Expect not life from pain nor danger free,
Nor deem the doom of man reserved for thee.
Nor deem the doom of man reserved for thee.
Selection of English Letters
I also declined, as I told you, to try
avoiding the imprisonment by the help of Perry's offer of the famous
secret 'Book'; and I further declined (as I think I also told you)
to avail myself of an offer on the part of a royal agent (made, of
course, in the guarded, though obvious manner in which such offers are
conveyed), to drop the prosecution, provided we would agree to
drop all future hostile mention of the Regent. But of this, too,
governments could not be expected to take notice--perhaps would regard
it as an addition to the offence. This, however, I must add, that the
whole attack on the Regent was owing, not merely to the nonsense of
the _Post_, but to his violation of those promises of conceding the
Catholic claims, to which his princely word stood pledged. The subject
of the article was the '_Dinner on St. Patrick's day_'. All the Whig
world was indignant at that violation; so were the Irish, of course,
_vehemently_; and it was on the spur of this publicly indignant
movement that I wrote what I did,--as angrily and as much in earnest
in the serious part of what I said as I was derisive in the rest.
I did not care for any factious object, nor was I what is called
anti-monarchical. I didn't know Cobbett, or Henry Hunt, or any
demagogue, _even by sight_, except Sir Francis Burdett, and him
by sight alone. Nor did I ever see, or speak a word with them,
afterwards. I knew nothing, in fact, of politics themselves, except in
some of those large and, as it appeared to me, obvious phases, which,
at all events, _have since become obvious to most people_, and in
fighting for which (if a man can be said to fight for a 'phase'! ) I
suffered all that Tories could inflict upon me,--by expenses in law
and calumnies in literature;--reform, Catholic claims, free
trade, abolition of flogging, right of free speech, as opposed by
attorneys-general. I was, in fact, all the while nothing but a poetic
student, appearing in politics once a week, but given up entirely to
letters almost all the rest of it, and loving nothing so much as a
book and a walk in the fields. I was precisely the sort of person, in
these respects, which I am at this moment. As to George the Fourth, I
aided, years afterwards, in publicly wishing him well--'years having
brought the philosophic mind'. I believe I even expressed regret at
not having given him the excuses due to all human beings (the passage,
I take it, is in the book which Colburn called _Lord Byron and his
Contemporaries_); _and when I consider that Moore has been pensioned,
not only in spite of all his libels on him, but perhaps by very reason
of their Whig partisanship, I should think it hard to be refused a
pension purely because I openly suffered for what I had earnestly
said_. I knew George the Fourth's physician, Sir William Knighton,
who had been mine before I was imprisoned (it was _not_ he who was the
royal agent alluded to); and, if my memory does not deceive me, Sir
William told me that George had been gratified by the book above
mentioned. Perhaps he had found out, by Sir William's help, that I was
not an ill-natured man, or one who could not outlive what was
mistaken in himself or resentful in others. As to my opinions about
Governments, the bad conduct of the Allies, and of Napoleon, and the
old Bourbons, certainly made them waver as to what might be ultimately
best, monarchy or republicanism; but they ended in favour of their
old predilections; and no man, for a long while, has been less a
republican than myself, monarchies and courts appearing to me salutary
for the good and graces of mankind, and Americanisms anything but
either. But nobody, I conceive, that knew my writings, or heard of me
truly from others, ever took me for a republican. William the Fourth
saw or heard nothing of me to hinder his letting Lord Melbourne give
me £200 out of the Royal Fund. Queen Victoria gave me another,
through the same kind friend. She also went twice to see my play; and
everybody knows how I praise and love her. _I do not think, therefore,
in reference to the pension, that the public would care twopence about
George the Fourth, one way or the other; or that if any remembered the
case at all, they would connect the pension in the least with anything
about him, but attribute it solely to the Queen's and Minister's
goodness, and the wants of a sincere and not undeserving man of
letters, distinguished for his loyal attachment_. I certainly think
the £500 fine ought not to have been taken out of my pocket, or the
other two £125 either; and I think also, that a liberal Whig minister
might reasonably and _privately_ think some compensation on those
accounts due to me. _I have been fighting his own fight from first to
last, and helping to prepare matters for his triumph_. But still the
above, in my opinion, is what the public would think of the matter,
_and my friends of the press could lay it entirely to the literary
account_.
