Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker;
Mouth that marks the envious Scorner,
With a Scorpion in each corner
Curling up his tail to sting you,[hy]
In the place that most may wring you;
Eyes of lead-like hue and gummy,
Carcase stolen from some mummy,
Bowels--(but they were forgotten,
Save the Liver, and that's rotten), 10
Skin all sallow, flesh all sodden,
Form the Devil would frighten G--d in.
Is't a Corpse stuck up for show,[580]
Galvanized at times to go?
With the Scripture has't connection,[hz]
New proof of the Resurrection?
Vampire, Ghost, or Goul (_sic_), what is it?
I would walk ten miles to miss it.
ANSWER.
Many passengers arrest one,
To demand the same free question. 20
Shorter's my reply and franker,--
That's the Bard, and Beau, and Banker:
Yet, if you could bring about
Just to turn him inside out,
Satan's self would seem less sooty,
And his present aspect--Beauty.
Mark that (as he masks the bilious)
Air so softly supercilious,
Chastened bow, and mock humility,
Almost sickened to Servility: 30
Hear his tone (which is to talking
That which creeping is to walking--
Now on all fours, now on tiptoe):
Hear the tales he lends his lip to--
Little hints of heavy scandals--
Every friend by turns he handles:
All that women or that men do
Glides forth in an inuendo (_sic_)--
Clothed in odds and ends of humour,
Herald of each paltry rumour-- 40
From divorces down to dresses,
Woman's frailties, Man's excesses:
All that life presents of evil
Make for him a constant revel.
You're his foe--for that he fears you,
And in absence blasts and sears you:
You're his friend--for that he hates you,
First obliges, and then baits you,
Darting on the opportunity
When to do it with impunity: 50
You are neither--then he'll flatter,
Till he finds some trait for satire;
Hunts your weak point out, then shows it,
Where it injures, to expose it
In the mode that's most insidious,
Adding every trait that's hideous--
From the bile, whose blackening river
Rushes through his Stygian liver.
Then he thinks himself a lover--[581]
Why? I really can't discover, 60
In his mind, age, face, or figure;
Viper broth might give him vigour:
Let him keep the cauldron steady,
He the venom has already.
For his faults--he has but _one_;
'Tis but Envy, when all's done:
He but pays the pain he suffers,
Clipping, like a pair of Snuffers,
Light that ought to burn the brighter
For this temporary blighter. 70
He's the Cancer of his Species,
And will eat himself to pieces,--
Plague personified and Famine,--
Devil, whose delight is damning.[582]
For his merits--don't you know 'em?[ia]
Once he wrote a pretty Poem.
1818.
[First published, _Fraser's Magazine_, January, 1833,
vol. vii. pp. 88-84.]
THE DUEL.[583]
1.
'Tis fifty years, and yet their fray
To us might seem but yesterday.
Tis fifty years, and three to boot,
Since, hand to hand, and foot to foot,
And heart to heart, and sword to sword,
One of our Ancestors was gored.
I've seen the sword that slew him;[584] he,
The slain, stood in a like degree
To thee, as he, the Slayer, stood
(Oh had it been but other blood!)
In kin and Chieftainship to me.
Thus came the Heritage to thee.
2.
To me the Lands of him who slew
Came through a line of yore renowned;
For I can boast a race as true
To Monarchs crowned, and some discrowned,
As ever Britain's Annals knew:
For the first Conqueror gave us Ground,[585]
And the last Conquered owned the line
Which was my mother's, and is mine.
3.
I loved thee--I will not say _how_,
Since things like these are best forgot:
Perhaps thou may'st imagine now
Who loved thee, and who loved thee not.
And thou wert wedded to another,[586]
And I at last another wedded:
I am a father, thou a mother,
To Strangers vowed, with strangers bedded.
For land to land, even blood to blood--
Since leagued of yore our fathers were--
Our manors and our birthright stood;
And not unequal had I wooed,
If to have wooed thee I could dare.
But this I never dared--even yet
When naught is left but to forget.
I feel that I could only love:
To sue was never meant for me,
And least of all to sue to thee;
For many a bar, and many a feud,
Though never told, well understood
Rolled like a river wide between--
And then there was the Curse of blood,
Which even my Heart's can not remove.
Alas! how many things have been!
Since we were friends; for I alone
Feel more for thee than can be shown.
4.
How many things! I loved thee--thou
Loved'st me not: another was
The Idol of thy virgin vow,
And I was, what I am, Alas!
And what he is, and what thou art,
And what we were, is like the rest:
We must endure it as a test,
And old Ordeal of the Heart.[587]
Venice, _Dec_. 29, 1818.
STANZAS TO THE PO.[588]
1.
River, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me:
2.
What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!
3.
What do I say--a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.
4.
Time may have somewhat tamed them,--not for ever;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:
5.
But left long wrecks behind, and now again,[ib]
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move:
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I--to loving _one_ I should not love.
6.
The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls, and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat.
7.
She will look on thee,--I have looked on thee,
Full of that thought: and, from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!
8.
Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,--
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!
9.
The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?--
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.[ic]
10.
But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.
11.
A stranger loves the Lady of the land,[id]
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fanned
By the black wind that chills the polar flood.[ie]
12.
My blood is all meridian; were it not,
I had not left my clime, nor should I be,[if]
In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot,
A slave again of love,--at least of thee.
13.
'Tis vain to struggle--let me perish young--
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.
June, 1819.
[First published, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824, 4º, pp. 24-26.]
SONNET ON THE NUPTIALS OF THE MARQUIS ANTONIO CAVALLI
WITH THE COUNTESS CLELIA RASPONI OF RAVENNA.[589]
A noble Lady of the Italian shore
Lovely and young, herself a happy bride,
Commands a verse, and will not be denied,
From me a wandering Englishman; I tore
One sonnet, but invoke the muse once more
To hail these gentle hearts which Love has tied,
In Youth, Birth, Beauty, genially allied
And blest with Virtue's soul, and Fortune's store.
A sweeter language, and a luckier bard
Were worthier of your hopes, Auspicious Pair!
And of the sanctity of Hymen's shrine,
But,--since I cannot but obey the Fair,
To render your new state your true reward,
May your Fate be like _Hers_, and unlike _mine._
Ravenna, July 31, 1819.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of the Lady Dorchester, now
for the first time printed.]
SONNET TO THE PRINCE REGENT.[ig]
ON THE REPEAL OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD'S FORFEITURE.
To be the father of the fatherless,
To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise
_His_ offspring, who expired in other days
To make thy Sire's sway by a kingdom less,--[ih]
_This_ is to be a monarch, and repress
Envy into unutterable praise.
Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits,
For who would lift a hand, except to bless?[ii]
Were it not easy, Sir, and is't not sweet
To make thyself belovéd? and to be
Omnipotent by Mercy's means? for thus
Thy Sovereignty would grow but more complete,
A despot thou, and yet thy people free,[ij]
And by the heart--not hand--enslaving us.
Bologna, _August_ 12, 1819.[590]
[First published, _Letters and Journals,_ ii. 234, 235.]
STANZAS.[591]
1.
Could Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain--
No other pleasure
With this could measure;
And like a treasure[ik]
We'd hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, formed for flying,
Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let's love a season;
But let that season be only Spring.
2.
When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;
A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her
For whom they sigh!
When linked together,
In every weather,[il]
They pluck Love's feather
From out his wing--
He'll stay for ever,[im]
But sadly shiver
Without his plumage, when past the Spring.[in]
3.
Like Chiefs of Faction,
His life is action--
A formal paction
That curbs his reign,
Obscures his glory,
Despot no more, he
Such territory
Quits with disdain.
Still, still advancing,
With banners glancing,
His power enhancing,
He must move on--
Repose but cloys him,
Retreat destroys him,
Love brooks not a degraded throne.
4.
Wait not, fond lover!
Till years are over,
And then recover
As from a dream.
While each bewailing
The other's failing.
With wrath and railing,
All hideous seem--
While first decreasing,
Yet not quite ceasing,
Wait not till teasing,
All passion blight:
If once diminished
Love's reign is finished--
Then part in friendship,--and bid good-night.[io]
5.
So shall Affection
To recollection
The dear connection
Bring back with joy:
You had not waited[ip]
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces--
The same fond faces
As through the past:
And eyes, the mirrors
Of your sweet errors,
Reflect but rapture--not least though last.
6.
True, separations[iq]
Ask more than patience;
What desperations
From such have risen!
But yet remaining,
What is't but chaining
Hearts which, once waning,
Beat 'gainst their prison?
Time can but cloy love,
And use destroy love:
The wingéd boy, Love,
Is but for boys--
You'll find it torture
Though sharper, shorter,
To wean, and not wear out your joys.
_December_ 1, 1819.
[First published, _New Monthly Magazine_, 1832,
vol. xxxv. pp. 310-312.]
ODE TO A LADY WHOSE LOVER WAS KILLED BY A BALL,
WHICH AT THE SAME TIME SHIVERED A PORTRAIT NEXT HIS HEART.
Motto.
_On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais
il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu
qu'une_.--[_Réflexions_ ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No.
lxxiii.]
1.
Lady! in whose heroic port
And Beauty, Victor even of Time,
And haughty lineaments, appear
Much that is awful, more that's dear--
Wherever human hearts resort
_There_ must have been for thee a Court,
And Thou by acclamation Queen,
Where never Sovereign yet had been.
That eye so soft, and yet severe,
Perchance might look on Love as Crime;
And yet--regarding thee more near--
The traces of an unshed tear
Compressed back to the heart,
And mellowed Sadness in thine air,
Which shows that Love hath once been there,
To those who watch thee will disclose
More than ten thousand tomes of woes
Wrung from the vain Romancer's art.
With thee how proudly Love hath dwelt!
His full Divinity was felt,
Maddening the heart he could not melt,
Till Guilt became Sublime;
But never yet did Beauty's Zone
For him surround a lovelier throne,
Than in that bosom once his own:
And he the Sun and Thou the Clime
Together must have made a Heaven
For which the Future would be given.
2.
And thou hast loved--Oh! not in vain!
