LORD BYRON: (continued 5)

"Any novels of Scott, or poetry of the same. Ditto of Crabbe, Moore, and the Elect; but none of your curst common-place trash,—unless something starts up of actual merit, which may very well be, for 'tis time it should."

LETTER 463. TO MR. MURRAY.

"October 20. 1821.

"If the errors are in the MS. write me down an ass: they are not, and I am content to undergo any penalty if they be. Besides, the omitted stanza (last but one or two), sent afterwards, was that in the MS. too?

"As to 'honour,' I will trust no man's honour in affairs of barter. I will tell you why: a state of bargain is Hobbes's 'state of nature—a state of war.' It is so with all men. If I come to a friend, and say, 'Friend, lend me five hundred pounds,'—he either does it, or says that he can't or won't; but if I come to Ditto, and say, 'Ditto, I have an excellent house, or horse, or carriage, or MSS., or books, or pictures, or, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. honestly worth a thousand pounds, you shall have them for five hundred,' what does Ditto say? why, he looks at them, he hums, he ha's,—he humbugs, if he can, to get a bargain as cheaply as he can, because it is a bargain. This is in the blood and bone of mankind; and the same man who would lend another a thousand pounds without interest, would not buy a horse of him for half its value if he could help it. It is so: there's no denying it; and therefore I will have as much as I can, and you will give as little; and there's an end. All men are intrinsical rascals, and I am only sorry that, not being a dog, I can't bite them.

"I am filling another book for you with little anecdotes, to my own knowledge, or well authenticated, of Sheridan, Curran, &c. and such other public men as I recollect to have been acquainted with, for I knew most of them more or less. I will do what I can to prevent your losing by my obsequies.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 464. TO MR. ROGERS.

"Ravenna, October 21. 1821.

"I shall be (the gods willing) in Bologna on Saturday next. This is a curious answer to your letter; but I have taken a house in Pisa for the winter, to which all my chattels, furniture, horses, carriages, and live stock are already removed, and I am preparing to follow.

"The cause of this removal is, shortly, the exile or proscription of all my friends' relations and connections here into Tuscany, on account of our late politics; and where they go, I accompany them. I merely remained till now to settle some arrangements about my daughter, and to give time for my furniture, &c. to precede me. I have not here a seat or a bed hardly, except some jury chairs, and tables, and a mattress for the week to come.

"If you will go on with me to Pisa, I can lodge you for as long as you like; (they write that the house, the Palazzo Lanfranchi, is spacious: it is on the Arno;) and I have four carriages, and as many saddle-horses (such as they are in these parts), with all other conveniences, at your command, as also their owner. If you could do this, we may, at least, cross the Apennines together; or if you are going by another road, we shall meet at Bologna, I hope. I address this to the post-office (as you desire), and you will probably find me at the Albergo di San Marco. If you arrive first, wait till I come up, which will be (barring accidents) on Saturday or Sunday at farthest.

"I presume you are alone in your voyages. Moore is in London incog. according to my latest advices from those climes.

"It is better than a lustre (five years and six months and some days, more or less) since we met; and, like the man from Tadcaster in the farce ('Love laughs at Locksmiths'), whose acquaintances, including the cat and the terrier, who 'caught a halfpenny in his mouth,' were all 'gone dead,' but too many of our acquaintances have taken the same path. Lady Melbourne, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, &c. &c. almost every body of much name of the old school. But 'so am not I, said the foolish fat scullion,' therefore let us make the most of our remainder.

"Let me find two lines from you at 'the hostel or inn.'

"Yours ever, &c.

"B."

LETTER 465. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, Oct. 28. 1821.

"''Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,' and in three hours more I have to set out on my way to Pisa—sitting up all night to be sure of rising. I have just made them take off my bed-clothes—blankets inclusive—in case of temptation from the apparel of sheets to my eyelids.

"Samuel Rogers is—or is to be—at Bologna, as he writes from Venice.

"I thought our Magnifico would 'pound you,' if possible. He is trying to 'pound' me, too; but I'll specie the rogue—or, at least, I'll have the odd shillings out of him in keen iambics.

"Your approbation of 'Sardanapalus' is agreeable, for more reasons than one. Hobhouse is pleased to think as you do of it, and so do some others—but the 'Arimaspian,' whom, like 'a Gryphon in the wilderness,' I will 'follow for his gold' (as I exhorted you to do before), did or doth disparage it—'stinting me in my sizings.' His notable opinions on the 'Foscari' and 'Cain' he hath not as yet forwarded; or, at least, I have not yet received them, nor the proofs thereof, though promised by last post.

"I see the way that he and his Quarterly people are tending—they want a row with me, and they shall have it. I only regret that I am not in England for the nonce; as, here, it is hardly fair ground for me, isolated and out of the way of prompt rejoinder and information as I am. But, though backed by all the corruption, and infamy, and patronage of their master rogues and slave renegadoes, if they do once rouse me up,

"I have that for two or three of them, which they had better not move me to put in motion;—and yet, after all, what a fool I am to disquiet myself about such fellows! It was all very well ten or twelve years ago, when I was a 'curled darling,' and minded such things. At present, I rate them at their true value; but, from natural temper and bile, am not able to keep quiet.

"Let me hear from you on your return from Ireland, which ought to be ashamed to see you, after her Brunswick blarney. I am of Longman's opinion, that you should allow your friends to liquidate the Bermuda claim. Why should you throw away the two thousand pounds (of the non-guinea Murray) upon that cursed piece of treacherous inveiglement? I think you carry the matter a little too far and scrupulously. When we see patriots begging publicly, and know that Grattan received a fortune from his country, I really do not see why a man, in no whit inferior to any or all of them, should shrink from accepting that assistance from his private friends which every tradesman receives from his connections upon much less occasions. For, after all, it was not your debt—it was a piece of swindling against you. As to * * * *, and the 'what noble creatures![59] &c. &c.' it is all very fine and very well, but, till you can persuade me that there is no credit, and no self-applause to be obtained by being of use to a celebrated man, I must retain the same opinion of the human species, which I do of our friend M^s. Specie."

In the month of August, Madame Guiccioli had joined her father at Pisa, and was now superintending the preparations at the Casa Lanfranchi,—one of the most ancient and spacious palaces of that city,—for the reception of her noble friend. "He left Ravenna," says this lady, "with great regret, and with a presentiment that his departure would be the forerunner of a thousand evils to us. In every letter he then wrote to me, he expressed his displeasure at this step. 'If your father should be recalled,' he said, 'I immediately return to Ravenna; and if he is recalled previous to my departure, I remain.' In this hope he delayed his journey for several months; but, at last, no longer having any expectation of our immediate return, he wrote to me, saying—'I set out most unwillingly, foreseeing the most evil results for all of you, and principally for yourself. I say no more, but you will see.' And in another letter he says, 'I leave Ravenna so unwillingly, and with such a persuasion on my mind that my departure will lead from one misery to another, each greater than the former, that I have not the heart to utter another word on the subject.' He always wrote to me at that time in Italian, and I transcribe his exact words. How entirely were these presentiments verified by the event!"[60]

After describing his mode of life while at Ravenna, the lady thus proceeds:—

"This sort of simple life he led until the fatal day of his departure for Greece, and the few variations he made from it may be said to have arisen solely from the greater or smaller number of occasions which were offered him of doing good, and from the generous actions he was continually performing. Many families (in Ravenna principally) owed to him the few prosperous days they ever enjoyed. His arrival in that town was spoken of as a piece of public good fortune, and his departure as a public calamity; and this is the life which many attempted to asperse as that of a libertine. But the world must at last learn how, with so good and generous a heart, Lord Byron, susceptible, it is true, of the most energetic passions, yet, at the same time, of the sublimest and most pure, and rendering homage in his acts to every virtue—how he, I say, could afford such scope to malice and to calumny. Circumstances, and also, probably, an eccentricity of disposition, (which, nevertheless, had its origin in a virtuous feeling, an excessive abhorrence for hypocrisy and affectation,) contributed, perhaps, to cloud the splendour of his exalted nature in the opinion of many. But you will well know how to analyse these contradictions in a manner worthy of your noble friend and of yourself, and you will prove that the goodness of his heart was not inferior to the grandeur of his genius."[61]

At Bologna, according to the appointment made between them, Lord Byron and Mr. Rogers met; and the record which this latter gentleman has, in his Poem on Italy, preserved of their meeting, conveys so vivid a picture of the poet at this period, with, at the same time, so just and feeling a tribute to his memory, that, narrowed as my limits are now becoming, I cannot refrain from giving the sketch entire.

