'March 11th and 12th',
Athens. 1811.
['MS. L. (a)'.]
BYRON, 'March 14th, 1811.'
Athens, Capuchin Convent.
['MS. L. (b)'.]]
[Footnote 1: Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) succeeded West as P.R.A. in
1820. Benjamin West (1738-1820) had been elected P.R.A. in 1792, on the
death of Sir Joshua Reynolds.]
[Footnote 2: In an English newspaper, which finds its way abroad
wherever there are Englishmen, I read an account of this dirty dauber's
caricature of Mr. H---as a "beast," and the consequent action, etc. The
circumstance is, probably, too well known to require further comment.
[Thomas Hope (1770-1831) was celebrated for his collections of pictures,
sculpture, and _bric-à-brac_. He was the author of _Anastasius, or
Memoirs of a Greek, etc_., which was attributed to Byron, and, according
to Lady Blessington, excited his envy. "Low Dubost" was a French
painter, who, in revenge for some fancied injustice, caricatured Hope
and his wife as Beauty and the Beast. An exhibition of the sketch is
said to have brought in from twenty to thirty pounds a week. A brother
of Mrs. Hope (Louisa Beresford, daughter of Lord Decies, Archbishop of
Tuam) mutilated the picture, and, an action having been brought, was
ordered to pay a nominal sum of five pounds. Dubost's academy portrait
of Mrs. Hope did not please Peter Pindar.
"In Mistress Hope, Monsieur Dubost!
Thy Genius yieldeth up the Ghost."
_Works_ (1812), v. 372.]]
[Footnote 3:
"While pure Description held the place of Sense."--
Pope, _Prol. to the Sat.,_ L. 148.
"While Mr. Sol decked out all so glorious
Shines like a Beau in his Birthday Embroidery."
[Fielding, _Tom Thumb_, act i. sc. I.]--[_MS. M._]
"_Fas est et ab Hoste doceri._" In the 7th Art. of the 31st No. of the
_Edinburgh Review_ (vol. xvi. Ap. 1810) the "Observations" of an Oxford
Tutor are compared to "Children's Cradles" (page 181), then to a
"Barndoor fowl flying" (page 182), then the man himself to "a
Coach-horse on the Trottoir" (page 185) etc., etc., with a variety of
other conundrums all tending to prove that the ingenuity of comparison
increases in proportion to the dissimilarity between the things
compared.--[_MS. L. (b) erased._]]
[Footnote 4: Mere common mortals were commonly content with one Taylor
and with one bill, but the more particular gentlemen found it impossible
to confide their lower garments to the makers of their body clothes. I
speak of the beginning of 1809: what reform may have since taken place I
neither know, nor desire to know.--[_MSS. L. (b), M_.]]
[Footnote 5: Mr. Pitt was liberal in his additions to our Parliamentary
tongue; as may be seen in many publications, particularly the 'Edinburgh
Review'.
[The reference may be to financial terms, such as sinking fund (a phrase
not introduced by Pitt), the English equivalent of 'caisse
d'amortissement', or income tax ('impôt sur le revenu'), or to actual
French words such as 'chouannerie, projet', etc. But Pitt's "additions"
are unnoticed by Frere and other reporters and critics of his speeches.
For a satirical description of Pitt's words, "which are finer and longer
than can be conceived," see 'Rolliad', 1799; 'Political Miscellanies',
p. 421; and 'Political Eclogues', p. 195.
"And Billy best of all things loves--a trope."
Compare, too, Peter Pindar, "To Sylvanus Urban," 'Works' (1812), ii. 259.
"Lycurgus Pitt whose penetrating eyes
Behold the fount of Freedom in excise,
Whose 'patriot' logic possibly maintains
The 'identity' of 'liberty' and 'chains'."]]
[Footnote 6: Old ballads, old plays, and old women's stories, are at
present in as much request as old wine or new speeches. In fact, this is
the millennium of black letter: thanks to our Hebers, Webers, and
Scotts!