And not as common Mortals love.
The Fruit of Fire is Ashes,
The Ocean's tempest dashes
Wrecks and the dead upon the rocky shore:
True Passion must the all-searching changes prove,
The Agony of Pleasure and of Pain,
Till Nothing but the Bitterness remain;
And the Heart's Spectre flitting through the brain
Scoffs at the Exorcism which would remove.
3.
And where is He thou lovedst? in the tomb,
Where should the happy Lover be!
For him could Time unfold a brighter doom,
Or offer aught like thee?
He in the thickest battle died,
Where Death is Pride;
And _Thou_ his widow--not his bride,
Wer't not more free--
_Here_ where all love, till Love is made
A bondage or a trade,
_Here_--thou so redolent of Beauty,
In whom Caprice had seemed a duty,
_Thou_, who could'st trample and despise
The holiest chain of human ties
For him, the dear One in thine eyes,
Broke it no more.
Thy heart was withered to it's Core,
It's hopes, it's fears, it's feelings o'er:
Thy Blood grew Ice when _his_ was shed,
And Thou the Vestal of the Dead.
4.
Thy Lover died, as All
Who truly love should die;
For such are worthy in the fight to fall
Triumphantly.
No Cuirass o'er that glowing heart
The deadly bullet turned apart:
Love had bestowed a richer Mail,
Like Thetis on her Son;
But hers at last was vain, and thine could fail--
The hero's and the lover's race was run.
Thy worshipped portrait, thy sweet face,
_Without_ that bosom kept it's place
As Thou _within_.
Oh! enviously destined Ball!
Shivering thine imaged charms and all
Those Charms would win:
Together pierced, the fatal Stroke hath gored
Votary and Shrine, the adoring and the adored.
That Heart's last throb was thine, that blood
Baptized thine Image in it's flood,
And gushing from the fount of Faith
O'erflowed with Passion even in Death,
Constant to thee as in it's hour
Of rapture in the secret bower.
Thou too hast kept thy plight full well,
As many a baffled Heart can tell.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the
first time printed.]
THE IRISH AVATAR.[ir][592]
"And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the
paltry rider."--[_Life of Curran_, ii. 336.]
1.
Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,[593]
And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide,
Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherished Isle which he loved like his--bride.
2.
True, the great of her bright and brief Era are gone,
The rain-bow-like Epoch where Freedom could pause
For the few little years, out of centuries won,
Which betrayed not, or crushed not, or wept not her cause.
3.
True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags,
The Castle still stands, and the Senate's no more,
And the Famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.
4.
To her desolate shore--where the emigrant stands
For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth;
Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his hands,
For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth.
5.
But he comes! the Messiah of Royalty comes!
Like a goodly Leviathan rolled from the waves;
Then receive him as best such an advent becomes,[is]
With a legion of cooks,[594] and an army of slaves!
6.
He comes in the promise and bloom of threescore,
To perform in the pageant the Sovereign's part--[it]
But long live the Shamrock, which shadows him o'er!
Could the Green in his _hat_ be transferred to his _heart!_
7.
Could that long-withered spot but be verdant again,
And a new spring of noble affections arise--
Then might Freedom forgive thee this dance in thy chain,
And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the skies.
8.
Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now?
Were he God--as he is but the commonest clay,
With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on his brow--
Such servile devotion might shame him away.
9.
Aye, roar in his train![595] let thine orators lash
Their fanciful spirits to pamper his pride--
Not thus did thy Grattan indignantly flash
His soul o'er the freedom implored and denied.
10.
Ever glorious Grattan! the best of the good!
So simple in heart, so sublime in the rest!
With all which Demosthenes wanted endued,
And his rival, or victor, in all he possessed.
11.
Ere Tully arose in the zenith of Rome,
Though unequalled, preceded, the task was begun--
But Grattan sprung up like a god from the tomb
Of ages, the first, last, the saviour, the _one!_[596]
12.
With the skill of an Orpheus to soften the brute;
With the fire of Prometheus to kindle mankind;
Even Tyranny, listening, sate melted or mute,
And Corruption shrunk scorched from the glance of his mind.
13.
But back to our theme! Back to despots and slaves![iu]
Feasts furnished by Famine! rejoicings by Pain!
True Freedom but _welcomes_, while Slavery still _raves_,
When a week's Saturnalia hath loosened her chain.
14.
Let the poor squalid splendour thy wreck can afford,
(As the bankrupt's profusion his ruin would hide)
Gild over the palace, Lo! Erin, thy Lord!
Kiss his foot with thy blessing--his blessings denied![iv]
15.
Or _if_ freedom past hope be extorted at last,[iw]
If the idol of brass find his feet are of clay,
Must what terror or policy wring forth be classed
With what monarchs ne'er give, but as wolves yield their prey?
16.
Each brute hath its nature; a King's is to _reign_,--
To _reign!_ in that word see, ye ages, comprised
The cause of the curses all annals contain,
From Cæsar the dreaded to George the despised!
17.
Wear, Fingal, thy trapping![597] O'Connell, proclaim[ix]
His accomplishments! _His!!!_ and thy country convince
Half an age's contempt was an error of fame,
And that "Hal is the rascaliest, sweetest _young_ prince!"[iy]
18.
Will thy yard of blue riband, poor Fingal, recall
The fetters from millions of Catholic limbs?
Or, has it not bound thee the fastest of all
The slaves, who now hail their betrayer with hymns?
19.
Aye! "Build him a dwelling!" let each give his mite![598]
Till, like Babel, the new royal dome hath arisen![iz]
Let thy beggars and helots their pittance unite--
And a palace bestow for a poor-house and prison!
20.
Spread--spread for Vitellius, the royal repast,
Till the gluttonous despot be stuffed to the gorge!
And the roar of his drunkards proclaim him at last
The Fourth of the fools and oppressors called "George!"
21.
Let the tables be loaded with feasts till they groan!
Till they _groan_ like thy people, through ages of woe!
Let the wine flow around the old Bacchanal's throne,
Like their blood which has flowed, and which yet has to flow.
22.
But let not _his_ name be thine idol alone--
On his right hand behold a Sejanus appears!
Thine own Castlereagh! let him still be thine own!
A wretch never named but with curses and jeers!
23.
Till now, when the Isle which should blush for his birth,
Deep, deep as the gore which he shed on her soil,
Seems proud of the reptile which crawled from her earth,
And for murder repays him with shouts and a smile.[599]
24.
Without one single ray of her genius,--without
The fancy, the manhood, the fire of her race--
The miscreant who well might plunge Erin in doubt[ja]
If _she_ ever gave birth to a being so base.
25.
If she did--let her long-boasted proverb be hushed,
Which proclaims that from Erin no reptile can spring--
See the cold-blooded Serpent, with venom full flushed,
Still warming its folds in the breast of a King![jb]
26.
Shout, drink, feast, and flatter! Oh! Erin, how low
Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny, till
Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged thee below
The depth of thy deep in a deeper gulf still.
27.
My voice, though but humble, was raised for thy right;[600]
My vote, as a freeman's, still voted thee free;
This hand, though but feeble, would arm in thy fight,[jc]
And this heart, though outworn, had a throb still for _thee!_
28.
Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou art not my land;[jd]
I have known noble hearts and great souls in thy sons,
And I wept with the world, o'er the patriot band
Who are gone, but I weep them no longer as once.
29.
For happy are they now reposing afar,--
Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy Sheridan,[601] all
Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war,
And redeemed, if they have not retarded, thy fall.
30.
Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves!
Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of to-day--
Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves[je]
Be stamped in the turf o'er their fetterless clay.
31.
Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore,
Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties fled;[jf]
There was something so warm and sublime in the core
Of an Irishman's heart, that I envy--thy _dead_.[jg]
32.
Or, if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour
My contempt for a nation so servile, though sore,
Which though trod like the worm will not turn upon power,
'Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore![jh][602]
Ra. _September_ 16, 1821.
[First published, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824, pp. 331-338.]
STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA.[603]
1.
Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story--
The days of our Youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.[604]
2.
What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary,
What care I for the wreaths that can _only_ give glory?
3.
Oh Fame!--if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover,
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.
4.
_There_ chiefly I sought thee, _there_ only I found thee;
Her Glance was the best of the rays that surround thee,
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was Love, and I felt it was Glory.
_November_ 6, 1821.
[First published, _Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, 1830, ii. 366,
note.]
STANZAS TO A HINDOO AIR.[605]
1.
Oh! my lonely--lonely--lonely--Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far--far away! and alone along the billow?
2.
Oh! my lonely--lonely--lonely--Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow!
3.
Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking,
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;
Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow.
4.
Then if thou wilt--no more my _lonely_ Pillow,
In one embrace let these arms again enfold him,
And then expire of the joy--but to behold him!
Oh! my lone bosom!--oh! my lonely Pillow!
[First published, _Works of Lord Byron_, 1832, xiv. 357.]
TO----[606]
1.
But once I dared to lift my eyes--
To lift my eyes to thee;
And since that day, beneath the skies,
No other sight they see.
2.
In vain sleep shuts them in the night--
The night grows day to me;
Presenting idly to my sight
What still a dream must be.
3.
A fatal dream--for many a bar
Divides thy fate from mine;
And still my passions wake and war,
But peace be still with thine.
[First published, _New Monthly Magazine_, 1833, vol. 37, p. 308.]
TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.
1.
You have asked for a verse:--the request
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.
2.
Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;[607]
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.
3.
I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as grey as my head.
4.
My Life is not dated by years--
There are _moments_ which act as a plough,
And there is not a furrow appears
But is deep in my soul as my brow.
5.
Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain;
For Sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain.
B.
[First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 635, 636.]
ARISTOMENES.[608]
Canto First.
1.
The Gods of old are silent on the shore.
Since the great Pan expired, and through the roar
Of the Ionian waters broke a dread
Voice which proclaimed "the Mighty Pan is dead."
How much died with him! false or true--the dream
Was beautiful which peopled every stream
With more than finny tenants, and adorned
The woods and waters with coy nymphs that scorned
Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace
Of gods brought forth the high heroic race 10
Whose names are on the hills and o'er the seas.