"BOLOGNA.

On the road to Bologna he had met with his early and dearest friend, Lord Clare, and the following description of their short interview is given in his "Detached Thoughts."

"Pisa, November 5. 1821.

"'There is a strange coincidence sometimes in the little things of this world, Sancho,' says Sterne in a letter (if I mistake not), and so I have often found it.

"Page 128. article 91. of this collection, I had alluded to my friend Lord Clare in terms such as my feelings suggested. About a week or two afterwards I met him on the road between Imola and Bologna, after not having met for seven or eight years. He was abroad in 1814, and came home just as I set out in 1816.

"This meeting annihilated for a moment all the years between the present time and the days of Harrow. It was a new and inexplicable feeling, like rising from the grave, to me. Clare, too, was much agitated—more in appearance than was myself; for I could feel his heart beat to his fingers' ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own which made me think so. He told me that I should find a note from him left at Bologna. I did. We were obliged to part for our different journeys, he for Rome, I for Pisa, but with the promise to meet again in spring. We were but five minutes together, and on the public road; but I hardly recollect an hour of my existence which could be weighed against them. He had heard that I was coming on, and had left his letter for me at Bologna, because the people with whom he was travelling could not wait longer.

"Of all I have ever known, he has always been the least altered in every thing from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me to him so strongly at school. I should hardly have thought it possible for society (or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of the leaven of bad passions.

"I do not speak from personal experience only, but from all I have ever heard of him from others, during absence and distance."

After remaining a day at Bologna, Lord Byron crossed the Apennines with Mr. Rogers; and I find the following note of their visit together to the Gallery at Florence:—

"I revisited the Florence Gallery, &c. My former impressions were confirmed; but there were too many visiters there to allow one to feel any thing properly. When we were (about thirty or forty) all stuffed into the cabinet of gems and knick-knackeries, in a corner of one of the galleries, I told Rogers that it 'felt like being in the watchhouse.' I left him to make his obeisances to some of his acquaintances, and strolled on alone—the only four minutes I could snatch of any feeling for the works around me. I do not mean to apply this to a tête-à-tête scrutiny with Rogers, who has an excellent taste, and deep feeling for the arts, (indeed much more of both than I can possess, for of the former I have not much,) but to the crowd of jostling starers and travelling talkers around me.

"I heard one bold Briton declare to the woman on his arm, looking at the Venus of Titian, 'Well, now, this is really very fine indeed,'—an observation which, like that of the landlord in Joseph Andrews on 'the certainty of death,' was (as the landlord's wife observed) 'extremely true.'

"In the Pitti Palace, I did not omit Goldsmith's prescription for a connoisseur, viz. 'that the pictures would have been better if the painter had taken more pains, and to praise the works of Pietro Perugino.'"

LETTER 466. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, November 3. 1821.

"The two passages cannot be altered without making Lucifer talk like the Bishop of Lincoln, which would not be in the character of the former. The notion is from Cuvier (that of the old worlds), as I have explained in an additional note to the preface. The other passage is also in character: if nonsense, so much the better, because then it can do no harm, and the sillier Satan is made, the safer for every body. As to 'alarms,' &c. do you really think such things ever led any body astray? Are these people more impious than Milton's Satan? or the Prometheus of Æschylus? or even than the Sadducees of * *, the 'Fall of Jerusalem' * *? Are not Adam, Eve, Adah, and Abel, as pious as the catechism?

"Gifford is too wise a man to think that such things can have any serious effect: who was ever altered by a poem? I beg leave to observe, that there is no creed nor personal hypothesis of mine in all this; but I was obliged to make Cain and Lucifer talk consistently, and surely this has always been permitted to poesy. Cain is a proud man: if Lucifer promised him kingdom, &c. it would elate him: the object of the Demon is to depress him still further in his own estimation than he was before, by showing him infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame of mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere internal irritation, not premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would have made him contemptible), but from the rage and fury against the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions, and which discharges itself rather against life, and the Author of life, than the mere living.

"His subsequent remorse is the natural effect of looking on his sudden deed. Had the deed been premeditated, his repentance would have been tardier.

"Either dedicate it to Walter Scott, or, if you think he would like the dedication of 'The Foscaris' better, put the dedication to 'The Foscaris.' Ask him which.

"Your first note was queer enough; but your two other letters, with Moore's and Gifford's opinions, set all right again. I told you before that I can never recast any thing. I am like the tiger: if I miss the first spring, I go grumbling back to my jungle again; but if I do hit, it is crushing. * * * You disparaged the last three cantos to me, and kept them back above a year; but I have heard from England that (notwithstanding the errors of the press) they are well thought of; for instance, by American Irving, which last is a feather in my (fool's) cap.

"You have received my letter (open) through Mr. Kinnaird, and so, pray, send me no more reviews of any kind. I will read no more of evil or good in that line. Walter Scott has not read a review of himself for thirteen years.

"The bust is not my property, but Hobhouse's. I addressed it to you as an Admiralty man, great at the Custom-house. Pray deduct the expenses of the same, and all others.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 467. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, Nov. 9. 1821.

"I never read the Memoirs at all, not even since they were written; and I never will: the pain of writing them was enough; you may spare me that of a perusal. Mr. Moore has (or may have) a discretionary power to omit any repetition, or expressions which do not seem good to him, who is a better judge than you or I.

"Enclosed is a lyrical drama, (entitled 'A Mystery,' from its subject,) which, perhaps may arrive in time for the volume. You will find it pious enough, I trust,—at least some of the Chorus might have been written by Sternhold and Hopkins themselves for that, and perhaps for melody. As it is longer, and more lyrical and Greek, than I intended at first, I have not divided it into acts, but called what I have sent Part First, as there is a suspension of the action, which may either close there without impropriety, or be continued in a way that I have in view. I wish the first part to be published before the second, because, if it don't succeed, it is better to stop there than to go on in a fruitless experiment.

"I desire you to acknowledge the arrival of this packet by return of post, if you can conveniently, with a proof.

"Your obedient, &c.

"P.S. My wish is to have it published at the same time, and, if possible, in the same volume, with the others, because, whatever the merits or demerits of these pieces may be, it will perhaps be allowed that each is of a different kind, and in a different style; so that, including the prose and the Don Juans, &c. I have at least sent you variety during the last year or two."

LETTER 468. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, November 16. 1821.

"There is here Mr. * *, an Irish genius, with whom we are acquainted. He hath written a really excellent Commentary on Dante, full of new and true information, and much ingenuity. But his verse is such as it hath pleased God to endue him withal. Nevertheless, he is so firmly persuaded of its equal excellence, that he won't divorce the Commentary from the traduction, as I ventured delicately to hint,—not having the fear of Ireland before my eyes, and upon the presumption of having shotten very well in his presence (with common pistols too, not with my Manton's) the day before.

"But he is eager to publish all, and must be gratified, though the Reviewers will make him suffer more tortures than there are in his original. Indeed, the Notes are well worth publication; but he insists upon the translation for company, so that they will come out together, like Lady C * *t chaperoning Miss * *. I read a letter of yours to him yesterday, and he begs me to write to you about his Poeshie. He is really a good fellow, apparently, and I dare say that his verse is very good Irish.

"Now, what shall we do for him? He says that he will risk part of the expense with the publisher. He will never rest till he is published and abused—for he has a high opinion of himself—and I see nothing left but to gratify him, so as to have him abused as little as possible; for I think it would kill him. You must write, then, to Jeffrey to beg him not to review him, and I will do the same to Gifford, through Murray. Perhaps they might notice the Comment without touching the text. But I doubt the dogs—the text is too tempting. * *

"I have to thank you again, as I believe I did before, for your opinion of 'Cain,' &c.

"You are right to allow —— to settle the claim; but I do not see why you should repay him out of your legacy—at least, not yet.[68] If you feel about it (as you are ticklish on such points) pay him the interest now, and the principal when you are strong in cash; or pay him by instalments; or pay him as I do my creditors—that is, not till they make me.

"I address this to you at Paris, as you desire. Reply soon, and believe me ever, &c.

