pretty well till I got to bed, when I became somewhat swollen, and considerably vertiginous. I got out, and mixing some soda-powders, drank them off. This brought on temporary relief. I returned to bed; but grew sick and sorry once and again. Took more soda-water. At last I fell into a dreary sleep. Woke, and was ill all day, till I had galloped a few miles. Query--was it the c.o.c.kles, or what I took to correct them, that caused the commotion? I think both. I remarked in my illness the complete inertion, inaction, and destruction of my chief mental faculties. I tried to rouse them, and yet could not--and this is the _Soul!!!_ I should believe that it was married to the body, if they did not sympathise so much with each other. If the one rose, when the other fell, it would be a sign that they longed for the natural state of divorce. But as it is, they seem to draw together like post-horses.

"Let us hope the best--it is the grand possession."

During the two months comprised in this Journal, some of the Letters of the following series were written. The reader must, therefore, be prepared to find in them occasional notices of the same train of events.

LETTER 404. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, January 2. 1821.

"Your entering into my project for the Memoir is pleasant to me.

But I doubt (contrary to my dear Made Mac F * *, whom I always loved, and always shall--not only because I really _did_ feel attached to her _personally_, but because she and about a dozen others of that s.e.x were all who stuck by me in the grand conflict of 1815)--but I doubt, I say, whether the Memoir could appear in my lifetime;--and, indeed, I had rather it did not; for a man always _looks dead_ after his Life has appeared, and I should certes not survive the appearance of mine. The first part I cannot consent to alter, even although Made. de S.'s opinion of B.C. and my remarks upon Lady C.'s beauty (which is surely great, and I suppose that I have said so--at least, I ought) should go down to our grandchildren in unsophisticated nakedness.

"As to Madame de S * *, I am by no means bound to be her beadsman--she was always more civil to me in person than during my absence. Our dear defunct friend, M * * L * *[26], who was too great a bore ever to lie, a.s.sured me upon his tiresome word of honour, that, at Florence, the said Madame de S * * was open-_mouthed_ against me; and when asked, in _Switzerland_, _why_ she had changed her opinion, replied, with laudable sincerity, that I had named her in a sonnet with Voltaire, Rousseau, &c. &c. and that she could not help it through decency. Now, I have not forgotten this, but I have been generous,--as mine acquaintance, the late Captain Whitby, of the navy, used to say to his seamen (when 'married to the gunner's daughter')--'two dozen, and let you off easy.' The 'two dozen' were with the cat-o'-nine tails;--the 'let you off easy' was rather his own opinion than that of the patient.

"My acquaintance with these terms and practices arises from my having been much conversant with s.h.i.+ps of war and naval heroes in the year of my voyages in the Mediterranean. Whitby was in the gallant action off Lissa in 1811. He was brave, but a disciplinarian. When he left his frigate, he left a _parrot_, which was taught by the crew the following sounds--(it must be remarked that Captain Whitby was the image of Fawcett the actor, in voice, face, and figure, and that he squinted).

"The Parrot _loquitur_.

"'Whitby! Whitby! funny eye! funny eye! two dozen, and let you off easy. Oh you ----!'

"Now, if Madame de B. has a parrot, it had better be taught a French parody of the same sounds.

"With regard to our purposed Journal, I will call it what you please, but it should be a newspaper, to make it _pay_. We can call it 'The Harp,' if you like--or any thing.

"I feel exactly as you do about our 'art[27],'but it comes over me in a kind of rage every now and then, like * * * *, and then, if I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. As to that regular, uninterrupted love of writing, which you describe in your friend, I do not understand it. I feel it as a torture, which I must get rid of, but never as a pleasure. On the contrary, I think composition a great pain.

"I wish you to think seriously of the Journal scheme--for I am as serious as one can be, in this world, about any thing. As to matters here, they are high and mighty--but not for paper. It is much about the state of things betwixt Cain and Abel. There is, in fact, no law or government at all; and it is wonderful how well things go on without them. Excepting a few occasional murders, (every body killing whomsoever he pleases, and being killed, in turn, by a friend, or relative, of the defunct,) there is as quiet a society and as merry a Carnival as can be met with in a tour through Europe. There is nothing like habit in these things.

"I shall remain here till May or June, and, unless 'honour comes unlocked for,' we may perhaps meet, in France or England, within the year.

"Yours, &c.

"Of course, I cannot explain to you existing circ.u.mstances, as they open all letters.