GEORGE GORDON NOEL,
LORD BYRON
1788-1824
To MR. HODGSON
_Travel in Portugal_
Lisbon, 16 _July_, 1809.
Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of marvellous
sights, palaces, convents, &c. ,--which, being to be heard in my friend
Hobhouse's forthcoming Book of Travels, I shall not anticipate by
smuggling any account whatsoever to you in a private and clandestine
manner. I must just observe, that the village of Cintra in Estremadura
is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world.
I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, and talks bad Latin
to the monks, who understand it, as it is like their own,--and I goes
into society (with my pocket pistols), and I swims in the Tagus
all across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears
Portuguese, and have got bites from the mosquitoes. But what of that?
Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a-pleasuring.
When the Portuguese are pertinacious, I say '_Carracho_! '--the
great oath of the grandees, that very well supplies the place of
'Damme! '--and when dissatisfied with my neighbour, I pronounce
him '_Ambra di merdo_'. With these two phrases, and a third,'_Avra
bouro_', which signifieth 'Get an ass', I am universally understood to
be a person of degree and a master of languages. How merrily we
lives that travellers be! --if we had food and raiment. But, in sober
sadness, anything is better than England, and I am infinitely amused
with my pilgrimage, as far as it has gone.
To-morrow we start to ride post near 400 miles as far as Gibraltar,
where we embark for Melita and Byzantium. A letter to Malta will find
me, or to be forwarded, if I am absent. Pray embrace the Drury and
Dwyer, and all the Ephesians you encounter. I am writing with Butler's
donative pencil, which makes my bad hand worse. Excuse illegibility.
Hodgson! send me the news, and the deaths and defeats and capital
crimes and the misfortunes of one's friends; and let us hear of
literary matters, and the controversies and the criticisms. All this
will be pleasant--'_Suave mari magno_, &c. ' Talking of that, I have
been sea-sick, and sick of the sea. Adieu.
TO THOMAS MOORE
_Announces his engagement_
Newstead Abbey, 20 _Sept. _ 1814.
Here's to her who long
Hath waked the poet's sigh!
The girl who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
MY DEAR MOORE,
I am going to be married--that is, I am accepted, and one usually
hopes the rest will follow. My mother of the Gracchi (that _are_ to
be), _you_ think too strait-laced for me, although the paragon of only
children, and invested with 'golden opinions of all sorts of men', and
full of 'most blest conditions' as Desdemona herself. Miss Milbanke
is the lady, and I have her father's invitation to proceed there in my
elect capacity,--which, however, I cannot do until I have settled some
business in London, and got a blue coat.
She is said to be an heiress, but of that I really know nothing
certainly, and shall not inquire. But I do know, that she has talents
and excellent qualities; and you will not deny her judgement, after
having refused six suitors and taken me.
Now, if you have anything to say against this, pray do; my mind's
made up, positively fixed, determined, and therefore I will listen to
reason, because now it can do no harm. Things may occur to break it
off, but I will hope not. In the meantime I tell you (a _secret_, by
the by,--at least till I know she wishes it to be public) that I have
proposed and am accepted. You need not be in a hurry to wish me joy,
for one mayn't be married for months. I am going to town to-morrow,
but expect to be here, on my way there, within a fortnight.
If this had not happened, I should have gone to Italy. In my way down,
perhaps you will meet me at Nottingham, and come over with me here.
I need not say that nothing will give me greater pleasure. I must, of
course, reform thoroughly; and, seriously, if I can contribute to
her happiness, I shall secure my own. She is so good a person
that--that--in short, I wish I was a better.
TO JOHN MURRAY
_No bid for sweet voices_
Venice, 6 _April_, 1819.
The second canto of Don Juan was sent, on Saturday last, by post, in
four packets, two of four, and two of three sheets each, containing
in all two hundred and seventeen stanzas, octave measure. But I will
permit no curtailments. . . . You shan't make _canticles_ of my cantos.