"P.S. What I wrote to you about low spirits is, however, very true. At present, owing to the climate, &c. (I can walk down into my garden, and pluck my own oranges,—and, by the way, have got a diarrhœa in consequence of indulging in this meridian luxury of proprietorship,) my spirits are much better. You seem to think that I could not have written the 'Vision,' &c. under the influence of low spirits; but I think there you err.[69] A man's poetry is a distinct faculty, or Soul, and has no more to do with the every-day individual than the Inspiration with the Pythoness when removed from her tripod."

The correspondence which I am now about to insert, though long since published by the gentleman with whom it originated[70], will, I have no doubt, even by those already acquainted with all the circumstances, be reperused with pleasure; as, among the many strange and affecting incidents with which these pages abound, there is not one, perhaps, so touching and singular as that to which the following letters refer.

TO LORD BYRON.

"Frome, Somerset, November 21. 1821.

"My Lord,

"More than two years since, a lovely and beloved wife was taken from me, by lingering disease, after a very short union. She possessed unvarying gentleness and fortitude, and a piety so retiring as rarely to disclose itself in words, but so influential as to produce uniform benevolence of conduct. In the last hour of life, after a farewell look on a lately born and only infant, for whom she had evinced inexpressible affection, her last whispers were 'God's happiness! God's happiness!' Since the second anniversary of her decease, I have read some papers which no one had seen during her life, and which contain her most secret thoughts. I am induced to communicate to your Lordship a passage from these papers, which, there is no doubt, refers to yourself; as I have more than once heard the writer mention your agility on the rocks at Hastings.

"'Oh, my God, I take encouragement from the assurance of thy word, to pray to Thee in behalf of one for whom I have lately been much interested. May the person to whom I allude (and who is now, we fear, as much distinguished for his neglect of Thee as for the transcendant talents thou hast bestowed on him) be awakened to a sense of his own danger, and led to seek that peace of mind in a proper sense of religion, which he has found this world's enjoyments unable to procure! Do Thou grant that his future example may be productive of far more extensive benefit than his past conduct and writings have been of evil; and may the Sun of righteousness, which, we trust, will, at some future period, arise on him, be bright in proportion to the darkness of those clouds which guilt has raised around him, and the balm which it bestows, healing and soothing in proportion to the keenness of that agony which the punishment of his vices has inflicted on him! May the hope that the sincerity of my own efforts for the attainment of holiness, and the approval of my own love to the great Author of religion, will render this prayer, and every other for the welfare of mankind, more efficacious!—Cheer me in the path of duty;—but, let me not forget, that, while we are permitted to animate ourselves to exertion by every innocent motive, these are but the lesser streams which may serve to increase the current, but which, deprived of the grand fountain of good, (a deep conviction of inborn sin, and firm belief in the efficacy of Christ's death for the salvation of those who trust in him, and really wish to serve him,) would soon dry up, and leave us barren of every virtue as before.

"'July 31. 1814—Hastings.'

"There is nothing, my Lord, in this extract which, in a literary sense, can at all interest you; but it may, perhaps, appear to you worthy of reflection how deep and expansive a concern for the happiness of others the Christian faith can awaken in the midst of youth and prosperity. Here is nothing poetical and splendid, as in the expostulatory homage of M. Delamartine; but here is the sublime, my Lord; for this intercession was offered, on your account, to the supreme Source of happiness. It sprang from a faith more confirmed than that of the French poet: and from a charity which, in combination with faith, showed its power unimpaired amidst the languors and pains of approaching dissolution. I will hope that a prayer, which, I am sure, was deeply sincere, may not be always unavailing.

"It would add nothing, my Lord, to the fame with which your genius has surrounded you, for an unknown and obscure individual to express his admiration of it. I had rather be numbered with those who wish and pray, that 'wisdom from above,' and 'peace,' and 'joy,' may enter such a mind.

"John Sheppard."

However romantic, in the eyes of the cold and worldly, the piety of this young person may appear, it were to be wished that the truly Christian feeling which dictated her prayer were more common among all who profess the same creed; and that those indications of a better nature, so visible even through the clouds of his character, which induced this innocent young woman to pray for Byron, while living, could have the effect of inspiring others with more charity towards his memory, now that he is dead.

The following is Lord Byron's answer to this affecting communication.

LETTER 469. TO MR. SHEPPARD.

"Pisa, December 8. 1821.

"Sir,

"I have received your letter. I need not say, that the extract which it contains has affected me, because it would imply a want of all feeling to have read it with indifference. Though I am not quite sure that it was intended by the writer for me, yet the date, the place where it was written, with some other circumstances that you mention, render the allusion probable. But for whomever it was meant, I have read it with all the pleasure which can arise from so melancholy a topic. I say pleasure—because your brief and simple picture of the life and demeanour of the excellent person whom I trust you will again meet, cannot be contemplated without the admiration due to her virtues, and her pure and unpretending piety. Her last moments were particularly striking; and I do not know that, in the course of reading the story of mankind, and still less in my observations upon the existing portion, I ever met with any thing so unostentatiously beautiful. Indisputably, the firm believers in the Gospel have a great advantage over all others,—for this simple reason, that, if true, they will have their reward hereafter; and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope, through life, without subsequent disappointment, since (at the worst for them) 'out of nothing, nothing can arise, not even sorrow. But a man's creed does not depend upon himself: who can say, I will believe this, that, or the other? and least of all, that which he least can comprehend. I have, however, observed, that those who have begun life with extreme faith, have in the end greatly narrowed it, as Chillingworth, Clarke (who ended as an Arian), Bayle, and Gibbon (once a Catholic), and some others; while, on the other hand, nothing is more common than for the early sceptic to end in a firm belief, like Maupertuis, and Henry Kirke White.

"But my business is to acknowledge your letter, and not to make a dissertation. I am obliged to you for your good wishes, and more than obliged by the extract from the papers of the beloved object whose qualities you have so well described in a few words. I can assure you that all the fame which ever cheated humanity into higher notions of its own importance would never weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous being may be pleased to take in my welfare. In this point of view, I would not exchange the prayer of the deceased in my behalf for the united glory of Homer, Cæsar, and Napoleon, could such be accumulated upon a living head. Do me at least the justice to suppose, that

however the 'deteriora sequor' may have been applied to my conduct.

"I have the honour to be

"Your obliged and obedient servant,

"Byron.

"P.S. I do not know that I am addressing a clergyman; but I presume that you will not be affronted by the mistake (if it is one) on the address of this letter. One who has so well explained, and deeply felt, the doctrines of religion, will excuse the error which led me to believe him its minister."

LETTER 470. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, December 4. 1821.

"By extracts in the English papers,—in your holy ally, Galignani's 'Messenger,'—I perceive that 'the two greatest examples of human vanity in the present age' are, firstly, 'the ex-Emperor Napoleon,' and, secondly, 'his Lordship, &c. the noble poet,'meaning your humble servant, 'poor guiltless I.'

"Poor Napoleon! he little dreamed to what vile comparisons the turn of the wheel would reduce him!

"I have got here into a famous old feudal palazzo, on the Arno, large enough for a garrison, with dungeons below and cells in the walls, and so full of ghosts, that the learned Fletcher (my valet) has begged leave to change his room, and then refused to occupy his new room, because there were more ghosts there than in the other. It is quite true that there are most extraordinary noises (as in all old buildings), which have terrified the servants so as to incommode me extremely. There is one place where people were evidently walled up; for there is but one possible passage, broken through the wall, and then meant to be closed again upon the inmate. The house belonged to the Lanfranchi family, (the same mentioned by Ugolino in his dream, as his persecutor with Sismondi,) and has had a fierce owner or two in its time. The staircase, &c. is said to have been built by Michel Agnolo. It is not yet cold enough for a fire. What a climate!

"I am, however, bothered about these spectres, (as they say the last occupants were, too,) of whom I have as yet seen nothing, nor, indeed, heard (myself); but all the other ears have been regaled by all kinds of supernatural sounds. The first night I thought I heard an odd noise, but it has not been repeated. I have now been here more than a month.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 471. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, December 10. 1821.

"This day and this hour, (one, on the clock,) my daughter is six years old. I wonder when I shall see her again, or if ever I shall see her at all.

"I have remarked a curious coincidence, which almost looks like a fatality.

"My mother, my wife, my daughter, my half-sister, my sisters mother, my natural daughter (as far at least as I am concerned), and myself, are all only children.

"My father, by his first marriage with Lady Conyers (an only child), had only my sister; and by his second marriage with an only child, an only child again. Lady Byron, as you know, was one also, and so is my daughter, &c.