"Will you set me right about your curst 'Champs Elysees?'--are they 'es' or 'ees' for the adjective? I know nothing of French, being all Italian. Though I can read and understand French, I never attempt to speak it; for I hate it. From the second part of the Memoirs cut what you please."

[Footnote 26: Of this gentleman, the following notice occurs in the "Detached Thoughts:"--"L * * was a good man, a clever man, but a bore.

My only revenge or consolation used to be setting him by the ears with some vivacious person who hated bores especially,--Madame de S---- or H----, for example. But I liked L * *; he was a jewel of a man, had he been better set;--I don't mean _personally_, but less _tiresome_, for he was tedious, as well as contradictory to every thing and every body.

Being short-sighted, when we used to ride out together near the Brenta in the twilight in summer, he made me go _before_, to pilot him; I am absent at times, especially towards evening; and the consequence of this pilotage was some narrow escapes to the M * * on horseback. Once I led him into a ditch over which I had pa.s.sed as usual, forgetting to warn my convoy; once I led him nearly into the river, instead of on the _moveable_ bridge which incommodes pa.s.sengers; and twice did we both run against the Diligence, which, being heavy and slow, did communicate less damage than it received in its leaders, who were _terra_fied by the charge; thrice did I lose him in the grey of the gloaming, and was obliged to bring-to to his distant signals of distance and distress;--all the time he went on talking without intermission, for he was a man of many words. Poor fellow! he died a martyr to his new riches--of a second visit to Jamaica.

"'I'd give the lands of Deloraine Dark Musgrave were alive again!'

that is,--

"I would give many a sugar cane M * * L * * were alive again!"]

[Footnote 27: The following pa.s.sage from the letter of mine, to which the above was an answer, will best explain what follows:--With respect to the newspaper, it is odd enough that Lord * * * * and myself had been (about a week or two before I received your letter) speculating upon your a.s.sistance in a plan somewhat similar, but more literary and less regularly-periodical in its appearance. Lord * *, as you will see by his volume of Essays, if it reaches you, has a very sly, dry, and pithy way of putting sound truths, upon politics and manners, and whatever scheme we adopt, he will be a very useful and active ally in it, as he has a pleasure in writing quite inconceivable to a poor hack scribe like me, who always feel, about my art, as the French husband did when he found a man making love to his (the Frenchman's) wife:--' Comment, Monsieur,--sans y etre _oblige_!' When I say this, however, I mean it only of the executive part of writing; for the imagining, the shadowing out of the future work is, I own, a delicious fool's paradise."]

LETTER 405. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, January 4. 1821.

"I just see, by the papers of Galignani, that there is a new tragedy of great expectation, by Barry Cornwall. Of what I have read of his works Hiked the _Dramatic_ Sketches, but thought his Sicilian Story and Marcian Colonna, in rhyme, quite spoilt, by I know not what affectation of Wordsworth, and Moore, and myself, all mixed up into a kind of chaos. I think him very likely to produce a good tragedy, if he keep to a natural style, and not play tricks to form harlequinades for an audience. As he (Barry Cornwall is not his _true_ name) was a schoolfellow of mine, I take more than common interest in his success, and shall be glad to hear of it speedily. If I had been aware that he was in that line, I should have spoken of him in the preface to Marino Faliero. He will do a world's wonder if he produce a great tragedy. I am, however, persuaded, that this is not to be done by following the old dramatists,--who are full of gross faults, pardoned only for the beauty of their language,--but by writing naturally and _regularly_, and producing _regular_ tragedies, like the _Greeks_; but not in _imitation_,--merely the outline of their conduct, adapted to our own times and circ.u.mstances, and of course _no_ chorus.

"You will laugh, and say, 'Why don't you do so?' I have, you see, tried a sketch in Marino Faliero; but many people think my talent '_essentially undramatic_,' and I am not at all clear that they are not right. If Marino Faliero don't fall--in the perusal--I shall, perhaps, try again (but not for the stage); and, as I think that _love_ is not the princ.i.p.al pa.s.sion for tragedy (and yet most of ours turn upon it), you will not find me a popular writer. Unless it is love, _furious, criminal_, and _hapless_, it ought not to make a tragic subject. When it is melting and maudlin, it _does_, but it ought not to do; it is then for the gallery and second-price boxes.

"If you want to have a notion of what I am trying, take up a _translation_ of any of the _Greek_ tragedians. If I said the original, it would be an impudent presumption of mine; but the translations are so inferior to the originals, that I think I may risk it Then judge of the 'simplicity of plot,' &c. and do not judge me by your old mad dramatists, which is like drinking usquebaugh and then proving a fountain. Yet after all, I suppose that you do not mean that spirits is a n.o.bler element than a clear spring bubbling in the sun? and this I take to be the difference between the Greeks and those turbid mountebanks--always excepting Ben Jonson, who was a scholar and a cla.s.sic. Or, take up a translation of Alfieri, and try the interest, &c. of these my new attempts in the old line, by _him_ in _English_; and then tell me fairly your opinion. But don't measure me by YOUR OWN _old_ or _new_ tailors' yards. Nothing so easy as intricate confusion of plot and rant. Mrs. Centlivre, in comedy, has _ten times the bustle of Congreve_; but are they to be compared? and yet she drove Congreve from the theatre."

LETTER 406. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, January 19. 1821.

"Yours of the 29th ultimo hath arrived. I must, really and seriously request that you will beg of Messrs. Harris or Elliston to let the Doge alone: it is _not_ an acting play; it will not serve _their_ purpose; it will destroy _yours_ (the sale); and it will distress me. It is not courteous, it is hardly even gentlemanly, to persist in this appropriation of a man's writings to their mountebanks.

"I have already sent you by last post a short protest[28] to the public (against this proceeding); in case that _they_ persist, which I trust that they will not, you must then publish it in the newspapers. I shall not let them off with that only, if they go on; but make a longer appeal on that subject, and state what I think the injustice of their mode of behaviour. It is hard that I should have all the buffoons in Britain to deal with--_pirates_ who _will_ publish, and _players_ who _will_ act--when there are thousands of worthy men who can get neither bookseller nor manager for love nor money.

"You never answered me a word about _Galignani_. If you mean to use the two _doc.u.ments, do_; if not, _burn_ them. I do not choose to leave them in any one's possession: suppose some one found them without the letters, what would they _think_? why, that _I_ had been doing the _opposite_ of what I _have_ _done_, to wit, referred the whole thing to you--an act of civility at least, which required saying, 'I have received your letter.' I thought that you might have some hold upon those publications by this means; to _me_ it can be no interest one way or the other.[29]

"The _third_ canto of Don Juan is 'dull,' but you must really put up with it: if the two first and the two following are tolerable, what do you expect? particularly as I neither dispute with you on it as a matter of criticism, nor as a matter of business.

"Besides, what am I to understand? you and Douglas Kinnaird, and others, write to me, that the two first published cantos are among the best that I ever wrote, and are reckoned so; Augusta writes that they are thought '_execrable_' (bitter word _that_ for an author--eh, Murray?) as a _composition_ even, and that she had heard so much against them that she would _never read them_, and never has. Be that as it may, I can't alter; that is not my forte.

If you publish the three new ones without ostentation, they may perhaps succeed.

"Pray publish the Dante and the _Pulci_ (the _Prophecy of Dante_, I mean). I look upon the Pulci as my grand performance.[30] The remainder of the 'Hints,' where be they? Now, bring them all out about the same time, otherwise 'the _variety_' you wot of will be less obvious.

"I am in bad humour: some obstructions in business with those plaguy trustees, who object to an advantageous loan which I was to furnish to a n.o.bleman on mortgage, because his property is in _Ireland_, have shown me how a man is treated in his absence. Oh, if I _do_ come back, I will make some of those who little dream of it _spin_--or they or I shall go down."

[Footnote 28: To the letter which enclosed this protest, and which has been omitted to avoid repet.i.tions, he had subjoined a pa.s.sage from Spence's Anecdotes (p. 197. of Singer's edition), where Pope says, speaking of himself, "I had taken such strong resolutions against any thing of that kind, from seeing how much every body that _did_ write for the stage was obliged to subject themselves to the players and the town."--_Spence's Anecdotes_, p. 22.

In the same paragraph, Pope is made to say, "After I had got acquainted with the town, I resolved never to write any thing for the stage, though solicited by many of my friends to do so, and particularly Betterton."]

[Footnote 29: No further step was ever taken in this affair; and the doc.u.ments, which were of no use whatever, are, I believe, still in Mr.

Murray's possession.]

[Footnote 30: The self-will of Lord Byron was in no point more conspicuous than in the determination with which he thus persisted in giving the preference to one or two works of his own which, in the eyes of all other persons, were most decided failures. Of this cla.s.s was the translation from Pulci, so frequently mentioned by him, which appeared afterwards in the Liberal, and which, though thus rescued from the fate of remaining unpublished, roust for ever, I fear, submit to the doom of being unread.]