The poem will please, if it is lively; if it is stupid, it will fail;
but I will have none of your damned cutting and slashing. If you
please, you may publish _anonymously_; it will perhaps be better; but
I will battle my way against them all, like a porcupine.
So you and Mr. Foscolo, etc. , want me to undertake what you call a
'great work'? an Epic Poem, I suppose or some such pyramid. I'll try
no such thing; I hate tasks. And then 'seven or eight years'! God send
us all well this day three months, let alone years. If one's years
can't be better employed than in sweating poesy, a man had better be a
ditcher. And works, too! --is _Childe Harold_ nothing? You have so many
'_divine_' poems, is it nothing to have written a _human_ one? without
any of your worn-out machinery. Why, man, I could have spun the
thoughts of the four cantos of that poem into twenty, had I wanted to
book-make, and its passion into as many modern tragedies. Since you
want _length_, you shall have enough of _Juan_, for I'll make fifty
cantos. . . .
Besides, I mean to write my best work in _Italian_, and it will take
me nine years more thoroughly to master the language; and then if my
fancy exist, and I exist too, I will try what I _can_ do _really_. As
to the estimation of the English which you talk of, let them
calculate what it is worth, before they insult me with their insolent
condescension.
I have not written for their pleasure. If they are pleased, it is that
they chose to be so; I have never flattered their opinions, nor their
pride; nor will I. Neither will I make 'Ladies' books' '_al dilettar
le femine e la plebe_'. I have written from the fullness of my mind,
from passion, from impulse, from many motives, but not for their
'sweet voices'.
I know the precise worth of popular applause, for few scribblers have
had more of it; and if I chose to swerve into their paths, I could
retain it, or resume it. But I neither love ye, nor fear ye; and
though I buy with ye and sell with ye, and talk with ye, I will
neither eat with ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye. They made me,
without my search, a species of popular idol; they, without reason or
judgement, beyond the caprice of their good pleasure, threw down the
image from its pedestal; it was not broken with the fall, and they
would, it seems, again replace it,--but they shall not.
You ask about my health: about the beginning of the year I was in a
state of great exhaustion . . . and I was obliged to reform my 'way of
life', which was conducting me from the 'yellow leaf' to the ground,
with all deliberate speed. I am better in health and morals, and very
much yours, &c. --
PS. I have read Hodgson's '_Friends_'. He is right in defending Pope
against the bastard pelicans of the poetical winter day, who add
insult to their parricide, by sucking the blood of the parent of
English _real_ poetry,--poetry without fault,--and then spurning the
bosom which fed them.
TO THE SAME
_The cemetery at Bologna_
Bologna, 7 _June_, 1819.
. . . I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino
and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the
beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides
the superb burial-ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded me
of the grave-digger in _Hamlet_. He has a collection of capuchins'
skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of them, said,
'This was Brother Desiderio Berro, who died at forty--one of my best
friends. I begged his head of his brethren after his decease, and they
gave it me. I put it in lime, and then boiled it. Here it is, teeth
and all, in excellent preservation. He was the merriest, cleverest
fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went, he brought joy; and whenever any
one was melancholy, the sight of him was enough to make him cheerful
again. He walked so actively, you might have taken him for a
dancer--he joked--he laughed--oh! he was such a Frate as I never saw
before, nor ever shall again! '
He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the
cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead
people; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand persons.
In showing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of
twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a princess Bartorini, dead two
centuries ago: he said that, on opening her grave, they had found
her hair complete, and 'as yellow as gold'. Some of the epitaphs at
Ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at Bologna;
for instance:--
'_Martini Luigi
Implora pace. '
'Lucrezia Picini
Implora eterna quiete_. '
Can anything be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can
be said or sought: the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted
was rest, and this they _implore_! There is all the helplessness,
and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the
grave--'_implora pace_'. I hope, whoever may survive me, and shall
see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the Lido, within the
fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put
over me. I trust they won't think of 'pickling, and bringing me home
to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall'. I am sure my bones would not rest in
an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I
believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose
that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back
to your soil. I would not even feed your worms, if I could help it.
