"July 14. 1821.
"I trust that Sardanapalus will not be mistaken for a _political_
play, which was so far from my intention, that I thought of nothing
but Asiatic history. The Venetian play, too, is rigidly historical.
My object has been to dramatise, like the Greeks (a _modest_
phrase), striking passages of history, as they did of history and
mythology. You will find all this very _un_like Shakspeare; and so
much the better in one sense, for I look upon him to be the _worst_
of models[40], though the most extraordinary of writers. It has
been my object to be as simple and severe as Alfieri, and I have
broken down the _poetry_ as nearly as I could to common language.
The hardship is, that in these times one can neither speak of kings
nor queens without suspicion of politics or personalities. I
intended neither.
"I am not very well, and I write in the midst of unpleasant scenes
here: they have, without trial or process, banished several of the
first inhabitants of the cities--here and all around the Roman
states--amongst them many of my personal friends, so that every
thing is in confusion and grief: it is a kind of thing which cannot
be described without an equal pain as in beholding it.
"You are very niggardly in your letters.
"Yours truly,
"B."
[Footnote 40: In venturing this judgment upon Shakspeare, Lord Byron but
followed in the footsteps of his great idol Pope. "It was mighty simple
in Rowe," says this poet, "to write a play now professedly in
Shakspeare's style, that is, professedly in the style of a bad
age."--Spence, sect. 4. 1734-36. Of Milton, too, Pope seems to have held
pretty nearly the same opinion as that professed by Lord Byron in some
of these letters. See, in Spence, sect. 5 1737-39, a passage on which
his editor remarks--"Perhaps Pope did not relish Shakspeare more than he
seems to have done Milton."]
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