[Richard Heber (1773-1833), book-collector and man of letters, was
half-brother of the Bishop of Calcutta. He edited, 'inter alia',
'Specimens of the Early English Poets', by George Ellis, 3 vols., London:
1811.
W. H. Weber (1783-1818), a German by birth, was employed by Sir Walter
Scott as an amanuensis and "searcher." He edited, in 1810, 'Metrical
Romances of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Centuries', a work described by
Southey ('Letters', ii. 308) as "admirably edited, exceedingly curious,
and after my own heart." He also published editions of Ford, and
Beaumont and Fletcher, which were adversely criticized by Gifford. For
an account of his relations to Scott and of his melancholy end, see
Lockhart's 'Life of Scott' (1871), p. 251.]]
[Footnote 7: 'Mac Flecknoe', the 'Dunciad', and all Swift's lampooning
ballads. Whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal
feelings, and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of
these satires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the
personal character of the writers.]
[Footnote 8: 'Almanzor: or the Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards', a
Tragedy by John Dryden. The bombastic character of the hero was severely
criticized in Dryden's own time, and was defended by him thus:
"'Tis said that Almanzor is no perfect pattern of heroic virtue, that
he is a contemner of kings, and that he is made to perform
impossibilities. I must therefore avow, in the first place, from
whence I took the character. The first image I had of him was from the
Achilles of Homer: the next from Tasso's Rinaldo, and the third from
the Artaban of Mons. Calprenède.... He talks extravagantly in his
passion, but if I would take the trouble to quote from Ben Jonson's
Cethegus, I could easily show you that the rhodomontades of Almanzor
are neither so irrational as his nor so impossible to be put in
execution."
'An Essay on Heroic Plays. Works of John Dryden' (1821), iv. 23-25.]
[Footnote 9: With all the vulgar applause and critical abhorrence of
puns, they have Aristotle on their side; who permits them to orators,
and gives them consequence by a grave disquisition.
["Cicero also," says Addison, "has sprinkled several of his works with
them; and in his book on Oratory, quotes abundance of sayings as pieces
of wit, which, upon examination, prove arrant puns."--'Essay on Wit,
Works' (1888), ii. 354.]]
[Footnote 10: In Vanbrugh and Gibber's comedy of The Provoked Husband,
first played at Drury Lane, January 10, 1728.]]
[Footnote 11:
"And in his ear I'll holla--Mortimer!"
['I Henry IV'., act i. sc. 3.]]
[Footnote 12: Garrick's 'Lying Valet' was played for the first time at
Goodman's Fields, November 30, 1741.]
["Peregrine" is a character in George Colman's 'John Bull', or 'An
Englishman's Fire-Side', Covent Garden. March 5, 1803.] ]
[Footnote 13: I have Johnson's authority for making Lear a
monosyllable--
"Perhaps where Lear rav'd or Hamlet died
On flying cars new sorcerers may ride."
["Perhaps where Lear has rav'd, and Hamlet dy'd."
Prologue to 'Irene. Johnson's Works' (1806), i. 168.]
and (if it need be mentioned) the 'authority' of the epigram on Barry
and Garrick.--[Note 'erased, Proof b, British Museum'.]]
[Footnote 14:
"'Johnson'. Pray, Mr. Bayes, who is that Drawcansir?
'Bayes'. Why, Sir, a great [fierce] hero, that frights his mistress,
snubs up kings, baffles armies, and does what he will, without regard
to numbers, good sense, or justice [good manners, justice, or
numbers]."
'The Rehearsal', act iv. sc. I.
'The Rehearsal', by George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham
(1627-1688), appeared in 1671. Sprat and others are said to have shared
the authorship. So popular was the play that "Drawcansir" passed into a
synonime for a braggadocio. It is believed that "Bayes" (that is, of
course, "laureate") was meant for a caricature of Dryden: "he himself
complains bitterly that it was so." (See 'Lives of the Poets' (1890), i.
386; and Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (1876), p. 235, and 'note'.)]]
[Footnote 15:
"Difficile est proprie communia dicere; tuque
Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,
Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus."