"8. St. James's Street, March 18. 1809.
"There was no necessity for your excuses: if you have time and
inclination to write, 'for what we receive, the Lord make us
thankful,'--if I do not hear from you I console myself with the idea
that you are much more agreeably employed.
"I send down to you by this post a certain Satire lately published,
and in return for the three and sixpence expenditure upon it, only beg
that if you should guess the author, you will keep his name secret; at
least for the present. London is full of the Duke's business. The
Commons have been at it these last three nights, and are not yet come
to a decision. I do not know if the affair will be brought before our
House, unless in the shape of an impeachment. If it makes its
appearance in a debatable form, I believe I shall be tempted to say
something on the subject.--I am glad to hear you like Cambridge:
firstly, because, to know that you are happy is pleasant to one who
wishes you all possible sub-lunary enjoyment; and, secondly, I admire
the morality of the sentiment. _Alma Mater_ was to me _injusta
noverca_; and the old beldam only gave me my M.A. degree because she
could not avoid it.--[102]You know what a farce a noble Cantab. must
perform.
"I am going abroad, if possible, in the spring, and before I depart I
am collecting the pictures of my most intimate schoolfellows; I have
already a few, and shall want yours, or my cabinet will be incomplete.
I have employed one of the first miniature painters of the day to take
them, of course, at my own expense, as I never allow my acquaintance
to incur the least expenditure to gratify a whim of mine. To mention
this may seem indelicate; but when I tell you a friend of ours first
refused to sit, under the idea that he was to disburse on the
occasion, you will see that it is necessary to state these
preliminaries to prevent the recurrence of any similar mistake. I
shall see you in time, and will carry you to the _limner_. It will be
a tax on your patience for a week, but pray excuse it, as it is
possible the resemblance may be the sole trace I shall be able to
preserve of our past friendship and acquaintance. Just now it seems
foolish enough, but in a few years, when some of us are dead, and
others are separated by inevitable circumstances, it will be a kind of
satisfaction to retain in these images of the living the idea of our
former selves, and to contemplate, in the resemblances of the dead,
all that remains of judgment, feeling, and a host of passions. But
all this will be dull enough for you, and so good night, and to end my
chapter, or rather my homily, believe me, my dear H.,
yours most affectionately."
In this romantic design of collecting together the portraits of his
school friends, we see the natural working of an ardent and
disappointed heart, which, as the future began to darken upon it,
clung with fondness to the recollections of the past; and, in despair
of finding new and true friends, saw no happiness but in preserving
all it could of the old. But even here, his sensibility had to
encounter one of those freezing checks, to which feelings, so much
above the ordinary temperature of the world, are but too constantly
exposed;--it being from one of the very friends thus fondly valued by
him, that he experienced, on leaving England, that mark of neglect of
which he so indignantly complains in a note on the second Canto of
Childe Harold,--contrasting with this conduct the fidelity and
devotedness he had just found in his Turkish servant, Dervish. Mr.
Dallas, who witnessed the immediate effect of this slight upon him,
thus describes his emotion:--
"I found him bursting with indignation. 'Will you believe it?' said
he, 'I have just met ----, and asked him to come and sit an hour with
me: he excused himself; and what do you think was his excuse? He was
engaged with his mother and some ladies to go shopping! And he knows I
set out to-morrow, to be absent for years, perhaps never to
return!--Friendship! I do not believe I shall leave behind me,
yourself and family excepted, and perhaps my mother, a single being
who will care what becomes of me.'"
From his expressions in a letter to Mrs. Byron, already cited, that he
must "do something in the House soon," as well as from a more definite
intimation of the same intention to Mr. Harness, it would appear that
he had, at this time, serious thoughts of at once entering on the high
political path which his station as an hereditary legislator opened to
him. But, whatever may have been the first movements of his ambition
in this direction, they were soon relinquished. Had he been connected
with any distinguished political families, his love of eminence,
seconded by such example and sympathy, would have impelled him, no
doubt, to seek renown in the fields of party warfare where it might
have been his fate to afford a signal instance of that transmuting
process by which, as Pope says, the corruption of a poet sometimes
leads to the generation of a statesman. Luckily, however, for the
world (though whether luckily for himself may be questioned), the
brighter empire of poesy was destined to claim him all its own. The
loneliness, indeed, of his position in society at this period, left
destitute, as he was, of all those sanctions and sympathies, by which
youth at its first start is usually surrounded, was, of itself, enough
to discourage him from embarking in a pursuit, where it is chiefly on
such extrinsic advantages that any chance of success must depend. So
far from taking an active part in the proceedings of his noble
brethren, he appears to have regarded even the ceremony of his
attendance among them as irksome and mortifying; and in a few days
after his admission to his seat, he withdrew himself in disgust to the
seclusion of his own Abbey, there to brood over the bitterness of
premature experience, or meditate, in the scenes and adventures of
other lands, a freer outlet for his impatient spirit than it could
command at home.