So, as Shakespeare says of Mowbray, the banished Duke of Norfolk, who
died at Venice (see _Richard II_), that he, after fighting
Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens,
And toiled with works of war, retired himself
To Italy, and there, at _Venice_, gave
His body to that _pleasant_ country's earth,
And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.
Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your late, and Mr.
Hobhouse's sheets of _Juan_. Don't wait for further answers from
me, but address yours to Venice, as usual. I know nothing of my own
movements; I may return there in a few days, or not for some time.
All this depends on circumstances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well. . . .
My daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her hair is
growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her temper and her ways, Mr.
Hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make,
in that case, a manageable young lady.
I have never heard anything of Ada, the little Electra of my
Mycenae. . . . But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should
not live to see it. . . . What a long letter I have scribbled!
PS. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a
quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves
at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine.
TO THE SAME
_In rebellious mood_
Bologna, 24 _Aug_. 1819.
I wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for
publication, addressed to the buffoon Roberts, who has thought proper
to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written off-hand, and in the
midst of circumstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that
there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of
small acid punch:--you will tell me. Keep the _anonymous_, in any
case: it helps what fun there may be. But if the matter grow serious
about _Don Juan_, and you feel _yourself_ in a scrape, or _me_ either,
_own that I am the author. I_ will never _shrink_, and if _you_ do,
I can always answer you in the question of Guatimozin to his
minister--each being on his own coals.
I wish that I had been in better spirits; but I am out of sorts, out
of nerves, and now and then (I begin to fear) out of my senses. All
this Italy has done for me, and not England: I defy all you, and your
climate to boot, to make me mad. But if ever I do really become a
Bedlamite, and wear a strait waistcoat, let me be brought back among
you: your people will then be proper company.
I assure you what I here say and feel has nothing to do with England,
either in a literary or personal point of view. All my present
pleasures or plagues are as Italian as the opera. And, after all, they
are but trifles; for all this arises from my 'Dama's' being in the
country for three days (at Capofiume). But as I could never live but
for one human being at a time (and, I assure you, _that one_ has never
been _myself_, as you may know by the consequences, for the _selfish_
are _successful_ in life), I feel alone and unhappy.
I have sent for my daughter from Venice, and I ride daily, and walk in
a garden, under a purple canopy of grapes, and sit by a fountain, and
talk with the gardener of his tools, which seem greater than Adam's,
and with his wife, and with his son's wife, who is the youngest of the
party, and, I think, talks best of the three. Then I revisit the Campo
Santo, and my old friend, the sexton, has two--but _one_ the prettiest
daughter imaginable; and I amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful
and innocent face of fifteen with the skulls with which he has peopled
several cells, and particularly with that of one skull, dated 1766,
which was once covered (the tradition goes) by the most lovely
features of Bologna--noble and rich. When I look at these, and at
this girl--when I think of what _they were_, and what she must be--why
then, my dear Murray, I won't shock you by saying what I think. It is
little matter what becomes of us 'bearded men', but I don't like the
notion of a beautiful woman's lasting less than a beautiful tree--than
her own picture--her own shadow, which won't change so to the sun
as her face to the mirror. I must leave off, for my head aches
consumedly. I have never been quite well since the night of the
representation of Alfieri's _Mirra_, a fortnight ago.
To PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
_A trio of poets_
Ravenna, 26 _April_, 1821.
The child continues doing well, and the accounts are regular and
favourable. It is gratifying to me that you and Mrs. Shelley do not
disapprove of the step which I have taken, which is merely temporary.
I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats--is it _actually_ true?
I did not think criticism had been so killing. Though I differ from
you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor
all unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the
highest peak of Parnassus than have perished in such a manner. Poor
fellow! though with such inordinate self-love he would probably
have not been very happy. I read the review of _Endymion_ in the
_Quarterly_. It was severe,--but surely not so severe as many reviews
in that and other journals upon others.
I recollect the effect on me of the _Edinburgh_ on my first poem;
it was rage, and resistance, and redress--but not despondency nor
despair. I grant that those are not amiable feelings; but, in this
world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing,
a man should calculate upon his powers of _resistance_ before he goes
into the arena.
Expect not life from pain nor danger free,
Nor deem the doom of man reserved for thee.