"Is not this rather odd—such a complication of only children? By the way, send me my daughter Ada's miniature. I have only the print, which gives little or no idea of her complexion.

"Yours, &c. B."

LETTER 472. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, December 12. 1821.

"What you say about Galignani's two biographies is very amusing; and, if I were not lazy, I would certainly do what you desire. But I doubt my present stock of facetiousness—that is, of good serious humour, so as not to let the cat out of the bag.[71] I wish you would undertake it. I will forgive and indulge you (like a Pope) beforehand, for any thing ludicrous, that might keep those fools in their own dear belief that a man is a loup garou.

"I suppose I told you that the Giaour story had actually some foundation on facts; or, if I did not, you will one day find it in a letter of Lord Sligo's, written to me after the publication of the poem. I should not like marvels to rest upon any account of my own, and shall say nothing about it. However, the real incident is still remote enough from the poetical one, being just such as, happening to a man of any imagination, might suggest such a composition. The worst of any real adventures is that they involve living people—else Mrs. ——'s, ——'s, &c. are as 'german to the matter' as Mr. Maturin could desire for his novels. * * * *

"The consummation you mentioned for poor * * was near taking place yesterday. Riding pretty sharply after Mr. Medwin and myself, in turning the corner of a lane between Pisa and the hills, he was spilt,—and, besides losing some claret on the spot, bruised himself a good deal, but is in no danger. He was bled, and keeps his room. As I was a-head of him some hundred yards, I did not see the accident; but my servant, who was behind, did, and says the horse did not fall—the usual excuse of floored equestrians. As * * piques himself upon his horsemanship, and his horse is really a pretty horse enough, I long for his personal narrative,—as I never yet met the man who would fairly claim a tumble as his own property.

"Could not you send me a printed copy of the 'Irish Avatar?'—I do not know what has become of Rogers since we parted at Florence.

"Don't let the Angles keep you from writing. Sam told me that you were somewhat dissipated in Paris, which I can easily believe. Let me hear from you at your best leisure.

"Ever and truly, &c.

"P.S. December 13.

"I enclose you some lines written not long ago, which you may do what you like with, as they are very harmless.[72] Only, if copied, or printed, or set, I could wish it more correctly than in the usual way, in which one's 'nothings are monstered,' as Coriolanus says.

"You must really get * * published—he never will rest till he is so. He is just gone with his broken head to Lucca, at my desire, to try to save a man from being burnt. The Spanish * * *, that has her petticoats over Lucca, had actually condemned a poor devil to the stake, for stealing the wafer box out of a church. Shelley and I, of course, were up in arms against this piece of piety, and have been disturbing every body to get the sentence changed. * * is gone to see what can be done.

"B."

LETTER 473. TO MR. SHELLEY.

"December 12. 1821.

"My dear Shelley,

"Enclosed is a note for you from ——. His reasons are all very true, I dare say, and it might and may be of personal inconvenience to us. But that does not appear to me to be a reason to allow a being to be burnt without trying to save him. To save him by any means but remonstrance is of course out of the question; but I do not see why a temperate remonstrance should hurt any one. Lord Guilford is the man, if he would undertake it. He knows the Grand Duke personally, and might, perhaps, prevail upon him to interfere. But, as he goes to-morrow, you must be quick, or it will be useless. Make any use of my name that you please.

"Yours ever," &c

LETTER 474. TO MR. MOORE.

"I send you the two notes, which will tell you the story I allude to of the Auto da Fè. Shelley's allusion to his 'fellow-serpent' is a buffoonery of mine. Goethe's Mephistofilus calls the serpent who tempted Eve 'my aunt, the renowned snake;' and I always insist that Shelley is nothing but one of her nephews, walking about on the tip of his tail."

TO LORD BYRON.

"Two o'clock, Tuesday Morning.

"My dear Lord,

"Although strongly persuaded that the story must be either an entire fabrication, or so gross an exaggeration as to be nearly so; yet, in order to be able to discover the truth beyond all doubt, and to set your mind quite at rest, I have taken the determination to go myself to Lucca this morning. Should it prove less false than I am convinced it is, I shall not fail to exert myself in every way that I can imagine may have any success. Be assured of this.

"Your Lordship's most truly,

"* *.

"P.S. To prevent bavardage, I prefer going in person to sending my servant with a letter. It is better for you to mention nothing (except, of course, to Shelley) of my excursion. The person I visit there is one on whom I can have every dependence in every way, both as to authority and truth."

TO LORD BYRON.

"Thursday Morning.

"My dear Lord Byron,

"I hear this morning that the design, which certainly had been in contemplation, of burning my fellow-serpent, has been abandoned, and that he has been condemned to the galleys. Lord Guilford is at Leghorn; and as your courier applied to me to know whether he ought to leave your letter for him or not, I have thought it best since this information to tell him to take it back.

"Ever faithfully yours,

"P.B. Shelley."

LETTER 475. TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

"Pisa, January 12. 1822.

"My dear Sir Walter,

"I need not say how grateful I am for your letter, but I must own my ingratitude in not having written to you again long ago. Since I left England (and it is not for all the usual term of transportation) I have scribbled to five hundred blockheads on business, &c. without difficulty, though with no great pleasure; and yet, with the notion of addressing you a hundred times in my head, and always in my heart, I have not done what I ought to have done. I can only account for it on the same principle of tremulous anxiety with which one sometimes makes love to a beautiful woman of our own degree, with whom one is enamoured in good earnest; whereas, we attack a fresh-coloured housemaid without (I speak, of course, of earlier times) any sentimental remorse or mitigation of our virtuous purpose.

"I owe to you far more than the usual obligation for the courtesies of literature and common friendship; for you went out of your way in 1817 to do me a service, when it required not merely kindness, but courage to do so: to have been recorded by you in such a manner, would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time when 'all the world and his wife,' as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was something still higher to my self-esteem,—I allude to the Quarterly Review of the Third Canto of Childe Harold, which Murray told me was written by you,—and, indeed, I should have known it without his information, as there could not be two who could and would have done this at the time. Had it been a common criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have felt pleased, undoubtedly, and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must induce in any mind capable of such sensations. The very tardiness of this acknowledgment will, at least, show that I have not forgotten the obligation; and I can assure you that my sense of it has been out at compound interest during the delay. I shall only add one word upon the subject, which is, that I think that you, and Jeffrey, and Leigh Hunt were the only literary men, of numbers whom I know (and some of whom I had served), who dared venture even an anonymous word in my favour just then: and that, of those three, I had never seen one at all—of the second much less than I desired—and that the third was under no kind of obligation to me, whatever; while the other two had been actually attacked by me on a former occasion; one, indeed, with some provocation, but the other wantonly enough. So you see you have been heaping 'coals of fire, &c.' in the true gospel manner, and I can assure you that they have burnt down to my very heart.

"I am glad that you accepted the Inscription. I meant to have inscribed 'The Foscarini' to you instead; but first, I heard that 'Cain' was thought the least bad of the two as a composition; and, 2dly, I have abused S * * like a pickpocket, in a note to the Foscarini, and I recollected that he is a friend of yours (though not of mine), and that it would not be the handsome thing to dedicate to one friend any thing containing such matters about another. However, I'll work the Laureate before I have done with him, as soon as I can muster Billingsgate therefor. I like a row, and always did from a boy, in the course of which propensity, I must needs say, that I have found it the most easy of all to be gratified, personally and poetically. You disclaim 'jealousies;' but I would ask, as Boswell did of Johnson, 'of whom could you be jealous?'—of none of the living certainly, and (taking all and all into consideration) of which of the dead? I don't like to bore you about the Scotch novels, (as they call them, though two of them are wholly English, and the rest half so,) but nothing can or could ever persuade me, since I was the first ten minutes in your company, that you are not the man. To me those novels have so much of 'Auld lang syne' (I was bred a canny Scot till ten years old) that I never move without them; and when I removed from Ravenna to Pisa the other day, and sent on my library before, they were the only books that I kept by me, although I already have them by heart.

"January 27. 1822.

"I delayed till now concluding, in the hope that I should have got 'The Pirate,' who is under way for me, but has not yet hove in sight. I hear that your daughter is married, and I suppose by this time you are half a grandfather—a young one, by the way. I have heard great things of Mrs. Lockhart's personal and mental charms, and much good of her lord: that you may live to see as many novel Scotts as there are Scots' novels, is the very bad pun, but sincere wish of

"Yours ever most affectionately, &c.

"P.S. Why don't you take a turn in Italy? You would find yourself as well known and as welcome as in the Highlands among the natives. As for the English, you would be with them as in London; and I need not add, that I should be delighted to see you again, which is far more than I shall ever feel or say for England, or (with a few exceptions 'of kith, kin, and allies') any thing that it contains. But my 'heart warms to the tartan,' or to any thing of Scotland, which reminds me of Aberdeen and other parts, not so far from the Highlands as that town, about Invercauld and Braemar, where I was sent to drink goat's fey in 1795-6, in consequence of a threatened decline after the scarlet fever. But I am gossiping, so, good night—and the gods be with your dreams!

"Pray, present my respects to Lady Scott, who may, perhaps, recollect having seen me in town in 1815.

"I see that one of your supporters (for like Sir Hildebrand, I am fond of Guillin) is a mermaid; it is my crest too, and with precisely the same curl of tail. There's concatenation for you:—I am building a little cutter at Genoa, to go a cruising in the summer. I know you like the sea too."

LETTER 476. TO ——.[73]

"Pisa, February 6. 1822.

"'Try back the deep lane,' till we find a publisher for the 'Vision;' and if none such is to be found, print fifty copies at my expense, distribute them amongst my acquaintance, and you will soon see that the booksellers will publish them, even if we opposed them. That they are now afraid is natural, but I do not see that I ought to give way on that account. I know nothing of Rivington's 'Remonstrance' by the 'eminent Churchman;' but I suppose he wants a living. I once heard of a preacher at Kentish Town against 'Cain.' The same outcry was raised against Priestley, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, and all the men who dared to put tithes to the question.

"I have got S——'s pretended reply, to which I am surprised that you do not allude. What remains to be done is to call him out. The question is, would he come? for, if he would not, the whole thing would appear ridiculous, if I were to take a long and expensive journey to no purpose.

"You must be my second, and, as such, I wish to consult you.

"I apply to you, as one well versed in the duello, or monomachie. Of course I shall come to England as privately as possible, and leave it (supposing that I was the survivor) in the same manner; having no other object which could bring me to that country except to settle quarrels accumulated during my absence.

"By the last post I transmitted to you a letter upon some Rochdale toll business, from which there are moneys in prospect. My agent says two thousand pounds, but supposing it to be only one, or even one hundred, still they may be moneys; and I have lived long enough to have an exceeding respect for the smallest current coin of any realm, or the least sum, which, although I may not want it myself, may do something for others who may need it more than I.

"They say that 'Knowledge is Power:'—I used to think so; but I now know that they meant 'money:' and when Socrates declared, 'that all he knew was, that he knew nothing,' he merely intended to declare, that he had not a drachm in the Athenian world.

"The circulars are arrived, and circulating like the vortices (or vortexes) of Descartes. Still I have a due care of the needful, and keep a look out ahead, as my notions upon the score of moneys coincide with yours, and with all men's who have lived to see that every guinea is a philosopher's stone, or at least his touch-stone. You will doubt me the less, when I pronounce my firm belief, that Cash is Virtue.

"I cannot reproach myself with much expenditure: my only extra expense (and it is more than I have spent upon myself) being a loan of two hundred and fifty pounds to ——; and fifty pounds worth of furniture, which I have bought for him; and a boat which I am building for myself at Genoa, which will cost about a hundred pounds more.

"But to return. I am determined to have all the moneys I can, whether by my own funds, or succession, or lawsuit, or MSS. or any lawful means whatever.

"I will pay (though with the sincerest reluctance) my remaining creditors, and every man of law, by instalments from the award of the arbitrators.

"I recommend to you the notice in Mr. Hanson's letter, on the demands of moneys for the Rochdale tolls.

"Above all, I recommend my interests to your honourable worship.

"Recollect, too, that I expect some moneys for the various MSS. (no matter what); and, in short, 'Rem quocunque modo, Rem!'—the noble feeling of cupidity grows upon us with our years.

"Yours ever," &c.

LETTER 477. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, February 8. 1822.

"Attacks upon me were to be expected, but I perceive one upon you in the papers, which I confess that I did not expect. How, or in what manner, you can be considered responsible for what I publish, I am at a loss to conceive.

"If 'Cain' be 'blasphemous,' Paradise Lost is blasphemous; and the very words of the Oxford gentleman, 'Evil, be thou my good,' are from that very poem, from the mouth of Satan, and is there any thing more in that of Lucifer in the Mystery? Cain is nothing more than a drama, not a piece of argument. If Lucifer and Cain speak as the first murderer and the first rebel may be supposed to speak, surely all the rest of the personages talk also according to their characters—and the stronger passions have ever been permitted to the drama.

"I have even avoided introducing the Deity as in Scripture, (though Milton does, and not very wisely either,) but have adopted his angel as sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shocking any feelings on the subject by falling short of what all uninspired men must fall short in, viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of the presence of Jehovah. The old Mysteries introduced him liberally enough, and all this is avoided in the new one.

"The attempt to bully you, because they think it won't succeed with me, seems to me as atrocious an attempt as ever disgraced the times. What! when Gibbon's, Hume's, Priestley's, and Drummond's publishers have been allowed to rest in peace for seventy years, are you to be singled out for a work of fiction, not of history or argument? There must be something at the bottom of this—some private enemy of your own: it is otherwise incredible.

"I can only say, 'Me, me; en adsum qui feci;'—that any proceedings directed against you, I beg, may be transferred to me, who am willing, and ought, to endure them all;—that if you have lost money by the publication, I will refund any or all of the copyright;—that I desire you will say that both you and Mr. Gifford remonstrated against the publication, as also Mr. Hobhouse;—that I alone occasioned it, and I alone am the person who, either legally or otherwise, should bear the burden. If they prosecute, I will come to England—that is, if, by meeting it in my own person, I can save yours. Let me know. You sha'n't suffer for me, if I can help it. Make any use of this letter you please.

"Yours ever, &c.

"P.S. I write to you about all this row of bad passions and absurdities with the summer moon (for here our winter is clearer than your dog-days) lighting the winding Arno, with all her buildings and bridges,—so quiet and still!—What nothings are we before the least of these stars!"

LETTER 478. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, February 19. 1822.

"I am rather surprised not to have had an answer to my letter and packets. Lady Noel is dead, and it is not impossible that I may have to go to England to settle the division of the Wentworth property, and what portion Lady B. is to have out of it; all which was left undecided by the articles of separation. But I hope not, if it can be done without,—and I have written to Sir Francis Burdett to be my referee, as he knows the property.

"Continue to address here, as I shall not go if I can avoid it—at least, not on that account. But I may on another; for I wrote to Douglas Kinnaird to convey a message of invitation to Mr. Southey to meet me, either in England, or (as less liable to interruption) on the coast of France. This was about a fortnight ago, and I have not yet had time to have the answer. However, you shall have due notice; therefore continue to address to Pisa.

"My agents and trustees have written to me to desire that I would take the name directly, so that I am yours very truly and affectionately,

"Noel Byron.

"P.S. I have had no news from England, except on business; and merely know, from some abuse in that faithful ex and de-tractor Galignani, that the clergy are up against 'Cain.' There is (if I am not mistaken) some good church preferment on the Wentworth estates; and I will show them what a good Christian I am, by patronising and preferring the most pious of their order, should opportunity occur.

"M. and I are but little in correspondence, and I know nothing of literary matters at present. I have been writing on business only lately. What are you about? Be assured that there is no such coalition as you apprehend."

LETTER 479. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, February 20. 1822.[74]

"Your letter arrived since I wrote the enclosed. It is not likely, as I have appointed agents and arbitrators for the Noel estates, that I should proceed to England on that account,—though I may upon another, within stated. At any rate, continue you to address here till you hear further from me. I could wish you still to arrange for me, either with a London or Paris publisher, for the things, &c. I shall not quarrel with any arrangement you may please to make.

"I have appointed Sir Francis Burdett my arbitrator to decide on Lady Byron's allowance out of the Noel estates, which are estimated at seven thousand a year, and rents very well paid,—a rare thing at this time. It is, however, owing to their consisting chiefly in pasture lands, and therefore less affected by corn bills, &c. than properties in tillage.

"Believe me yours ever most affectionately,

"Noel Byron.

"Between my own property in the funds, and my wife's in land, I do not know which side to cry out on in politics.