It was not long, however, before he was summoned back to town by the
success of his Satire,--the quick sale of which already rendered the
preparation of a new edition necessary. His zealous agent, Mr. Dallas,
had taken care to transmit to him, in his retirement, all the
favourable opinions of the work he could collect; and it is not
unamusing, as showing the sort of steps by which Fame at first mounts,
to find the approbation of such authorities as Pratt and the magazine
writers put forward among the first rewards and encouragements of a
Byron.
"You are already (he says) pretty generally known to be the author. So
Cawthorn tells me, and a proof occurred to myself at Hatchard's, the
Queen's bookseller. On enquiring for the Satire, he told me that he
had sold a great many, and had none left, and was going to send for
more, which I afterwards found he did. I asked who was the author? He
said it was believed to be Lord Byron's. Did _he_ believe it? Yes he
did. On asking the ground of his belief, he told me that a lady of
distinction had, without hesitation, asked for it as Lord Byron's
Satire. He likewise informed me that he had enquired of Mr. Gifford,
who frequents his shop, if it was yours. Mr. Gifford denied any
knowledge of the author, but spoke very highly of it, and said a copy
had been sent to him. Hatchard assured me that all who came to his
reading-room admired it. Cawthorn tells me it is universally well
spoken of, not only among his own customers, but generally at all the
booksellers. I heard it highly praised at my own publisher's, where I
have lately called several times. At Phillips's it was read aloud by
Pratt to a circle of literary guests, who were unanimous in their
applause:--The _Anti-jacobin_, as well as the _Gentleman's Magazine_,
has already blown the trump of fame for you. We shall see it in the
other Reviews next month, and probably in some severely handled,
according to the connection of the proprietors and editors with those
whom it lashes."
On his arrival in London, towards the end of April, he found the first
edition of his poem nearly exhausted; and set immediately about
preparing another, to which he determined to prefix his name. The
additions he now made to the work were considerable,--near a hundred
new lines being introduced at the very opening[103],--and it was not
till about the middle of the ensuing month that the new edition was
ready to go to press. He had, during his absence from town, fixed
definitely with his friend, Mr. Hobhouse, that they should leave
England together on the following June, and it was his wish to see the
last proofs of the volume corrected before his departure.
Among the new features of this edition was a Post-script to the
Satire, in prose, which Mr. Dallas, much to the credit of his
discretion and taste, most earnestly entreated the poet to suppress.
It is to be regretted that the adviser did not succeed in his efforts,
as there runs a tone of bravado through this ill-judged effusion,
which it is, at all times, painful to see a brave man assume. For
instance:--"It may be said," he observes, "that I quit England because
I have censured these 'persons of honour and wit about town;' but I am
coming back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my return.
Those who know me can testify that my motives for leaving England are
very different from fears, literary or personal; those who do not may
be one day convinced. Since the publication of this thing, my name has
not been concealed; I have been mostly in London, ready to answer for
my transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry cartels; but,
alas, 'the age of chivalry is over,' or, in the vulgar tongue, there
is no spirit now-a-days."
But, whatever may have been the faults or indiscretions of this
Satire, there are few who would now sit in judgment upon it so
severely as did the author himself, on reading it over nine years
after, when he had quitted England, never to return. The copy which he
then perused is now in possession of Mr. Murray, and the remarks which
he has scribbled over its pages are well worth transcribing. On the
first leaf we find--
"The binding of this volume is considerably too valuable for its
contents.
"Nothing but the consideration of its being the property of another
prevents me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced anger
and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames.