"Ravenna, May 3. 1821.
"Though I wrote to you on the 28th ultimo, I must acknowledge yours
of this day, with the lines[35]. They are sublime, as well as
beautiful, and in your very best mood and manner. They are also but
too true. However, do not confound the scoundrels at the _heel_ of
the boot with their betters at the top of it. I assure you that
there are some loftier spirits.
"Nothing, however, can be better than your poem, or more deserved
by the Lazzaroni. They are now abhorred and disclaimed nowhere more
than here. We will talk over these things (if we meet) some day,
and I will recount my own adventures, some of which have been a
little hazardous, perhaps.
"So, you have got the Letter on Bowles[36]? I do not recollect to
have said any thing of _you_ that could offend,--certainly, nothing
intentionally. As for * *, I meant him a compliment. I wrote the
whole off-hand, without copy or correction, and expecting then
every day to be called into the field. What have I said of you? I
am sure I forget. It must be something of regret for your
approbation of Bowles. And did you _not_ approve, as he says? Would
I had known that before! I would have given him some more
gruel.[37] My intention was to make fun of all these fellows; but
how I succeeded, I don't know.
"As to Pope, I have always regarded him as the greatest name in our
poetry. Depend upon it, the rest are barbarians. He is a Greek
Temple, with a Gothic Cathedral on one hand, and a Turkish Mosque
and all sorts of fantastic pagodas and conventicles about him. You
may call Shakspeare and Milton pyramids, if you please, but I
prefer the Temple of Theseus or the Parthenon to a mountain of
burnt brick-work.
"The Murray has written to me but once, the day of its publication,
when it seemed prosperous. But I have heard of late from England
but rarely. Of Murray's other publications (of mine), I know
nothing,--nor whether he has published. He was to have done so a
month ago. I wish you would do something,--or that we were
together.
"Ever yours and affectionately,
"B."
[Footnote 35: "Aye, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are," &c.
&c.]
[Footnote 36: I had not, when I wrote, _seen_ this pamphlet, as he
supposes, but had merely heard from some friends, that his pen had "run
a-muck" in it, and that I myself had not escaped a slight graze in its
career.]
[Footnote 37: It may be sufficient to say of the use to which both Lord
Byron and Mr. Bowles thought it worth their while to apply my name in
this controversy, that, as far as my own knowledge of the subject
extended, I was disposed to agree with _neither_ of the extreme opinions
into which, as it appeared to me, my distinguished friends had
diverged;--neither with Lord Byron in that spirit of partisanship which
led him to place Pope _above_ Shakspeare and Milton, nor with Mr. Bowles
in such an application of the "principles" of poetry as could tend to
sink Pope, on the scale of his art, to any rank below the very first.
Such being the middle state of my opinion on the question, it will not
be difficult to understand how one of my controversial friends should be
as mistaken in supposing me to differ altogether from his views, as the
other was in taking for granted that I had ranged myself wholly on his
side.]
* * * * *
It was at this time that he began, under the title of "Detached
Thoughts," that Book of Notices or Memorandums, from which, in the
course of these pages, I have extracted so many curious illustrations of
his life and opinions, and of which the opening article is as follows:--
"Amongst various Journals, Memoranda, Diaries, &c. which I have kept in
the course of my living, I began one about three months ago, and carried
it on till I had filled one paper-book (thinnish), and two sheets or so
of another. I then left off, partly because I thought we should have
some business here, and I had furbished up my arms and got my apparatus
ready for taking a turn with the patriots, having my drawers full of
their proclamations, oaths, and resolutions, and my lower rooms of their
hidden weapons, of most calibres,--and partly because I had filled my
paper-book.
"But the Neapolitans have betrayed themselves and all the world; and
those who would have given their blood for Italy can now only give her
their tears.
"Some day or other, if dust holds together, I have been enough in the
secret (at least in this part of the country) to cast perhaps some
little light upon the atrocious treachery which has replunged Italy
into barbarism: at present, I have neither the time nor the temper.
However the _real_ Italians are not to blame; merely the scoundrels at
the _heel of the boot_, which the _Hun_ now wears, and will trample them
to ashes with for their servility. I have risked myself with the others
_here_, and how far I may or may not be compromised is a problem at this
moment. Some of them, like Craigengelt, would 'tell all, and more than
all, to save themselves.' But, come what may, the cause was a glorious
one, though it reads at present as if the Greeks had run away from
Xerxes. Happy the few who have only to reproach themselves with
believing that these rascals were less 'rascaille' than they
proved!--_Here_ in Romagna, the efforts were necessarily limited to
preparations and good intentions, until the Germans were fairly engaged
in _equal_ warfare--as we are upon their very frontiers, without a
single fort or hill nearer than San Marino. Whether 'hell will be paved
with' those 'good intentions,' I know not; but there will probably be
good store of Neapolitans to walk upon the pavement, whatever may be its
composition. Slabs of lava from their mountain, with the bodies of their
own damned souls for cement, would be the fittest causeway for Satan's
'Corso.'"
* * * * *