Cephalonia, _Sept^r^_ 10^th^ 1823.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of the Lady Dorchester,
now for the first time printed.]
FOOTNOTES:
[568] {529}[Byron does not give his authority for the Spanish original
of his _Romance Muy Doloroso_. In default of any definite information,
it may be surmised that his fancy was caught by some broadside or
chap-book which chanced to come into his possession, and that he made
his translation without troubling himself about the origin or
composition of the ballad. As it stands, the "Romance" is a cento of
three or more ballads which are included in the _Guerras Civiles de
Granada_ of Ginès Perez de Hita, published at Saragossa in 1595 (see ed.
"En Alcala de Henares," 1601, pp. 249-252). Stanzas 1-11, "Passeavase el
Rey Moro," etc., follow the text which De Hita gives as a translation
from the Arabic; stanzas 12-14 are additional, and do not correspond
with any of the Spanish originals; stanzas 15-21, with numerous
deviations and omissions, follow the text of a second ballad, "Moro
Alcayde, Moro Alcayde," described by De Hita as "antiguo Romance," and
portions of stanzas 21-23 are imbedded in a ballad entitled "Muerte dada
á Los Abencerrajes" (Duran's _Romancero General_, 1851, ii. 89).
The ballad as a whole was not known to students of Spanish literature
previous to the publication of Byron's translation (1818), (see _Ancient
Ballads from the Civil Wars of Granada_, by Thomas Rodd, 1801, pp. 93,
98; Southey's _Common-Place Book_, iv. 262-266, and his _Chronicle of
the Cid_, 1808, pp. 371-374), and it has not been included by H. Duran
in his _Romancero General_, 1851, ii. 89-91, or by F. Wolf and C.
Hofmann in their _Primavera y Flor de Romances_, 1856, i. 270-278. At
the same time, it is most improbable that Byron was his own
"Centonista," and it may be assumed that the Spanish text as printed
(see _Childe Harold,_ Canto IV., 1818, pp. 240-254, and _Poetical
Works_, 1891, pp. 566, 567) was in his possession or within his reach.
(For a correspondence on the subject, see _Notes and Queries_, Third
Series, vol. xii. p. 391, and Fourth Series, vol. i. p. 162.)
A MS. of the Spanish text, sent to England for "copy," is in a foreign
handwriting. Two MSS. (A, B) of the translation are in Mr. Murray's
possession: A, a rough draft; B, a fair copy. The watermark of A is
1808, of B (dated January 4, 1817) 1800. It is to be noted that the
refrain in the Spanish text is _Ay de mi Alhama_, and that the insertion
of the comma is a printer's or reader's error.]
[569] [In A.D. 886, during the reign of Muley Abul Hacen, King of
Granada, Albania was surprised and occupied by the Christians under Don
Rodrigo Ponce de Leon.]
[570] The effect of the original ballad--which existed both in Spanish
and Arabic--was such, that it was forbidden to be sung by the Moors, on
pain of death, within Granada. ["This ballad was so dolorous in the
original Arabic language, that every time it was sung it acted as an
incitement to grief and despair, and for this reason it was at length
finally prohibited in Granada."--_Historia ... de las Guerras Civiles_,
translated from the Arabic of Abenhamim, by Ginès Perez de Hita, and
from the Spanish by Thomas Rodd, 1803, p. 334. According to Ticknor
(_Hist. of Spanish Literature_, 1888, iii. 139), the "Arabic origin" of
De Hita's work is not at all probable. "He may have obtained Arabic
materials for parts of his story."]
[hv] _Alas--alas--Alhama!_--[MS. M.]
[571] [Byron's _Ay de mi, Alhama_, which should be printed _Ay de mi
Alhama_, must be rendered "Woe for my Alhama!" "Woe is me, Alhama!" is
the equivalent of "_Ay de mi Alhama!_"]
[572] {531}["Un viejo Alfaqui" is "an old Alfaqui," _i.e._ a doctor of
the Mussulman law, not a proper name.]
[573] {532}["De leyes tambien hablava" should be rendered "He spake
'also' of the laws," not _tan bien_, "so well," or "exceeding well."]
[574] {533}[The Alcaide or "governor" of the original ballad is
converted into the Alfaqui of stanza 9. It was the "Alcaide," in whose
absence Alhama was taken, and who lost children, wife, honour, and his
own head in consequence (_Notes and Queries_, iv. i. 162).]
[hw] ----_so white to see_.--[MS. M.]
[575] {535}[Jacopo Vittorelli (1749-1835) was born at Bassano, in
Venetian territory. Under the Napoleonic "kingdom of Italy" he held
office as a subordinate in the Ministry of Education at Milan, and was
elected a member of the college of "Dotti." At a later period of his
life he returned to Bassano, and received an appointment as censor of
the press. His poetry, which is sweet and musical, but lacking in force
and substance, recalls and embodies the style and spirit of the dying
literature of the eighteenth century. "He lived and died," says Luigi
Carrer, "the poet of Irene and Dori," unmoved by the hopes and fears,
the storms and passions, of national change and development.--See
_Manuale della Letteratura Italiana_, by A. d'Ancona and O. Bacci, 1894,
iv. 585.]
[576] {536}["The Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the house of Madame
the Countess d'Albrizzi, whom I know) is without exception, to my mind,
the most perfectly beautiful of human conceptions, and far beyond my
ideas of human execution,"--Letter to Murray, November 25, 1816. In the
works of Antonio Canova, engraved in outline by Henry Moses (London,
1873), the bust of Helen is figured (to face p. 58), and it is stated
that it was executed in 1814, and presented to the Countess Albrizzi.
(See _Letters_, 1900, iv. 14, 15, note.)]
[577] {537}[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now
for the first time printed.]
[578] {538}["The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where
I went, as also to most of the ridottos, etc., etc.; 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."--Letter to Moore, February 28, 1817. The verses form part
of the letter. (See _Letters_, 1900, iv. 59, 60.)]
[579] [Lady Blessington told Crabb Robinson (Diary, 1869, in. 17) that
the publication of the _Question and Answer_ would "kill Rogers." The
MS. is dated 1818, and it is probable that the lines were written in the
early spring of that year. Moore or Murray had told Byron that Rogers
was in doubt whether to praise or blame him in his poem on "Human Life"
now approaching completion; and he had heard, from other sources, that
it was Rogers who was the author or retailer of certain scandalous
stories which were current in the "whispering-gallery of the world." He
had reason to believe that everybody was talking about him, and it was a
relief to be able to catch and punish so eminent a scandal-monger. It
was in this spirit that he wrote to Murray (February 20, 1818), "What
you tell me of Rogers, ... is like him. He cannot say that I have not
been a sincere and warm friend to him, till the black drop of his liver
oozed through too palpably to be overlooked. Now if I once catch him at
any of his jugglery with me or mine, let him look to it," etc., etc.,
and in all probability the "poem on Rogers" was then in existence, or
was working in his brain. The lines once written, Byron swallowed his
venom, and, when Rogers visited Italy in the autumn of 1821, he met him
at Bologna, travelled with him across the Apennines to Florence, and
invited him "to stay as long as he liked" at Pisa. Thither Rogers came,
presumably, in November, 1821, and, if we may trust the _Table Talk_
(1856, p. 238), remained at the Palazzo Lanfranchi for several days.
Byron seems to have been more than usually provocative and
cross-grained, and, on one occasion (see Medwin, _Angler in Wales_,
1834, i. 26, _sq_.; and _Records of Shelley, etc_., by E. T. Trelawney,
1878, i. 53), when he was playing billiards, and Rogers was in the lobby
outside, secretly incited his bull-dog, "Faithful Moretto," to bark and
show his teeth; and, when Medwin had convoyed the terror-stricken bard
into his presence, greeted him with effusion, but contrived that he
should sit down on the very sofa which hid from view the MS. of
"Question and Answer." _Longa est injuria, longæ ambages_; but the story
rests on the evidence of independent witnesses.
By far the best comment on satire and satirist is to be found in the
noble lines in _Italy_, in which Rogers commemorates his last meeting
with the "Youth who swam from Sestos to Abydos"--
"If imagined wrongs
Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do
Things long regretted, oft, as many know,
None more than I, thy gratitude would build
On slight foundations; and, if in thy life
Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert,
Thy wish accomplished."
_Poems_ by Samuel Rogers, 1852, ii. 119.]
[hx] ----_would shame a knocker_.--[_Fraser's Magazine_, 1833.]
[hy] {539}_Turning its quick tail_----.--[_Fraser's_, etc.]
[580] {540}["'De mortuis nihil nisi bonum!' There is Sam Rogers [No. IV.
of the Maclise Caricatures] a mortal likeness--painted to the very
death!" A string of jests upon Rogers's corpse-like appearance
accompanied the portrait.]
[hz] _With the Scripture in connexion_.--[_Fraser's_, etc.]
[581] {541}[Among other "bogus" notes (parodies of the notes in Murray's
new edition of Byron's _Works_ in seventeen volumes), is one signed Sir
E. Brydges, which enumerates a string of heiresses, beauties, and blues,
whom Rogers had wooed in vain. Among the number are Mrs. Apreece (Lady
Davy), Mrs. Coutts, "beat by the Duke of St. Albans," and the Princess
Olive of Cumberland. "We have heard," the note concludes, "that he
proposed for the Duchess of Cleveland, and was cut out by Beau Fielding,
but we think that must have been before his time a little."]
[582] {542}["If '_the_ person' had not by many little dirty sneaking
traits provoked it, I should have been silent, though I _had observed_
him. Here follows an alteration. Put--
"Devil with such delight in damning
That if at the resurrection
Unto him the free selection
Of his future could be given
'Twould be rather Hell than Heaven.
You have a discretionary power about showing."--Letter to Murray,
November 9, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 113.]
[ia] ----_would you know 'em?_--[_Fraser's_, etc.]
[583] [Addressed to Miss Chaworth, in allusion to a duel fought between
two of their ancestors, D[ominus] B[yron] and Mr. C., January 26, 1765.
Byron and Mary Anne Chaworth were fourth cousins, both being fifth in
descent from George, Viscount Chaworth, whose daughter Elizabeth was
married to William, third Lord Byron (d. 1695), the poet's
great-great-grandfather. The duel between their grand-uncles, William,
fifth Lord Byron, and William Chaworth, Esq., of Annesley, was fought
between eight and nine o'clock in the evening of Saturday, January 26,
1765 (see _The Gazetteer_, Monday, January 28, 1765), at the Star and
Garter Tavern, Pall Mall. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of
wilful murder (see for the "Inquisition," and report of trial, _Journals
of the House of Lords_, 1765, pp. 49, 126-135), and on the presentation
of their testimony to the House of Lords, Byron pleaded for a trial "by
God and his peers," whereupon he was arrested and sent to the Tower. The
case was tried by the Lords Temporal (the Lords Spiritual asked
permission to withdraw), and, after a defence had been read by the
prisoner, 119 peers brought in a verdict of "Not guilty of murder,
guilty of manslaughter, on my honour." Four peers only returned a
verdict of "Not guilty." The result of this verdict was that Lord Byron
claimed the benefit of the statute of Edward VI., and was discharged on
paying the fees.
The defence, which is given in full (see Journal, etc., for April 17,
1765), is able and convincing. Whilst maintaining an air of chivalry and
candour, the accused contrived to throw the onus of criminality on his
antagonist. It was Mr. Chaworth who began the quarrel, by sneering at
his cousin's absurd and disastrous leniency towards poachers. It was
Chaworth who insisted on an interview, not on the stairs, but in a
private room, who locked the door, and whose demeanour made a challenge
"to draw" inevitable. The room was dimly lit, and when the table was
pushed back, the space for the combatants was but twelve feet by five.
After two thrusts had been parried, and Lord Byron's shirt had been
torn, he shifted a little to the right, to take advantage of such light
as there was, came to close quarters with his adversary and, "as he
supposed, gave the unlucky wound which he would ever reflect upon with
the utmost regret."
If there was any truth in his plea, the "wicked Lord Byron" has been
misjudged, and, at least in the matter of the duel, was not so black as
he has been painted. For Byron's defence of his grand-uncle, see letter
to M. J. J. Coulmann, Genoa, July 12, 1823, _Life_, by Karl Elze, 1872,
pp. 443-446.]
[584] {543}[In the coroner's "Inquisition," the sword is described as
being "made of iron and steel, of the value of five shillings." Byron
says that "so far from feeling any remorse for having killed Mr.
Chaworth, who was a fire-eater (_spadassin_), ... he always kept the
sword ... in his bed-chamber, where it still was when he
died."--_Ibid._, p. 445.]
[585] [Ralph de Burun held Horestan Castle and other manors from the
Conqueror. Byron's mother was descended from James I. of Scotland.]
[586] {544}[See _The Dream_, line 127, _et passim_, _vide ante_, p. 31,
_et sq._]
[587] [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for
the first time printed.]
[588] {545} [There has been some misunderstanding with regard to this
poem. According to the statement of the Countess Guiccioli (see _Works
of Lord Byron_, ed. 1832, xii. 14), "Stanzas to the Po" were composed
about the middle of April, 1819, "while Lord Byron was actually sailing
on the Po," _en route_ from Venice to Ravenna. Medwin, who was the first
to publish the lines (_Conversations, etc._, 1824, 410, pp. 24-26), says
that they were written when Byron was about to "quit Venice to join" the
Countess at Ravenna, and, in a footnote, explains that the river
referred to is the Po. Now, if the Countess and Medwin (and Moore, who
follows Medwin, _Life_, p. 396) are right, and the river is the Po, the
"ancient walls" Ravenna, and the "Lady of the land" the Guiccioli, the
stanzas may have been written in June (not April), 1819, possibly at
Ferrara, and the river must be the Po di Primaro. Even so, the first
line of the first stanza and the third and fourth lines of the ninth
stanza require explanation. The Po does not "roll by the ancient walls"
of Ravenna; and how could Byron be at one and the same time "by the
source" (stanza 9, line 4), and sailing on the river, or on some
canalized tributary or effluent? Be the explanation what it may--and it
is possible that the lines were _not_ originally designed for the
Countess, but for another "Lady of the land" (see letter to Murray, May
18, 1819)--it may be surmised that "the lines written last year on
crossing the Po," the "mere verses of society," which were given to
Kinnaird (see letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, and _Conversations of Lord
Byron with Lady Blessington_, 1834, p. 143), were not the sombre though
passionate elegy, "River, that rollest," but the bitter and somewhat
cynical rhymes, "Could Love for ever, Run like a river" (_vide post_, p.
549).]
[ib] {546}
_But left long wrecks behind them, and again_.
_Borne on our old unchanged career, we move;_
_Thou tendest wildly onward to the main_.--[Medwin.]
[ic] _I near thy source_----.--[Medwin.]
[id] {547}_A stranger loves a lady_----.--[Medwin.]
[ie] _By the bleak wind_----.--[Medwin.]
[if] _I had not left my clime;--I shall not be_.--[Medwin.]
[589] I wrote this sonnet (after tearing the first) on being repeatedly
urged to do so by the Countess G. [It was at the house of the Marquis
Cavalli, uncle to the countess, that Byron appeared in the part of a
fully-recognized "Cicisbeo."--See letter to Hoppner, December 31, 1819,
_Letters, 1900_, iv. 393.]
[ig] {548}_To the Prince Regent on the repeal of the bill of attainder
against Lord E. Fitzgerald, June, 1819._
[ih] _To leave_----.--[MS. M.]
[ii] _Who_ NOW _would lift a hand_----.--[MS. M.]
[ij]
----_becomes but more complete_
_Thyself a despot_----.--[MS. M.]
[590] ["So the prince has been repealing Lord Fitzgerald's forfeiture?
_Ecco un' Sonetto!_ There, you dogs! there's a Sonnet for you: you won't
have such as that in a hurry from Mr. Fitzgerald. You may publish it
with my name, an ye wool. He deserves all praise, bad and good; it was a
very noble piece of principality."--Letter to Murray, August 12, 1819.
For [William Thomas] Fitgerald, see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 297, note
3; for Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798), see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 345,
note 1. The royal assent was given to a bill for "restoring Edward Fox
Fitzgerald and his sisters Pamela and Lucy to their blood," July 13,
1819. The sonnet was addressed to George IV. when Prince Regent. The
title, "To George the Fourth," affixed in 1831, is incorrect.]
[591] {549}["A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Ravenna when
he wrote these stanzas, says, They were composed, like many others, with
no view of publication, but merely to relieve himself in a moment of
suffering. He had been painfully excited by some circumstances which
appeared to make it necessary that he should immediately quit Italy; and
in the day and the hour that he wrote the song was labouring under an
access of fever" (_Works_, 1832, xii. 317, note 1). Here, too, there is
some confusion of dates and places. Byron was at Venice, not at Ravenna,
December 1, 1819, when these lines were composed. They were sent, as
Lady Blessington testifies, to Kinnaird, and are probably identical with
the "mere verses of society," mentioned in the letter to Murray of May
8, 1820. The last stanza reflects the mood of a letter to the Countess
Guiccioli, dated November 25 (1819), "I go to save you, and leave a
country insupportable to me without you" (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 379, note
2).]
[ik] _And as a treasure_.--[MS. Guiccioli.]
[il] {550}
_Through every weather_
_We pluck_.--[MS. G.]
[im]
_He'll sadly shiver_
_And droop for ever,_
_Shorn of the plumage which sped his spring_.--[MS. G.]
[in] ----_that sped his Spring_.--[MS. G.]
[io] {551}
_His reign is finished_
_One last embrace, then, and bid good-night_.--[MS. G.]
[ip]
_You have not waited_
_Till tired and hated_
_All passions sated_.--[MS. G.]
[iq] {552}_True separations_.--[MS. G.]
[ir] {555}_The enclosed lines, as you will directly perceive, are
written by the Rev. W. L. Bowles. Of course it is for him to deny them,
if they are not_.--[_Letter to Moore, September_ 17, 1821, _Letters_,
1901, v. 364.]
[592] [A few days before Byron enclosed these lines in a letter to Moore
(September 17, 1821) he had written to Murray (September 12): "If ever I
_do_ return to England ... I will write a poem to which _English Bards,
etc._, shall be New Milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of
mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar." Hence the somewhat
ambiguous title. The word "Avatar" is not only applied ironically to
George IV. as the "Messiah of Royalty," but metaphorically to the poem,
which would descend in the "Capacity of Preserver" (see Sir W. Jones,
_Asiatic Research_, i. 234).
The "fury" which sent Byron into this "lawless conscription of
rhythmus," was inspired partly by an ungenerous attack on Moore, which
appeared in the pages of _John Bull_ ("Thomas Moore is not likely to
fall in the way of knighthood ... being public defaulter in his office
to a large amount.... [August 5]. It is true that we cannot from
principle esteem the writer of the _Twopenny Postbag_.... It is equally
true that we shrink from the profligacy," etc., August 12, 1821); and,
partly, by the servility of the Irish, who had welcomed George IV. with
an outburst of enthusiastic loyalty, when he entered Dublin in triumph
within ten days of the death of Queen Caroline. The _Morning Chronicle_,
August 8-August 18, 1821, prints effusive leading articles, edged with
black borders, on the Queen's illness, death, funeral procession, etc.,
over against a column (in small type) headed "The King in Dublin."
Byron's satire is a running comment on the pages of the _Morning
Chronicle_. Moore was in Paris at the time, being, as _John Bull_ said,
"obliged to live out of England," and Byron gave him directions that
twenty copies of the _Irish Avatar_ "should be carefully and privately
printed off." Medwin says that Byron gave him "a printed copy," but his
version (see _Conversations_, 1824, pp. 332-338), doubtless for
prudential reasons, omits twelve of the more libellous stanzas. The poem
as a whole was not published in England till 1831, when "George the
despised" was gone to his account. According to Crabb Robinson (_Diary_,
1869, ii. 437), Goethe said that "Byron's verses on George IV. (_Query?
The Irish Avatar_) were the sublime of hatred."]
[593] {556}[The Queen died on the night (10.20 p.m.) of Tuesday, August
7. The King entered Dublin in state Friday, August 17. The vessel
bearing the Queen's remains sailed from Harwich on the morning of
Saturday, August 18, 1821.]
[is] ----_such a hero becomes_.--[MS. M.]
[594] ["Seven covered waggons arrived at the Castle (August 3). They
were laden with plate.... Upwards of forty men cooks will be
employed."--_Morning Chronicle_, August 8.]
[it] {557}_To enact in the pageant_----.-[MS. M.]
[595] ["Never did I witness such enthusiasm.... Cheer followed
cheer--and shout followed shout ... accompanied by exclamation of 'God
bless King George IV.!' 'Welcome, welcome, ten thousand times to these
shores!'"--_Morning Chronicle_, August 16.]
[596] {558}["After the stanza on Grattan, ... will it please you to
cause insert the following Addenda, which I dreamed of during to-day's
Siesta."--Letter to Moore, September 20, 1821.]
[iu] _Aye! back to our theme_----.--[Medwin]
[iv] _Kiss his foot, with thy blessing, for blessings
denied!_--[Medwin.]
[iw] _Or if freedom_----.--[Medwin.]
[597] {559}["The Earl of Fingall (Arthur James Plunkett, K.P., eighth
earl, d. 1836), the leading Catholic nobleman, is to be created a Knight
of St. Patrick."--_Morning Chronicle_, August 18.]
[ix] _Wear Fingal thy ribbon_----.--[MS. M.]
[iy] _And the King is no scoundrel--whatever the Prince_.--[MS. M.]
[598] [There was talk of a testimonial being presented to the King.
O'Connell suggested that if possible it should take the form of "a
palace, to which not only the rank around him could contribute, but to
the erection of which every peasant could from his cottage contribute
his humble mite."--_Morning Chronicle_, August 18.]
[iz] _Till proudly the new_----.--[MS. M.]
[599] {560}["The Marquis of Londonderry was cheered in the Castle-yard."
"He was," says the correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_, "the
instrument of Ireland's degradation--he broke down her spirit, and
prostrated, I fear, for ever her independence. To see the author of this
measure cheered near the very spot," etc.]
[ja] ----_might make Humanity doubt_.--[MS. M.]
[jb] ----_in the heart of a king_.--[Medwin. MS. M. erased.]
[600] {561}[Byron spoke and voted in favour of the Earl of Donoughmore's
motion for a Committee on the Roman Catholic claims, April 21, 1812.
(See "Parliamentary Speeches," Appendix II., _Letters_, 1898, ii.
431-443.)]
[jc] _My arm, though but feeble_----.--[Medwin.]
[jd] ----_though thou wert not my land_.--[Medwin.]
[601] [For Grattan and Curran, see letter to Moore, October 2, 1813,
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 271, note 1; for Sheridan, see "Introduction to
_Monody_," etc., _ante_, pp. 69, 70.]
[je]
_Nor the steps of enslavers, and slave-kissing slaves_
_Be damp'd in the turf_----.--[Medwin.]
[jf] _Though their virtues are blunted_----.--[Medwin.]
[jg] {562} ----_that I envy their dead_.--[Medwin.]
[jh] _They're the heart--the free spirit--the genius of Moore_.--[MS.
M.]
[602] ["Signed W. L. B----, M.A., and written with a view to a
Bishoprick."--_Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 527, note.
Endorsed, "MS. Lord Byron. The King's visit to Ireland; a very seditious
and horrible libel, which never was intended to be published, and which
Lord B. called, himself, silly, being written in a moment of ill
nature.--C. B."]
[603] ["I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now) a few
days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa."--Pisa, 6th November, 1821,
_Detached Thoughts_, No. 118, _Letters_, 1901, v. 466.]
[604] ["I told Byron that his poetical sentiments of the attractions of
matured beauty had, at the moment, suggested four lines to me; which he
begged me to repeat, and he laughed not a little when I recited the
following lines to him:--
"Oh! talk not to me of the charms of Youth's dimples,
There's surely more sentiment center'd in wrinkles.
They're the triumphs of Time that mark Beauty's decay,
Telling tales of years past, and the few left to stay."
_Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1834, pp. 255, 256.]
[605] [These verses were written by Lord Byron a little before he left
Italy for Greece. They were meant to suit the Hindostanee air, "Alia
Malla Punca," which the Countess Guiccioli was fond of
singing.--Editor's note, _Works, etc._, xiv. 357, Pisa, September,
1821.]
[606] {564}[Probably "To Lady Blessington," who includes them in her
_Conversations of Lord Byron_.]
[607] {565}[For reproduction of Lawrence's portrait of Lady Blessington,
see "List of Illustrations," _Letters_, 1901, v. [xv.].]
[608] {566}[Aristomenes, the Achilles of the Alexandrian poet Rhianus
(Grote's _History of Greece_, 1869, ii. 428), is the legendary hero of
the second Messenian War (B.C. 685-668). Thrice he slew a hundred of the
Spartan foe, and thrice he offered the Hekatomphonia on Mount Ithome.
His name was held in honour long after "the rowers on their benches"
heard the wail, "Pan, Pan is dead!" At the close of the second century
of the Christian era, Pausanias (iv. 16. 4) made a note of Messenian
maidens hymning his victory over the Lacedæmonians--
"From the heart of the plain he drove them,
And he drove them back to the hill:
To the top of the hill he drove them,
As he followed them, followed them still!"
Byron was familiar with Thomas Taylor's translation of the _Periegesis
Græciæ_ (_vide ante_, p. 109, and "Observations," etc., _Letters_, v.
Appendix III. p. 574), and with Mitford's _Greece_ (_Don Juan_, Canto
XII. stanza xix. line 7). Hence his knowledge of Aristomenes. The
thought expressed in lines 5-11 was, possibly, suggested by Coleridge's
translation of the famous passage in Schiller's _Piccolomini_ (act ii.
sc. 4, lines 118, _sq._, "For fable is Love's world, his home," etc.),
which is quoted by Sir Walter Scott, in the third chapter of _Guy
Mannering_.]
THE BLUES:
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
"Nimium ne crede colori."--Virgil, [_Ecl_. ii. 17]
O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue,
Though your _hair_ were as _red_, as your _stockings_ are _blue_.
INTRODUCTION TO _THE BLUES_.
Byron's correspondence does not explain the mood in which he wrote _The
Blues_, or afford the slightest hint or clue to its _motif_ or occasion.
In a letter to Murray, dated Ravenna, August 7, 1821, he writes, "I send
you a thing which I scribbled off yesterday, a mere buffoonery, to quiz
'The Blues.' If published it must be _anonymously_.... You may send me a
proof if you think it worth the trouble." Six weeks later, September 20,
he had changed his mind. "You need not," he says, "send _The Blues_,
which is a mere buffoonery not meant for publication." With these
intimations our knowledge ends, and there is nothing to show why in
August, 1821, he took it into his head "to quiz The Blues," or why,
being so minded, he thought it worth while to quiz them in so pointless
and belated a fashion. We can but guess that an allusion in a letter
from England, an incident at a conversazione at Ravenna, or perhaps the
dialogues in Peacock's novels, _Melincourt_ and _Nightmare Abbey_,
brought to his recollection the half-modish, half-literary coteries of
the earlier years of the Regency, and that he sketches the scenes and
persons of his eclogue not from life, but from memory.
In the Diary of 1813, 1814, there is more than one mention of the
"Blues." For instance, November 27, 1813, he writes, "Sotheby is a
_Littérateur_, the oracle of the Coteries of the * *'s, Lydia White
(Sydney Smith's 'Tory Virgin'), Mrs. Wilmot (she, at least, is a swan,
and might frequent a purer stream), Lady Beaumont and all the Blues,
with Lady Charlemont at their head." Again on December 1, "To-morrow
there is a party _purple_ at the 'blue' Miss Berry's. Shall I go? um!--I
don't much affect your blue-bottles;--but one ought to be civil....
Perhaps that blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of book-learning Lady
Charlemont will be there" (see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 333, 358, note 2).
Byron was, perhaps, a more willing guest at literary entertainments
than he professed to be. "I met him," says Sir Walter Scott (_Memoirs of
the Life, etc._, 1838, ii. 167), "frequently in society.... Some very
agreeable parties I can recollect, particularly one at Sir George
Beaumont's, where the amiable landlord had assembled some persons
distinguished for talent. Of these I need only mention the late Sir
Humphry Davy.... Mr. Richard Sharpe and Mr. Rogers were also present."
Again, Miss Berry, in her _Journal_ (1866, in. 49) records, May 8, 1815,
that "Lord and Lady Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss [Lydia]
White (_vide post_, p. 587). Never have I seen a more imposing
convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered ... Lord
Byron brought me home. He stayed to supper." If he did not affect "your
blue-bottles," he was on intimate terms with Madame de Staël, "the
_Begum_ of Literature," as Moore called her; with the Contessa
d'Albrizzi (the De Staël of Italy); with Mrs. Wilmot, the inspirer of
"She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs. Shelley; with Lady
Blessington. Moreover, to say nothing of his "mathematical wife," who
was as "blue as ether," the Countess Guiccioli could not only read and
"inwardly digest" _Corinna_ (see letter to Moore, January 2, 1820), but
knew the _Divina Commedia_ by heart, and was a critic as well as an
inspirer of her lover's poetry.
If it is difficult to assign a reason or occasion for the composition of
_The Blues_, it is a harder, perhaps an impossible, task to identify all
the _dramatis personæ_. Botherby, Lady Bluemount, and Miss Diddle are,
obviously, Sotheby, Lady Beaumont, and Lydia White. Scamp the Lecturer
may be Hazlitt, who had incurred Byron's displeasure by commenting on
his various and varying estimates of Napoleon (see _Lectures on the
English Poets_, 1818, p. 304, and _Don Juan_, Canto 1. stanza ii. line
7, note to Buonaparte). Inkel seems to be meant for Byron himself, and
Tracy, a friend, _not_ a Lake poet, for Moore. Sir Richard and Lady
Bluebottle may possibly symbolize Lord and Lady Holland; and Miss Lilac
is, certainly, Miss Milbanke, the "Annabella" of Byron's courtship, not
the "moral Clytemnestra" of his marriage and separation.