"There is nothing against the immortality of the soul in 'Cain' that I recollect. I hold no such opinions;—but, in a drama, the first rebel and the first murderer must be made to talk according to their characters. However, the parsons are all preaching at it, from Kentish Town and Oxford to Pisa;—the scoundrels of priests, who do more harm to religion than all the infidels that ever forgot their catechisms!

"I have not seen Lady Noel's death announced in Galignani.—How is that?"

LETTER 480. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, February 28. 1822.

"I begin to think that the packet (a heavy one) of five acts of 'Werner,' &c. can hardly have reached you, for your letter of last week (which I answered) did not allude to it, and yet I insured it at the post-office here.

"I have no direct news from England, except on the Noel business, which is proceeding quietly, as I have appointed a gentleman (Sir F. Burdett) for my arbitrator. They, too, have said that they will recall the lawyer whom they had chosen, and will name a gentleman too. This is better, as the arrangement of the estates and of Lady B.'s allowance will thus be settled without quibbling. My lawyers are taking out a licence for the name and arms, which it seems I am to endue.

"By another, and indirect, quarter, I hear that 'Cain' has been pirated, and that the Chancellor has refused to give Murray any redress. Also, that G.R. (your friend 'Ben') has expressed great personal indignation at the said poem. All this is curious enough, I think,—after allowing Priestley, Hume, and Gibbon, and Bolingbroke, and Voltaire to be published, without depriving the booksellers of their rights. I heard from Rome a day or two ago, and, with what truth I know not, that * * *.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 481. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, March 1. 1822.

"As I still have no news of my 'Werner,' &c. packet, sent to you on the 29th of January, I continue to bore you (for the fifth time, I believe) to know whether it has not miscarried. As it was fairly copied out, it will be vexatious if it be lost. Indeed, I insured it at the post-office to make them take more care, and directed it regularly to you at Paris.

"In the impartial Galignani I perceive an extract from Blackwood's Magazine, in which it is said that there are people who have discovered that you and I are no poets. With regard to one of us, I know that this north-west passage to my magnetic pole had been long discovered by some sages, and I leave them the full benefit of their penetration. I think, as Gibbon says of his History, 'that, perhaps, a hundred years hence it may still continue to be abused.' However, I am far from pretending to compete or compare with that illustrious literary character.

"But, with regard to you, I thought that you had always been allowed to be a poet, even by the stupid as well as the envious—a bad one, to be sure—immoral, florid, Asiatic, and diabolically popular,—but still always a poet, nem. con. This discovery therefore, has to me all the grace of novelty, as well as of consolation (according to Rochefoucault), to find myself no-poetised in such good company. I am content to 'err with Plato;' and can assure you very sincerely, that I would rather be received a non-poet with you, than be crowned with all the bays of (the yet-uncrowned) Lakers in their society. I believe you think better of those worthies than I do. I know them * * * * * * *.

"As for Southey, the answer to my proposition of a meeting is not yet come. I sent the message, with a short note, to him through Douglas Kinnaird, and Douglas's response is not arrived. If he accepts, I shall have to go to England; but if not, I do not think the Noel affairs will take me there, as the arbitrators can settle them without my presence, and there do not seem to be any difficulties. The licence for the new name and armorial bearings will be taken out by the regular application, in such cases, to the Crown, and sent to me.

"Is there a hope of seeing you in Italy again ever? What are you doing?—bored by me, I know; but I have explained why before. I have no correspondence now with London, except through relations and lawyers and one or two friends. My greatest friend, Lord Clare, is at Rome: we met on the road, and our meeting was quite sentimental—really pathetic on both sides. I have always loved him better than any male thing in the world."

The preceding was enclosed in that which follows.

LETTER 482. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, March 4. 1822.

"Since I wrote the enclosed, I have waited another post, and now have your answer acknowledging the arrival of the packet—a troublesome one, I fear, to you in more ways than one, both from weight external and internal.

"The unpublished things in your hands, in Douglas K.'s, and Mr. John Murray's, are, 'Heaven and Earth, a lyrical kind of Drama upon the Deluge, &c.;'—'Werner,' now with you;—a translation of the First Canto of the Morgante Maggiore;—ditto of an Episode in Dante;—some stanzas to the Po, June 1st, 1819;—Hints from Horace, written in 1811, but a good deal, since, to be omitted;—several prose things, which may, perhaps, as well remain unpublished;—'The Vision, &c. of Quevedo Redivivus' in verse.

"Here you see is 'more matter for a May morning;' but how much of this can be published is for consideration. The Quevedo (one of my best in that line) has appalled the Row already, and must take its chance at Paris, if at all. The new Mystery is less speculative than 'Cain,' and very pious; besides, it is chiefly lyrical. The Morgante is the best translation that ever was or will be made; and the rest are—whatever you please to think them.

"I am sorry you think Werner even approaching to any fitness for the stage, which, with my notions upon it, is very far from my present object. With regard to the publication, I have already explained that I have no exorbitant expectations of either fame or profit in the present instances; but wish them published because they are written, which is the common feeling of all scribblers.

"With respect to 'Religion,' can I never convince you that I have no such opinions as the characters in that drama, which seems to have frightened every body? Yet they are nothing to the expressions in Goethe's Faust (which are ten times hardier), and not a whit more bold than those of Milton's Satan. My ideas of a character may run away with me: like all imaginative men, I, of course, embody myself with the character while I draw it, but not a moment after the pen is from off the paper.

"I am no enemy to religion, but the contrary. As a proof, I am educating my natural daughter a strict Catholic in a convent of Romagna; for I think people can never have enough of religion, if they are to have any. I incline, myself, very much to the Catholic doctrines; but if I am to write a drama, I must make my characters speak as I conceive them likely to argue.

"As to poor Shelley, who is another bugbear to you and the world, he is, to my knowledge, the least selfish and the mildest of men—a man who has made more sacrifices of his fortune and feelings for others than any I ever heard of. With his speculative opinions I have nothing in common, nor desire to have.

"The truth is, my dear Moore, you live near the stove of society, where you are unavoidably influenced by its heat and its vapours. I did so once—and too much—and enough to give a colour to my whole future existence. As my success in society was not inconsiderable, I am surely not a prejudiced judge upon the subject, unless in its favour; but I think it, as now constituted, fatal to all great original undertakings of every kind. I never courted it then, when I was young and high in blood, and one of its 'curled darlings;' and do you think I would do so now, when I am living in a clearer atmosphere? One thing only might lead me back to it, and that is, to try once more if I could do any good in politics; but not in the petty politics I see now preying upon our miserable country.

"Do not let me be misunderstood, however. If you speak your own opinions, they ever had, and will have, the greatest weight with me. But if you merely echo the 'monde,' (and it is difficult not to do so, being in its favour and its ferment,) I can only regret that you should ever repeat any thing to which I cannot pay attention.

"But I am prosing. The gods go with you, and as much immortality of all kinds as may suit your present and all other existence.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 483. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, March 6. 1822.

"The enclosed letter from Murray hath melted me; though I think it is against his own interest to wish that I should continue his connection. You may, therefore, send him the packet of Werner, which will save you all further trouble. And pray, can you forgive me for the bore and expense I have already put upon you? At least, say so—for I feel ashamed of having given you so much for such nonsense.

"The fact is, I cannot keep my resentments, though violent enough in their onset. Besides, now that all the world are at Murray on my account, I neither can nor ought to leave him; unless, as I really thought, it were better for him that I should.

"I have had no other news from England, except a letter from Barry Cornwall, the bard, and my old school-fellow. Though I have sickened you with letters lately, believe me

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. In your last letter you say, speaking of Shelley, that you would almost prefer the 'damning bigot' to the 'annihilating infidel.'[75] Shelley believes in immortality, however—but this by the way. Do you remember Frederick the Great's answer to the remonstrance of the villagers whose curate preached against the eternity of hell's torments? It was thus:—'If my faithful subjects of Schrausenhaussen prefer being eternally damned, let them.'

"Of the two, I should think the long sleep better than the agonised vigil. But men, miserable as they are, cling so to any thing like life, that they probably would prefer damnation to quiet. Besides, they think themselves so important in the creation, that nothing less can satisfy their pride—the insects!"

It is Dr. Clarke, I think, who gives, in his Travels, rather a striking account of a Tartar whom he once saw exercising a young, fiery horse, upon a spot of ground almost surrounded by a steep precipice, and describes the wantonness of courage with which the rider, as if delighting in his own peril, would, at times, dash, with loose rein, towards the giddy verge. Something of the same breathless apprehension with which the traveller viewed that scene, did the unchecked daring of Byron's genius inspire in all who watched its course,—causing them, at the same moment, to admire and tremble, and, in those more especially who loved him, awakening a sort of instinctive impulse to rush forward and save him from his own headlong strength. But, however natural it was in friends to give way to this feeling, a little reflection upon his now altered character might have forewarned them that such interference would prove as little useful to him as safe for themselves; and it is not without some surprise I look back upon my own temerity and presumption in supposing that, let loose as he was now, in the full pride and consciousness of strength, with the wide regions of thought outstretching before him, any representations that even friendship could make would have the power—or ought to have—of checking him. As the motives, however, by which I was actuated in my remonstrances to him may be left to speak for themselves, I shall, without dwelling any further upon the subject, content myself with laying before the reader a few such extracts from my own letters at this period[76] as may serve to explain some allusions in those just given.

In writing to me under the date January 24th, it will be recollected that he says—"be assured that there is no such coalition as you apprehend." The following extracts from my previous communication to him will explain what this means:—"I heard some days ago that Leigh Hunt was on his way to you with all his family; and the idea seems to be, that you and Shelley and he are to conspire together in the Examiner. I cannot believe this,—and deprecate such a plan with all my might. Alone you may do any thing; but partnerships in fame, like those in trade, make the strongest party answerable for the deficiencies or delinquencies of the rest, and I tremble even for you with such a bankrupt Co.—* * *. They are both clever fellows, and Shelley I look upon as a man of real genius; but I must again say, that you could not give your enemies (the * * *'s, 'et hoc genus omne') a greater triumph than by forming such an unequal and unholy alliance. You are, single-handed, a match for the world,—which is saying a good deal, the world being, like Briareus, a very many-handed gentleman,—but, to be so, you must stand alone. Recollect that the scurvy buildings about St. Peter's almost seem to overtop itself."

The notices of Cain, in my letters to him, were, according to their respective dates, as follow:—

"September 30. 1821.

"Since writing the above, I have read Foscari and Cain. The former does not please me so highly as Sardanapalus. It has the fault of all those violent Venetian stories, being unnatural and improbable, and therefore, in spite of all your fine management of them, appealing but remotely to one's sympathies. But Cain is wonderful—terrible—never to be forgotten. If I am not mistaken, it will sink deep into the world's heart; and while many will shudder at its blasphemy, all must fall prostrate before its grandeur. Talk of Æschylus and his Prometheus!—here is the true spirit both of the Poet—and the Devil."

"February 9. 1822.

"Do not take it into your head, my dear B. that the tide is at all turning against you in England. Till I see some symptoms of people forgetting you a little, I will not believe that you lose ground. As it is, 'te veniente die, te, decedente,'—nothing is hardly talked of but you; and though good people sometimes bless themselves when they mention you, it is plain that even they think much more about you than, for the good of their souls, they ought. Cain, to be sure, has made a sensation; and, grand as it is, I regret, for many reasons, you ever wrote it. * * For myself, I would not give up the poetry of religion for all the wisest results that philosophy will ever arrive at. Particular sects and creeds are fair game enough for those who are anxious enough about their neighbours to meddle with them; but our faith in the Future is a treasure not so lightly to be parted with; and the dream of immortality (if philosophers will have it a dream) is one that, let us hope, we shall carry into our last sleep with us."[77]

"February 19. 1822.

"I have written to the Longmans to try the ground, for I do not think Galignani the man for you. The only thing he can do is what we can do, ourselves, without him,—and that is, employ an English bookseller. Paris, indeed, might be convenient for such refugee works as are set down in the Index Expurgatorius of London; and if you have any political catamarans to explode, this is your place. But, pray, let them be only political ones. Boldness, and even licence, in politics, does good,—actual, present good; but, in religion, it profits neither here nor hereafter; and, for myself, such a horror have I of both extremes on this subject, that I know not which I hate most, the bold, damning bigot, or the bold, annihilating infidel. 'Furiosa res est in tenebris impetus;'—and much as we are in the dark, even the wisest of us, upon these matters, a little modesty, in unbelief as well as belief, best becomes us. You will easily guess that, in all this, I am thinking not so much of you, as of a friend and, at present, companion of yours, whose influence over your mind (knowing you as I do, and knowing what Lady B. ought to have found out, that you are a person the most tractable to those who live with you that, perhaps, ever existed) I own I dread and deprecate most earnestly."[78]

"March 16. 1822.

"With respect to our Religious Polemics, I must try to set you right upon one or two points. In the first place, I do not identify you with the blasphemies of Cain no more than I do myself with the impieties of my Mokanna,—all I wish and implore is that you, who are such a powerful manufacturer of these thunderbolts, would not choose subjects that make it necessary to launch them. In the next place, were you even a decided atheist, I could not (except, perhaps, for the decision which is always unwise) blame you. I could only pity,—knowing from experience how dreary are the doubts with which even the bright, poetic view I am myself inclined to take of mankind and their destiny is now and then clouded. I look upon Cuvier's book to be a most desolating one in the conclusions to which it may lead some minds. But the young, the simple,—all those whose hearts one would like to keep unwithered, trouble their heads but little about Cuvier. You, however, have embodied him in poetry which every one reads; and, like the wind, blowing 'where you list,' carry this deadly chill, mixed up with your own fragrance, into hearts that should be visited only by the latter. This is what I regret, and what with all my influence I would deprecate a repetition of. Now, do you understand me?

"As to your solemn peroration, 'the truth is, my dear Moore, &c. &c.' meaning neither more nor less than that I give into the cant of the world, it only proves, alas! the melancholy fact, that you and I are hundreds of miles asunder. Could you hear me speak my opinions instead of coldly reading them, I flatter myself there is still enough of honesty and fun in this face to remind you that your friend Tom Moore—whatever else he may be,—is no Canter."

LETTER 484. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, March 6. 1822.

"You will long ago have received a letter from me (or should), declaring my opinion of the treatment you have met with about the recent publication. I think it disgraceful to those who have persecuted you. I make peace with you, though our war was for other reasons than this same controversy. I have written to Moore by this post to forward to you the tragedy of' Werner.' I shall not make or propose any present bargain about it or the new Mystery till we see if they succeed. If they don't sell (which is not unlikely), you sha'n't pay; and I suppose this is fair play, if you choose to risk it.

"Bartolini, the celebrated sculptor, wrote to me to desire to take my bust: I consented, on condition that he also took that of the Countess Guiccioli. He has taken both, and I think it will be allowed that hers is beautiful. I shall make you a present of them both, to show that I don't bear malice, and as a compensation for the trouble and squabble you had about Thorwaldsen's. Of my own I can hardly speak, except that it is thought very like what I now am, which is different from what I was, of course, since you saw me. The sculptor is a famous one; and as it was done by his own particular request, will be done well, probably.

"What is to be done about * * and his Commentary? He will die if he is not published; he will be damned, if he is; but that he don't mind. We must publish him.

"All the row about me has no otherwise affected me than by the attack upon yourself, which is ungenerous in Church and State: but as all violence must in time have its proportionate re-action, you will do better by and by. Yours very truly,

"Noel Byron."

LETTER 485. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, March 8. 1822.

"You will have had enough of my letters by this time—yet one word in answer to your present missive. You are quite wrong in thinking that your 'advice' had offended me; but I have already replied (if not answered) on that point.

"With regard to Murray, as I really am the meekest and mildest of men since Moses (though the public and mine 'excellent wife' cannot find it out), I had already pacified myself and subsided back to Albemarle Street, as my yesterday's yepistle will have informed you. But I thought that I had explained my causes of bile—at least to you. Some instances of vacillation, occasional neglect, and troublesome sincerity, real or imagined, are sufficient to put your truly great author and man into a passion. But reflection, with some aid from hellebore, hath already cured me 'pro tempore;' and, if it had not, a request from you and Hobhouse would have come upon me like two out of the 'tribus Anticyris,'—with which, however, Horace despairs of purging a poet. I really feel ashamed of having bored you so frequently and fully of late. But what could I do? You are a friend—an absent one, alas!—and as I trust no one more, I trouble you in proportion.

