Life of Lord Byron Volume III Part 23

"I tried Coleridge too; but he had nothing feasible in hand at the time.

Mr. Sotheby obligingly offered _all_ his tragedies, and I pledged myself, and notwithstanding many squabbles with my Committed Brethren, did get 'Ivan' accepted, read, and the parts distributed. But, lo! in the very heart of the matter, upon some _tepid_ness on the part of Kean, or warmth on that of the author, Sotheby withdrew his play. Sir J.B.

Burgess did also present four tragedies and a farce, and I moved green-room and Sub-Committee, but they would not.

"Then the scenes I had to go through!--the authors, and the auth.o.r.esses, and the milliners, and the wild Irishmen,--the people from Brighton, from Blackwall; from Chatham, from Cheltenham, from Dublin, from Dundee,--who came in upon me! to all of whom it was proper to give a civil answer, and a hearing, and a reading. Mrs. * * * *'s father, an Irish dancing-master of sixty years, calling upon me to request to play Archer, dressed in silk stockings on a frosty morning to show his legs (which were certainly good and Irish for his age, and had been still better,)--Miss Emma Somebody, with a play ent.i.tled 'The Bandit of Bohemia,' or some such t.i.tle or production,--Mr. O'Higgins, then resident at Richmond, with an Irish tragedy, in which the unities could not fail to be observed, for the protagonist was chained by the leg to a pillar during the chief part of the performance. He was a wild man, of a salvage appearance, and the difficulty of _not_ laughing at him was only to be got over by reflecting upon the probable consequences of such cachinnation.

"As I am really a civil and polite person, and _do_ hate giving pain when it can be avoided, I sent them up to Douglas Kinnaird,--who is a man of business, and sufficiently ready with a negative,--and left them to settle with him; and as the beginning of next year I went abroad, I have since been little aware of the progress of the theatres.

"Players are said to be an impracticable people. They are so; but I managed to steer clear of any disputes with them, and excepting one debate[87] with the elder Byrne about Miss Smith's _pas de_--(something--I forget the technicals,)--I do not remember any litigation of my own. I used to protect Miss Smith, because she was like Lady Jane Harley in the face, and likenesses go a great way with me.

Indeed, in general, I left such things to my more bustling colleagues, who used to reprove me seriously for not being able to take such things in hand without buffooning with the histrions, or throwing things into confusion by treating light matters with levity.

"Then the Committee!--then the Sub-Committee!--we were but few, but never agreed. There was Peter Moore who contradicted Kinnaird, and Kinnaird who contradicted every body: then our two managers, Rae and Dibdin; and our secretary, Ward! and yet we were all very zealous and in earnest to do good and so forth. * * * * furnished us with prologues to our revived old English plays; but was not pleased with me for complimenting him as 'the Upton' of our theatre (Mr. Upton is or was the poet who writes the songs for Astley's), and almost gave up prologuing in consequence.

"In the pantomime of 1815-16 there was a representation of the masquerade of 1814 given by 'us youth' of Watier's Club to Wellington and Co. Douglas Kinnaird and one or two others, with myself, put on masks, and went on the stage with the [Greek: hoi polloi], to see the effect of a theatre from the stage:--it is very grand. Douglas danced among the figuranti too, and they were puzzled to find out who we were, as being more than their number. It was odd enough that Douglas Kinnaird and I should have been both at the _real_ masquerade, and afterwards in the mimic one of the same, on the stage of Drury Lane theatre."

[Footnote 87: A correspondent of one of the monthly Miscellanies gives the following account of this incident:--

"During Lord Byron's administration, a ballet was invented by the elder Byrne, in which Miss Smith (since Mrs. Oscar Byrne) had a _pas seul_.

This the lady wished to remove to a later period in the ballet. The ballet-master refused, and the lady swore she would not dance it at all.

The music incidental to the dance began to play, and the lady walked off the stage. Both parties flounced into the green-room to lay the case before Lord Byron, who happened to be the only person in that apartment.

The n.o.ble committee-man made an award in favour of Miss Smith, and both complainants rushed angrily out of the room at the instant of my entering it. 'If you had come a minute sooner,' said Lord Byron, 'you would have heard a curious matter decided on by me: a question of dancing!--by me,' added he, looking down at the lame limb, 'whom Nature from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step.' His countenance fell after he had uttered this, as if he had said too much; and for a moment there was an embarra.s.sing silence on both sides."]

LETTER 228. TO MR. MOORE.

"Terrace, Piccadilly, October 31. 1815.

"I have not been able to ascertain precisely the time of duration of the stock market; but I believe it is a good time for selling out, and I hope so. First, because I shall see you; and, next, because I shall receive certain monies on behalf of Lady B., the which will materially conduce to my comfort,--I wanting (as the duns say) 'to make up a sum.'

"Yesterday, I dined out with a large-ish party, where were Sheridan and Colman, Harry Harris of C. G, and his brother, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Ds. Kinnaird, and others, of note and notoriety. Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogethery, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling; and to crown all, Kinnaird and I had to conduct Sheridan down a d----d corkscrew staircase, which had certainly been constructed before the discovery of fermented liquors, and to which no legs, however crooked, could possibly accommodate themselves. We deposited him safe at home, where his man, evidently used to the business, waited to receive him in the hall.

"Both he and Colman were, as usual, very good; but I carried away much wine, and the wine had previously carried away my memory; so that all was hiccup and happiness for the last hour or so, and I am not impregnated with any of the conversation. Perhaps you heard of a late answer of Sheridan to the watchman who found him bereft of that 'divine particle of air,' called reason, * * *. He, the watchman, who found Sherry in the street, fuddled and bewildered, and almost insensible. 'Who are _you_, sir? '--no answer. 'What's your name?'--a hiccup. 'What's your name?'--Answer, in a slow, deliberate and impa.s.sive tone--'Wilberforce!!!' Is not that Sherry all over?--and, to my mind, excellent. Poor fellow, _his_ very dregs are better than the 'first sprightly runnings' of others.