_The Blues_ was published anonymously in the third number of the
_Liberal_, which appeared April 26, 1823. The "Eclogue" was not
attributed to Byron, and met with greater contempt than it deserved. In
the _Noctes Ambrosiance_ (Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, May, 1823,
vol. xiii. p. 607), the third number of the _Liberal_ is dismissed with
the remark, "The last Number contains not one _line_ of Byron's! Thank
God! he has seen his error, and kicked them out." Brief but contemptuous
notices appeared in the _Literary Chronicle_, April 26, and the
_Literary Gazette_, May 3, 1823; while a short-lived periodical, named
the _Literary Register_ (May 3, quoted at length in _John Bull_, May 4,
1823), implies that the author (i.e. Leigh Hunt) would be better
qualified to "catch the manners" of Lisson Grove than of May Fair. It is
possible that this was the "last straw," and that the reception of _The
Blues_ hastened Byron's determination to part company with the
profitless and ill-omened _Liberal_.
THE BLUES:[609]
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
ECLOGUE THE FIRST.
_London.--Before the Door of a Lecture Room_.
_Enter_ TRACY, _meeting_ INKEL.
_Ink_. You're too late.
_Tra_. Is it over?
_Ink_. Nor will be this hour.
But the benches are crammed, like a garden in flower.
With the pride of our belles, who have made it the fashion;
So, instead of "beaux arts," we may say "la _belle_ passion"
For learning, which lately has taken the lead in
The world, and set all the fine gentlemen reading.
_Tra_. I know it too well, and have worn out my patience
With studying to study your new publications.
There's Vamp, Scamp, and Mouthy, and Wordswords and Co.[610]
With their damnable----
_Ink_. Hold, my good friend, do you know 10
Whom you speak to?
_Tra_. Right well, boy, and so does "the Row:"[611]
You're an author--a poet--
_Ink_. And think you that I
Can stand tamely in silence, to hear you decry
The Muses?
_Tra_. Excuse me: I meant no offence
To the Nine; though the number who make some pretence
To their favours is such----but the subject to drop,
I am just piping hot from a publisher's shop,
(Next door to the pastry-cook's; so that when I
Cannot find the new volume I wanted to buy
On the bibliopole's shelves, it is only two paces, 20
As one finds every author in one of those places:)
Where I just had been skimming a charming critique,
So studded with wit, and so sprinkled with Greek!
Where your friend--you know who--has just got such a threshing,
That it is, as the phrase goes, extremely "_refreshing._"[612]
What a beautiful word!
_Ink_. Very true; 'tis so soft
And so cooling--they use it a little too oft;
And the papers have got it at last--but no matter.
So they've cut up our friend then?
_Tra_. Not left him a tatter--
Not a rag of his present or past reputation, 30
Which they call a disgrace to the age, and the nation.
_Ink_. I'm sorry to hear this! for friendship, you know--
Our poor friend!--but I thought it would terminate so.
Our friendship is such, I'll read nothing to shock it.
You don't happen to have the Review in your pocket?
_Tra_. No; I left a round dozen of authors and others
(Very sorry, no doubt, since the cause is a brother's)
All scrambling and jostling, like so many imps,
And on fire with impatience to get the next glimpse.
_Ink_. Let us join them.
_Tra_. What, won't you return to the lecture? 40
_Ink_. Why the place is so crammed, there's not room for a spectre.
Besides, our friend Scamp is to-day so absurd--[613]
_Tra_. How can you know that till you hear him?
_Ink_. I heard
Quite enough; and, to tell you the truth, my retreat
Was from his vile nonsense, no less than the heat.
_Tra_. I have had no great loss then?
_Ink_. Loss!--such a palaver!
I'd inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver
Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours
To the torrent of trash which around him he pours,
Pumped up with such effort, disgorged with such labour, 50
That----come--do not make me speak ill of one's neighbour.
_Tra_. _I_ make you!
_Ink_. Yes, you! I said nothing until
You compelled me, by speaking the truth----
_Tra_. _To speak ill?_
Is that your deduction?
_Ink_. When speaking of Scamp ill,
I certainly _follow, not set_ an example.
The fellow's a fool, an impostor, a zany.
_Tra_. And the crowd of to-day shows that one fool makes many.
But we two will be wise.
_Ink_. Pray, then, let us retire.
_Tra_. I would, but----
_Ink_. There must be attraction much higher
Than Scamp, or the Jew's harp he nicknames his lyre, 60
To call you to this hotbed.
_Tra_. I own it--'tis true--
A fair lady----
_Ink_. A spinster?
_Tra_. Miss Lilac.
_Ink_. The Blue!
_Tra_. The heiress! The angel!
_Ink_. The devil! why, man,
Pray get out of this hobble as fast as you can.
_You_ wed with Miss Lilac! 'twould be your perdition:
She's a poet, a chymist, a mathematician.[614]
_Tra_. I say she's an angel.
_Ink_. Say rather an angle.
If you and she marry, you'll certainly wrangle.
I say she's a Blue, man, as blue as the ether.
_Tra_. And is that any cause for not coming together? 70
_Ink_. Humph! I can't say I know any happy alliance
Which has lately sprung up from a wedlock with science.
She's so learnéd in all things, and fond of concerning
Herself in all matters connected with learning,
That----
_Tra_. What?
_Ink_. I perhaps may as well hold my tongue;
But there's five hundred people can tell you you're
wrong.
_Tra_. You forget Lady Lilac's as rich as a Jew.
_Ink_. Is it miss or the cash of mamma you pursue?
_Tra_. Why, Jack, I'll be frank with you--something of both.
The girl's a fine girl.
_Ink_. And you feel nothing loth 80
To her good lady-mother's reversion; and yet
Her life is as good as your own, I will bet.
_Tra_. Let her live, and as long as she likes; I demand
Nothing more than the heart of her daughter and hand.
_Ink_. Why, that heart's in the inkstand--that hand on the pen.
_Tra_. A propos--Will you write me a song now and then?
_Ink_. To what purpose?
_Tra_. You know, my dear friend, that in prose
My talent is decent, as far as it goes;
But in rhyme----
_Ink_. You're a terrible stick, to be sure.
_Tra_. I own it; and yet, in these times, there's no lure 90
For the heart of the fair like a stanza or two;
And so, as I can't, will you furnish a few?
_Ink_. In your name?
_Tra_. In my name. I will copy them out,
To slip into her hand at the very next rout.
_Ink_. Are you so far advanced as to hazard this?
_Tra_. Why,
Do you think me subdued by a Blue-stocking's eye,
So far as to tremble to tell her in rhyme
What I've told her in prose, at the least, as sublime?
_Ink_. _As sublime!_ If i be so, no need of my Muse.
_Tra_. But consider, dear Inkel, she's one of the "Blues."100
_Ink_. As sublime!--Mr. Tracy--I've nothing to say.
Stick to prose--As sublime!!--but I wish you good day.
_Tra_. Nay, stay, my dear fellow--consider--I'm wrong;
I own it; but, prithee, compose me the song.
_Ink_. _As_ sublime!!
_Tra_. I but used the expression in haste.
_Ink_. That may be, Mr. Tracy, but shows damned bad taste.
_Tra_. I own it, I know it, acknowledge it--what
Can I say to you more?
_Ink_. I see what you'd be at:
You disparage my parts with insidious abuse,
Till you think you can turn them best to your own use. 110
_Tra_. And is that not a sign I respect them?
_Ink_. Why that
To be sure makes a difference.
_Tra_. I know what is what:
And you, who're a man of the gay world, no less
Than a poet of t'other, may easily guess
That I never could mean, by a word, to offend
A genius like you, and, moreover, my friend.
_Ink_. No doubt; you by this time should know what is due
To a man of----but come--let us shake hands.
_Tra_. You knew,
And you _know_, my dear fellow, how heartily I,
Whatever you publish, am ready to buy. 120
_Ink_. That's my bookseller's business; I care not for sale;
Indeed the best poems at first rather fail.
There were Renegade's epics, and Botherby's plays,[615]
And my own grand romance--
_Tra_. Had its full share of praise.
I myself saw it puffed in the "Old Girl's Review."[616]
_Ink_. What Review?
_Tra_. Tis the English "Journal de Trevoux;"[617]
A clerical work of our Jesuits at home.
Have you never yet seen it?
_Ink_. That pleasure's to come.
_Tra_. Make haste then.
_Ink_. Why so?
_Tra_. I have heard people say
That it threatened to give up the _ghost_ t'other day.[618] 130
_Ink_. Well, that is a sign of some _spirit_.
_Tra_. No doubt.
Shall you be at the Countess of Fiddlecome's rout?
_Ink_. I've a card, and shall go: but at present, as soon
As friend Scamp shall be pleased to step down from the moon,
(Where he seems to be soaring in search of his wits),
And an interval grants from his lecturing fits,
I'm engaged to the Lady Bluebottle's collation,
To partake of a luncheon and learn'd conversation:
'Tis a sort of reunion for Scamp, on the days
Of his lecture, to treat him with cold tongue and praise. 140
And I own, for my own part, that 'tis not unpleasant.
Will you go? There's Miss Lilac will also be present.
_Tra_. That "metal's attractive."
_Ink_. No doubt--to the pocket.
_Tra_. You should rather encourage my passion than shock it.
But let us proceed; for I think by the hum----
_Ink_. Very true; let us go, then, before they can come,
Or else we'll be kept here an hour at their levee,
On the rack of cross questions, by all the blue bevy.
Hark! Zounds, they'll be on us; I know by the drone
Of old Botherby's spouting ex-cathedrâ tone.[619] 150
Aye! there he is at it. Poor Scamp! better join
Your friends, or he'll pay you back in your own coin.
_Tra_. All fair; 'tis but lecture for lecture.