"This war of 'Church and State' has astonished me more than it disturbs; for I really thought 'Cain' a speculative and hardy, but still a harmless, production. As I said before, I am really a great admirer of tangible religion; and am breeding one of my daughters a Catholic, that she may have her hands full. It is by far the most elegant worship, hardly excepting the Greek mythology. What with incense, pictures, statues, altars, shrines, relics, and the real presence, confession, absolution,—there is something sensible to grasp at. Besides, it leaves no possibility of doubt; for those who swallow their Deity, really and truly, in transubstantiation, can hardly find any thing else otherwise than easy of digestion.

"I am afraid that this sounds flippant, but I don't mean it to be so; only my turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then. Still, I do assure you that I am a very good Christian. Whether you will believe me in this, I do not know; but I trust you will take my word for being

"Very truly and affectionately yours, &c.

"P.S. Do tell Murray that one of the conditions of peace is, that he publisheth (or obtaineth a publisher for) * * *'s Commentary on Dante, against which there appears in the trade an unaccountable repugnance. It will make the man so exuberantly happy. He dines with me and half-a-dozen English to-day; and I have not the heart to tell him how the bibliopolar world shrink from his Commentary;—and yet it is full of the most orthodox religion and morality. In short, I make it a point that he shall be in print. He is such a good-natured, heavy-* * Christian, that we must give him a shove through the press. He naturally thirsts to be an author, and has been the happiest of men for these two months, printing, correcting, collating, dating, anticipating, and adding to his treasures of learning. Besides, he has had another fall from his horse into a ditch the other day, while riding out with me into the country."

LETTER 486. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, March 15. 1822.

"I am glad that you and your friends approve of my letter of the 8th ultimo. You may give it what publicity you think proper in the circumstances. I have since written to you twice or thrice.

"As to 'a Poem in the old way,' I shall attempt of that kind nothing further. I follow the bias of my own mind, without considering whether women or men are or are not to be pleased; but this is nothing to my publisher, who must judge and act according to popularity.

"Therefore let the things take their chance: if they pay, you will pay me in proportion; and if they don't, I must.

"The Noel affairs, I hope, will not take me to England. I have no desire to revisit that country, unless it be to keep you out of a prison (if this can be effected by my taking your place), or perhaps to get myself into one, by exacting satisfaction from one or two persons who take advantage of my absence to abuse me. Further than this, I have no business nor connection with England, nor desire to have, out of my own family and friends, to whom I wish all prosperity. Indeed, I have lived upon the whole so little in England (about five years since I was one-and-twenty), that my habits are too continental, and your climate would please me as little as the society.

"I saw the Chancellor's Report in a French paper. Pray, why don't they prosecute the translation of Lucretius? or the original with its

or

"You must really get something done for Mr. * *'s Commentary: what can I say to him?

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 487. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, April 13. 1822.

"Mr. Kinnaird writes that there has been an 'excellent Defence' of 'Cain,' against 'Oxoniensis;' you have sent me nothing but a not very excellent of-fence of the same poem. If there be such a 'Defender of the Faith,' you may send me his thirty-nine articles, as a counterbalance to some of your late communications.

"Are you to publish, or not, what Moore and Mr. Kinnaird have in hand, and the 'Vision of Judgment?' If you publish the latter in a very cheap edition, so as to baffle the pirates by a low price, you will find that it will do. The 'Mystery' I look upon as good, and 'Werner' too, and I expect that you will publish them speedily. You need not put your name to Quevedo, but publish it as a foreign edition, and let it make its way. Douglas Kinnaird has it still, with the preface, I believe.

"I refer you to him for documents on the late row here. I sent them a week ago.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 488. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, April 18. 1822.

"I have received the Defence of 'Cain.' Who is my Warburton?—for he has done for me what the bishop did for the poet against Crousaz. His reply seems to me conclusive; and if you understood your own interest, you would print it together with the poem.

"It is very odd that I do not hear from you. I have forwarded to Mr. Douglas Kinnaird the documents on a squabble here, which occurred about a month ago. The affair is still going on; but they make nothing of it hitherto. I think, what with home and abroad, there has been hot water enough for one while. Mr. Dawkins, the English minister, has behaved in the handsomest and most gentlemanly manner throughout the whole business.

"Yours ever, &c.

"P.S. I have got Lord Glenbervie's book, which is very amusing and able upon the topics which he touches upon, and part of the preface pathetic. Write soon."

LETTER 489. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, April 22. 1822.

"You will regret to hear that I have received intelligence of the death of my daughter Allegra of a fever in the convent of Bagna Cavallo, where she was placed for the last year, to commence her education. It is a heavy blow for many reasons, but must be borne, with time.

"It is my present intention to send her remains to England for sepulture in Harrow church (where I once hoped to have laid my own), and this is my reason for troubling you with this notice. I wish the funeral to be very private. The body is embalmed, and in lead. It will be embarked from Leghorn. Would you have any objection to give the proper directions on its arrival?

"I am yours, &c. N.B.

"P.S. You are aware that Protestants are not allowed holy ground in Catholic countries."

LETTER 490. TO MR. SHELLEY.

"April 23. 1822.

"The blow was stunning and unexpected; for I thought the danger over, by the long interval between her stated amelioration and the arrival of the express. But I have borne up against it as I best can, and so far successfully, that I can go about the usual business of life with the same appearance of composure, and even greater. There is nothing to prevent your coming to-morrow; but, perhaps, to-day, and yester-evening, it was better not to have met. I do not know that I have any thing to reproach in my conduct, and certainly nothing in my feelings and intentions towards the dead. But it is a moment when we are apt to think that, if this or that had been done, such event might have been prevented,—though every day and hour shows us that they are the most natural and inevitable. I suppose that Time will do his usual work—Death has done his.

"Yours ever, N.B."

LETTER 491. TO SIR WALTER SCOTT.

"Pisa, May 4. 1822.

"My dear Sir Walter,

"Your account of your family is very pleasing: would that I 'could answer this comfort with the like!' but I have just lost my natural daughter, Allegra, by a fever. The only consolation, save time, is the reflection, that she is either at rest or happy; for her few years (only five) prevented her from having incurred any sin, except what we inherit from Adam.

"'Whom the gods love, die young.'"

"I need not say that your letters are particularly welcome, when they do not tax your time and patience; and now that our correspondence is resumed, I trust it will continue.

"I have lately had some anxiety, rather than trouble, about an awkward affair here, which you may perhaps have heard of; but our minister has behaved very handsomely, and the Tuscan Government as well as it is possible for such a government to behave, which is not saying much for the latter. Some other English, and Scots, and myself, had a brawl with a dragoon, who insulted one of the party, and whom we mistook for an officer, as he was medalled and well mounted, &c. but he turned out to be a sergeant-major. He called out the guard at the gates to arrest us (we being unarmed); upon which I and another (an Italian) rode through the said guard; but they succeeded in detaining others of the party. I rode to my house and sent my secretary to give an account of the attempted and illegal arrest to the authorities, and then, without dismounting, rode back towards the gates, which are near my present mansion. Half-way I met my man vapouring away and threatening to draw upon me (who had a cane in my hand, and no other arms). I, still believing him an officer, demanded his name and address, and gave him my hand and glove thereupon. A servant of mine thrust in between us (totally without orders), but let him go on my command. He then rode off at full speed; but about forty paces further was stabbed, and very dangerously (so as to be in peril), by some Callum Beg or other of my people (for I have some rough-handed folks about me), I need hardly say without my direction or approval. The said dragoon had been sabring our unarmed countrymen, however, at the gate, after they were in arrest, and held by the guards, and wounded one, Captain Hay, very severely. However, he got his paiks—having acted like an assassin, and being treated like one. Who wounded him, though it was done before thousands of people, they have never been able to ascertain, or prove, nor even the weapon; some said a pistol, an air-gun, a stiletto, a sword, a lance, a pitchfork, and what not. They have arrested and examined servants and people of all descriptions, but can make out nothing. Mr. Dawkins, our minister, assures me, that no suspicion is entertained of the man who wounded him having been instigated by me, or any of the party. I enclose you copies of the depositions of those with us, and Dr. Craufurd, a canny Scot (not an acquaintance), who saw the latter part of the affair. They are in Italian.

"These are the only literary matters in which I have been engaged since the publication and row about 'Cain;'—but Mr. Murray has several things of mine in his obstetrical hands. Another Mystery—a Vision—a Drama—and the like. But you won't tell me what you are doing—however, I shall find you out, write what you will. You say that I should like your son-in-law—it would be very difficult for me to dislike any one connected with you; but I have no doubt that his own qualities are all that you describe.