"My paper is full, and I have a grievous headach.

"P.S. Lady B. is in full progress. Next month will bring to light (with the aid of 'Juno Lucina, _fer opem_,' or rather _opes_, for the last are most wanted,) the tenth wonder of the world--Gil Blas being the eighth, and he (my son's father) the ninth."

LETTER 229. TO MR. MOORE.

"November 4. 1815.

"Had you not bewildered my head with the 'stocks,' your letter would have been answered directly. Hadn't I to go to the city? and hadn't I to remember what to ask when I got there? and hadn't I forgotten it?

"I should be undoubtedly delighted to see you; but I don't like to urge against your reasons my own inclinations. Come you must soon, for stay you _won't_. I know you of old;--you have been too much leavened with London to keep long out of it.

"Lewis is going to Jamaica to suck his sugar canes. He sails in two days; I enclose you his farewell note. I saw him last night at D.L.T. for the last time previous to his voyage. Poor fellow! he is really a good man--an excellent man--he left me his walking-stick and a pot of preserved ginger. I shall never eat the last without tears in my eyes, it is so _hot_. We have had a devil of a row among our ballerinas. Miss Smith has been wronged about a hornpipe.

The Committee have interfered; but Byrne, the d----d ballet master, won't budge a step, _I_ am furious, so is George Lamb. Kinnaird is very glad, because--he don't know why; and I am very sorry, for the same reason. To-day I dine with Kd.--we are to have Sheridan and Colman again; and to-morrow, once more, at Sir Gilbert Heathcote's.

"Leigh Hunt has written a _real good_ and _very original Poem_, which I think will be a great hit. You can have no notion how very well it is written, nor should I, had I not redde it. As to us, Tom--eh, when art thou out? If you think the verses worth it, I would rather they were embalmed in the Irish Melodies, than scattered abroad in a separate song--much rather. But when are thy great things out? I mean the Po of Pos--thy Shah Nameh. It is very kind in Jeffrey to like the Hebrew Melodies. Some of the fellows here preferred Sternhold and Hopkins, and said so;--'the fiend receive their souls therefor!'

"I must go and dress for dinner. Poor, dear Murat, what an end! You know, I suppose, that his white plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry IV.'s. He refused a confessor and a bandage; so would neither suffer his soul or body to be bandaged. You shall have more to-morrow or next day.

"Ever," &c.

LETTER 230. TO MR. MURRAY.

"November 4. 1815.

"When you have been enabled to form an opinion on Mr. Coleridge's MS.[88] you will oblige me by returning it, as, in fact, I have no authority to let it out of my hands. I think most highly of it, and feel anxious that you should be the publisher; but if you are not, I do not despair of finding those who will.

"I have written to Mr. Leigh Hunt, stating your willingness to treat with him, which, when I saw you, I understood you to be.

Terms and time, I leave to his pleasure and your discernment; but this I will say, that I think it the _safest_ thing you ever engaged in. I speak to you as a man of business; were I to talk to you as a reader or a critic, I should say it was a very wonderful and beautiful performance, with just enough of fault to make its beauties more remarked and remarkable.

"And now to the last--my own, which I feel ashamed of after the others:--publish or not as you like, I don't care _one d.a.m.n_. If _you_ don't, no one else shall, and I never thought or dreamed of it, except as one in the collection. If it is worth being in the fourth volume, put it there and nowhere else; and if not, put it in the fire. Yours, N."

[Footnote 88: A tragedy ent.i.tled, I think, Zopolia.]

Those embarra.s.sments which, from a review of his affairs previous to the marriage, he had clearly foreseen would, before long, overtake him, were not slow in realising his worst omens. The increased expenses induced by his new mode of life, with but very little increase of means to meet them,--the long arrears of early pecuniary obligations, as well as the claims which had been, gradually, since then, acc.u.mulating, all pressed upon him now with collected force, and reduced him to some of the worst humiliations of poverty. He had been even driven, by the necessity of encountering such demands, to the trying expedient of parting with his books,--which circ.u.mstance coming to Mr. Murray's ears, that gentleman instantly forwarded to him 1500_l._, with an a.s.surance that another sum of the same amount should be at his service in a few weeks, and that if such a.s.sistance should not be sufficient, Mr. Murray was most ready to dispose of the copyrights of all his past works for his use.

This very liberal offer Lord Byron acknowledged in the following letter:--

LETTER 231. TO MR. MURRAY.

"November 14. 1815.

"I return you your bills not accepted, but certainly not _unhonoured_. Your present offer is a favour which I would accept from you, if I accepted such from any man. Had such been my intention, I can a.s.sure you I would have asked you fairly, and as freely as you would give; and I cannot say more of my confidence or your conduct.

"The circ.u.mstances which induce me to part with my books, though sufficiently, are not _immediately_, pressing. I have made up my mind to them, and there's an end.

"Had I been disposed to trespa.s.s on your kindness in this way, it would have been before now; but I am not sorry to have an opportunity of declining it, as it sets my opinion of you, and indeed of human nature, in a different light from that in which I have been accustomed to consider it.

"Believe me very truly," &c.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"December 25. 1815.

"I send some lines, written some time ago, and intended as an opening to 'The Siege of Corinth.' I had forgotten them, and am not sure that they had not better be left out now:--on that, you and your Synod can determine. Yours," &c.