_Ink_. That's clear.
But for God's sake let's go, or the Bore will be here.
Come, come: nay, I'm off.
[_Exit_ INKEL.
_Tra_. You are right, and I'll follow;
'Tis high time for a "_Sic me servavit Apollo_."[620]
And yet we shall have the whole crew on our kibes,[621]
Blues, dandies, and dowagers, and second-hand scribes,
All flocking to moisten their exquisite throttles
With a glass of Madeira[622] at Lady Bluebottle's. 160
[_Exit_ TRACY.
ECLOGUE THE SECOND.
_An Apartment in the House of_ LADY BLUEBOTTLE.--_A Table prepared._
SIR RICHARD BLUEBOTTLE _solus_.
Was there ever a man who was married so sorry?
Like a fool, I must needs do the thing in a hurry.
My life is reversed, and my quiet destroyed;
My days, which once passed in so gentle a void,
Must now, every hour of the twelve, be employed;
The twelve, do I say?--of the whole twenty-four,
Is there one which I dare call my own any more?
What with driving and visiting, dancing and dining,
What with learning, and teaching, and scribbling, and shining,
In science and art, I'll be cursed if I know 10
Myself from my wife; for although we are two,
Yet she somehow contrives that all things shall be done
In a style which proclaims us eternally one.
But the thing of all things which distresses me more
Than the bills of the week (though they trouble me sore)
Is the numerous, humorous, backbiting crew
Of scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue,
Who are brought to my house as an inn, to my cost--
For the bill here, it seems, is defrayed by the host--
No pleasure! no leisure! no thought for my pains, 20
But to hear a vile jargon which addles my brains;
A smatter and chatter, gleaned out of reviews,
By the rag, tag, and bobtail, of those they call "Blues;"
A rabble who know not----But soft, here they come!
Would to God I were deaf! as I'm not, I'll be dumb.
_Enter_ LADY BLUEBOTTLE, MISS LILAC, LADY BLUEMOUNT, MR. BOTHERBY,
INKEL, TRACY, MISS MAZARINE, _and others, with_ SCAMP _the Lecturer,
etc., etc._
_Lady Blueb_.
Ah! Sir Richard, good morning: I've brought you some friends.
_Sir Rich_. (_bows, and afterwards aside_).
If friends, they're the first.
_Lady Blueb_. But the luncheon attends.
I pray ye be seated, "_sans cérémonie_."
Mr. Scamp, you're fatigued; take your chair there, next me.
[_They all sit._
_Sir Rich_. (_aside_). If he does, his fatigue is to come.
_Lady Blueb_. Mr. Tracy--
Lady Bluemount--Miss Lilac--be pleased, pray, to place ye; 31
And you, Mr. Botherby--
_Both_. Oh, my dear Lady,
I obey.
_Lady Blueb_. Mr. Inkel, I ought to upbraid ye:
You were not at the lecture.
_Ink_. Excuse me, I was;
But the heat forced me out in the best part--alas!
And when--
_Lady Blueb_. To be sure it was broiling; but then
You have lost such a lecture!
_Both_. The best of the ten.
_Tra_. How can you know that? there are two more.
_Both_. Because
I defy him to beat this day's wondrous applause.
The very walls shook.
_Ink_. Oh, if that be the test, 40
I allow our friend Scamp has this day done his best.
Miss Lilac, permit me to help you;--a wing?
_Miss Lil_. No more, sir, I thank you. Who lectures next spring?
_Both_. Dick Dunder.
_Ink_. That is, if he lives.
_Miss Lil_. And why not?
_Ink_. No reason whatever, save that he's a sot.
Lady Bluemount! a glass of Madeira?
_Lady Bluem_. With pleasure.
_Ink_. How does your friend Wordswords, that Windermere treasure?
Does he stick to his lakes, like the leeches he sings,[623]
And their gatherers, as Homer sung warriors and kings?
_Lady Bluem_. He has just got a place.[624]
_Ink_. As a footman?
_Lady Bluem_. For shame!
Nor profane with your sneers so poetic a name. 51
_Ink_. Nay, I meant him no evil, but pitied his master;
For the poet of pedlers 'twere, sure, no disaster
To wear a new livery; the more, as 'tis not
The first time he has turned both his creed and his coat.
_Lady Bluem_. For shame! I repeat. If Sir George could but hear--
_Lady Blueb_. Never mind our friend Inkel; we all know, my dear,
'Tis his way.
_Sir Rich_. But this place--
_Ink_. Is perhaps like friend Scamp's,
A lecturer's.
_Lady Bluem_. Excuse me--'tis one in the "Stamps:"
He is made a collector.
_Tra_. Collector!
_Sir Rich_. How?
_Miss Lil_. What? 60
_Ink_. I shall think of him oft when I buy a new hat:
There his works will appear--
_Lady Bluem_. Sir, they reach to the Ganges.
_Ink_. I sha'n't go so far--I can have them at Grange's.[625]
_Lady Bluem_. Oh fie!
_Miss Lil_. And for shame!
_Lady Bluem_. You're too bad.
_Both_. Very good!
_Lady Bluem_. How good?
_Lady Blueb_. He means nought--'tis his phrase.
_Lady Bluem_. He grows rude.
_Lady Blueb_. He means nothing; nay, ask him.
_Lady Bluem_. Pray, Sir! did you mean
What you say?
_Ink_. Never mind if he did; 'twill be seen
That whatever he means won't alloy what he says.
_Both_. Sir!
_Ink_. Pray be content with your portion of praise;
'Twas in your defence.
_Both_. If you please, with submission 70
I can make out my own.
_Ink_. It would be your perdition.
While you live, my dear Botherby, never defend
Yourself or your works; but leave both to a friend.
Apropos--Is your play then accepted at last?
_Both_. At last?
_Ink_. Why I thought--that's to say--there had passed
A few green-room whispers, which hinted,--you know
That the taste of the actors at best is so so.[626]
_Both_. Sir, the green-room's in rapture, and so's the Committee.
_Ink_. Aye--yours are the plays for exciting our "pity
And fear," as the Greek says: for "purging the mind,"80
I doubt if you'll leave us an equal behind.
_Both_. I have written the prologue, and meant to have prayed
For a spice of your wit in an epilogue's aid.
_Ink_. Well, time enough yet, when the play's to be played.
Is it cast yet?
_Both_. The actors are fighting for parts,
As is usual in that most litigious of arts.
_Lady Blueb_. We'll all make a party, and go the _first_ night.
_Tra_. And you promised the epilogue, Inkel.
_Ink_. Not quite.
However, to save my friend Botherby trouble,
I'll do what I can, though my pains must be double. 90
_Tra_. Why so?
_Ink_. To do justice to what goes before.
_Both_. Sir, I'm happy to say, I've no fears on that score.
Your parts, Mr. Inkel, are----
_Ink_. Never mind _mine_;
Stick to those of your play, which is quite your own line.
_Lady Bluem_. You're a fugitive writer, I think, sir, of rhymes?[627]
_Ink_. Yes, ma'am; and a fugitive reader sometimes.
On Wordswords, for instance, I seldom alight,
Or on Mouthey, his friend, without taking to flight.
_Lady Bluem_. Sir, your taste is too common; but time and posterity
Will right these great men, and this age's severity 100
Become its reproach.
_Ink_. I've no sort of objection,
So I'm not of the party to take the infection.
_Lady Blueb_. Perhaps you have doubts that they ever will _take_?
_Ink_. Not at all; on the contrary, those of the lake
Have taken already, and still will continue
To take--what they can, from a groat to a guinea,
Of pension or place;--but the subject's a bore.
_Lady Bluem_. Well, sir, the time's coming.
_Ink_. Scamp! don't you feel sore?
What say you to this?
_Scamp_. They have merit, I own;
Though their system's absurdity keeps it unknown, 110
_Ink_. Then why not unearth it in one of your lectures?
_Scamp_. It is only time past which comes under my strictures.
_Lady Blueb_. Come, a truce with all tartness;--the joy of my heart
Is to see Nature's triumph o'er all that is art.
Wild Nature!--Grand Shakespeare!
_Both_. And down Aristotle!
_Lady Bluem_. Sir George[628] thinks exactly with Lady Bluebottle:
And my Lord Seventy-four,[629] who protects our dear Bard,
And who gave him his place, has the greatest regard
For the poet, who, singing of pedlers and asses,
Has found out the way to dispense with Parnassus. 120
_Tra_. And you, Scamp!--
_Scamp_. I needs must confess I'm embarrassed.
_Ink_. Don't call upon Scamp, who's already so harassed
With old _schools_, and new _schools_,
and no _schools_, and all _schools_[630].
_Tra_. Well, one thing is certain, that _some_ must be fools.
I should like to know who.
_Ink_. And I should not be sorry
To know who are _not_:--it would save us some worry.
_Lady Blueb_. A truce with remark, and let nothing control
This "feast of our reason, and flow of the soul."
Oh! my dear Mr. Botherby! sympathise!--I
Now feel such a rapture, I'm ready to fly, 130
I feel so elastic--"_so buoyant--so buoyant!_"[631]
_Ink_. Tracy! open the window.
_Tra_. I wish her much joy on't.
_Both_. For God's sake, my Lady Bluebottle, check not
This gentle emotion, so seldom our lot
Upon earth. Give it way: 'tis an impulse which lifts
Our spirits from earth--the sublimest of gifts;
For which poor Prometheus was chained to his mountain:
'Tis the source of all sentiment--feeling's true fountain;
'Tis the Vision of Heaven upon Earth: 'tis the gas
Of the soul: 'tis the seizing of shades as they pass, 140
And making them substance: 'tis something divine:--
_Ink_. Shall I help you, my friend, to a little more wine?
_Both_. I thank you: not any more, sir, till I dine.[632]
_Ink_. Apropos--Do you dine with Sir Humphry to day?
_Tra_. I should think with _Duke_ Humphry[633] was more in your way.
_Ink_. It might be of yore; but we authors now look
To the Knight, as a landlord, much more than the Duke.
The truth is, each writer now quite at his ease is,
And (except with his publisher) dines where he pleases.
But 'tis now nearly five, and I must to the Park. 150
_Tra_. And I'll take a turn with you there till 'tis dark.
And you, Scamp--
_Scamp_. Excuse me! I must to my notes,
For my lecture next week.
_Ink_. He must mind whom he quotes
Out of "Elegant Extracts."
_Lady Blueb_. Well, now we break up;
But remember Miss Diddle[634] invites us to sup.
_Ink_. Then at two hours past midnight we all meet again,
For the sciences, sandwiches, hock, and champagne!
_Tra_. And the sweet lobster salad![635]
_Both_. I honour that meal;
For 'tis then that our feelings most genuinely--feel.
_Ink_. True; feeling is truest _then_, far beyond question:
I wish to the gods 'twas the same with digestion! 161
_Lady Blueb_. Pshaw!--never mind that; for one moment of feeling
Is worth--God knows what.
_Ink_. 'Tis at least worth concealing
For itself, or what follows--But here comes your carriage.
_Sir Rich_. (_aside_).
I wish all these people were d----d with _my_ marriage!
[_Exeunt._
FOOTNOTES:
[609] {573}[Benjamin Stillingfleet is said to have attended evening
parties at Mrs. Montague's in grey or blue worsted stockings, in lieu of
full dress. The ladies who excused and tolerated this defiance of the
conventions were nicknamed "blues," or "blue-stockings." Hannah More
describes such a club or coterie in her _Bas Bleu_, which was circulated
in MS. in 1784 (Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, 1848, p. 689). A farce by
Moore, entitled _The M. P., or The Blue-Stocking_, was played for the
first time at the Lyceum, September 30, 1811. The heroine, "Lady Bab
Blue, is a pretender to poetry, chemistry, etc."--Genest's _Hist. of the
Stage_, 1832, viii. 270.]
[610] {574}[Compare the dialogue between Mr. Paperstamp, Mr.
Feathernest, Mr. Vamp, etc., in Peacock's _Melincourt_, cap. xxxii.,
_Works_, 1875, i. 272.]
[611] [Compare--
"The last edition see by Long. and Co.,
Rees, Hurst, and Orme, our fathers of the Row."
_The Search after Happiness_, by Sir Walter Scott.]
[612] [This phrase is said to have been first used in the _Edinburgh
Review_--probably by Jeffrey. (See review of _Rogers's Human Life_,
1818, _Edin. Rev._, vol. 31, p. 325.)]
[613] {575}[It is possible that the description of Hazlitt's Lectures of
1818 is coloured by recollections of Coleridge's Lectures of 1811-1812,
which Byron attended (see letter to Harness, December 6, 1811,
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 76, note 1); but the substance of the attack is
probably derived from Gifford's review of _Lectures on the English
Poets, delivered at the Surrey Institution_ (_Quarterly Review_,
December, 1818, vol. xix. pp. 424-434.)]
[614] {576}["Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella.... She is
... very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress.... She is a
poetess--a mathematician--a metaphysician."--_Journal_, November 30,
1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 357]
[615] {578}[The term "renegade" was applied to Southey by William Smith,
M.P., in the House of Commons, March 14, 1817 (_vide ante_, p. 482).
Sotheby's plays, _Ivan_, _The Death of Darnley_, _Zamorin and Zama_,
were published under the title of _Five Tragedies_, in 1814.]
[616] [Compare--
"I've bribed my Grandmother's Review the British."
_Don Juan_, Canto I. stanza ccix. line 9.
And see "Letter to the Editor of 'My Grandmother's Review,'" _Letters_,
1900, iv. Appendix VII. pp. 465-470. The reference may be to a review of
the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, which appeared in the _British
Review_, January, 1818, or to a more recent and, naturally, most hostile
notice of _Don Juan_ (No. xviii. 1819).]
[617] [_The Journal de Trévoux_, published under the title of _Mémoires
de Trévoux_ (1701-1775, 265 vols. 12º), edited by members of the Society
of Jesus, was an imitation of the _Journal des Savants_. The original
matter, the Mémoires, contain a mine of information for the student of
the history of French Literature; but the reviews, critical notices,
etc., to which Byron refers, were of a highly polemical and partisan
character, and were the subject of attack on the part of Protestant and
free-thinking antagonists. In a letter to Moore, dated Ravenna, June 22,
1821, Byron says, "Now, if we were but together a little to combine our
_Journal of Trevoux_!" (_Letters_, 1901, v. 309). The use of the same
illustration in letter and poem is curious and noteworthy.]
[618] {579}[The publication of the _British Review_ was discontinued in
1825.]
[619] [For "Botherby," _vide ante_, _Beppo_, stanza lxxii. line 7, p.
182, note 1; and with the "ex-cathedrâ tone" compare "that awful note of
woe," _Vision of Judgment_, stanza xc. line 4, _ante_, p. 518.]
[620] {580}["Sotheby is a good man, rhymes well (if not wisely), but is
a bore. He seizes you by the button. One night of a rout at Mrs. Hope's,
he had fastened upon me (something about Agamemnon, or Orestes, or some
of his plays), notwithstanding my symptoms of manifest distress (for I
was in love, and just nicked a minute, when neither mothers, nor
husbands, nor rivals, nor gossips, were near my then idol, who was
beautiful as the Statues of the Gallery where we stood at the
time)--Sotheby I say had seized upon me by the button and the
heart-strings, and spared neither. William Spencer, who likes fun, and
don't dislike mischief, saw my case, and coming up to us both, took me
by the hand, and pathetically bade me farewell; 'for,' said he, 'I see
it is all over with you.' Sotheby then went way. '_Sic me servavit
Apollo_.'"--_Detached Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 433.]
[621] [For Byron's misapprehension concerning "kibes," see _Childe
Harold_, Canto I. stanza lxvii. line 5, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 64,
note 3.]
[622] ["Where can the animals who write this trash have been bred, to
fancy that ladies drink bumpers of Madeira at luncheon?"--_Literary
Register_, May 3, 1823.]
[623] {582}[Wordsworth's _Resolution and Independence_, originally
entitled _The Leech-gatherer_, was written in 1802, and published in
1807.]
[624] [Wordsworth was appointed Distributor of Stamps for the County of
Westmoreland, in March, 1813. Lord Lonsdale and Sir George Beaumont were
"suretys for the due execution of the trust."--_Life of William
Wordsworth_, by William Knight, 1889, ii. 210.]
[625] Grange is or was a famous pastry-cook and fruiterer in Piccadilly.
["Grange's" (James Grange, confectioner, No. 178, Piccadilly, see Kent's
London Directory of 1820), moved farther west some fifteen years ago.]
[626] {584}["When I belonged to the Drury Lane Committee ... the number
of plays upon the shelves were about _five_ hundred.... Mr. Sotheby
obligingly offered us all his tragedies, and I pledged myself; and,
notwithstanding many squabbles with my Committe[e]d 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."--_Detached
Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 442.]
[627] [_Fugitive Pieces_ is the title of the suppressed quarto edition
of Byron's juvenile poems.]
[628] {585}[Sir George Beaumont, Bart., of Coleorton, Leicestershire
(1753-1827), landscape-painter, art critic, and picture-collector, one
of the founders of the National Gallery, married, in 1778, Margaret
Willis, granddaughter of Chief Justice Willis. She corresponded with
Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, and with Coleridge (see _Memorials of
Coleorton_, 1888). Coleridge visited the Beaumonts for the first time at
Dunmore, in 1804. "I was not received here," he tells Wordsworth, "with
mere kindness; I was welcomed _almost_ as you welcomed me when first I
visited you at Racedown" (_Letters of S. T. Coleridge_, 1895, ii. 459).
Scott (_Memoirs of the life, etc._, 1838, ii, II) describes Sir George
Beaumont as "by far the most sensible and pleasing man I ever knew,
kind, too, in his nature, and generous and gentle in society.... He was
the great friend of Wordsworth, and understood his poetry."]
[629] [It was not Wordsworth's patron, William Lord Lonsdale, but his
kinsman James, the first earl, who, towards the close of the American
war, offered to build and man a ship of seventy-four guns.]
[630] {586}[For this harping on "schools" of poetry, see Hazlitt's
Lectures "On the Living Poets" _Lectures on the English Poets_ (No.
viii.), 1818, p. 318.]
[631] Fact from life, with the _words_.
[632] [Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), President of the Royal Society,
received the honour of knighthood April 8, 1812. He was created a
baronet January 18, 1819.]
[633] {587}[Compare "We have been for many years at a great distance
from each other; we are now separated. You have combined arsenic with
your gold, Sir Humphry! You are brittle, and I will rather dine with
Duke Humphry than with you."--_Anima Poetæ_, by S. T. Coleridge, 1895,
p. 218.]
[634] ["Lydia White," writes Lady Morgan (_Memoirs_, 1862, ii. 236),
"was a personage of much social celebrity in her day. She was an Irish
lady of large fortune and considerable talent, noted for her hospitality
and dinners in all the capitals of Europe." She is mentioned by Moore
(_Memoirs_, 1853, in. 21), Miss Berry (_Journal_, 1866, ii. 484),
Ticknor (_Life, Letters, and Journal_, 1876, i. 176), etc., etc.
Byron saw her for the last time in Venice, when she borrowed a copy of
_Lalla Rookh_ (Letter to Moore, June 1, 1818, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 237).
Sir Walter Scott, who knew her well, records her death: "January 28,
[1827]. Heard of Miss White's death--she _was_ a woman of wit, and had a
feeling and kind heart. Poor Lydia! I saw the Duke of York and her in
London, when Death, it seems, was brandishing his dart over them.
'The view o't gave them little fright.'"
(_Memoirs of the Life, etc._, 1838, iv. 110.)]
[635] [Moore, following the example of Pope, who thought his "delicious
lobster-nights" worth commemorating, gives details of a supper at
Watier's, May 19, 1814, at which Kean was present, when Byron "confined
himself to lobsters, and of these finished two or three, to his own
share," etc.--an Ambrosian night, indeed!--_Life_, p. 254.]
END OF VOL. IV.