You know my opinion of _that second-hand_ school of poetry. You
also know my high opinion of your own poetry,--because it is of
_no_ school. I read _Cenci_--but, besides that I think the _subject_
essentially _un_ dramatic, I am not an admirer of our old dramatists,
_as models_. I deny that the English have hitherto had a drama at all.
Your _Cenci_, however, was a work of power, and poetry. As to _my_
drama, pray revenge yourself upon it, by being as free as I have been
with yours.
I have not yet got your _Prometheus_, which I long to see. I have
heard nothing of mine, and do not know that it is yet published. I
have published a pamphlet on the Pope controversy, which you will not
like. Had I known that Keats was dead--or that he was alive and so
sensitive--I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry,
to which I was provoked by his _attack_ upon _Pope_, and my
disapprobation of _his own_ style of writing.
You want me to undertake a great poem--I have not the inclination nor
the power. As I grow older, the indifference--_not_ to life, for we
love it by instinct--but to the stimuli of life, increases. Besides,
this late failure of the Italians has latterly disappointed me for
many reasons,--some public, some personal. My respects to Mrs. S.
PS. Could not you and I contrive to meet this summer? Could not you
take a run here _alone_?
To LADY BYRON
_A plain statement of facts_
Pisa, 17 _Nov_. 1821,
I have to acknowledge the receipt of 'Ada's hair', which is very soft
and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years
old, if I may judge from what I recollect of some in Augusta's
possession, taken at that age. But it don't curl,--perhaps from its
being let grow.
I also thank you for the inscription of the date and name, and I will
tell you why;--I believe that they are the only two or three words of
your handwriting in my possession. For your letters I returned; and
except the two words, or rather the one word, 'Household', written
twice in an old account book, I have no other. I burnt your last
note, for two reasons:--firstly, it was written in a style not
very agreeable; and, secondly, I wished to take your word without
documents, which are the worldly resources of suspicious people.
I suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about Ada's
birthday--the 10th of December, I believe. She will then be six,
so that in about twelve more I shall have some chance of meeting
her;--perhaps sooner, if I am obliged to go to England by business
or otherwise. Recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or
nearness;--every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a
period, rather soften our mutual feelings, which must always have one
rallying-point as long as our child exists, which I presume we both
hope will be long after either of her parents.
The time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably
more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer
one of our prior acquaintance. We both made a bitter mistake; but now
it is over, and irrevocably so. For, at thirty-three on my part, and a
few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life,
still it is one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as
to admit of no modification; and as we could not agree when younger,
we should with difficulty do so now.
I say all this, because I own to you, that, notwithstanding
everything, I considered our reunion as not impossible for more than
a year after the separation;--but then I gave up the hope entirely and
for ever. But this very impossibility of reunion seems to me at least
a reason why, on all the few points of discussion which can arise
between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of
its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve perhaps more
easily than nearer connexions. For my own part, I am violent, but not
malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentments. To
you, who are colder and more concentrated, I would just hint, that
you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a
worse feeling for duty. I assure you that I bear you _now_ (whatever
I may have done) no resentment whatever. Remember, that _if you have
injured me_ in aught, this forgiveness is something; and that, if I
have _injured you_, it is something more still, if it be true, as the
moralists say, that the most offending are the least forgiving.
Whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on
yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things,--viz.
that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet
again. I think if you also consider the two corresponding points with
reference to myself, it will be better for all three.
To MR. BARFF
_Sympathy with the Greeks_
10 _March_, 1824.
Enclosed is an answer to Mr. Parruca's letter, and I hope that you
will assure him from me, that I have done and am doing all I can to
reunite the Greeks with the Greeks.
I am extremely obliged by your offer of your country-house (as for all
other kindness) in case that my health should require my removal; but
I cannot quit Greece while there is a chance of my being of any (even
supposed) utility:--there is a stake worth millions such as I am, and
while I can stand at all, I must stand by the cause. When I say this,
I am at the same time aware of the difficulties and dissensions and
defects of the Greeks themselves; but allowance must be made for them
by all reasonable people.
My chief, indeed _nine-tenths_ of my expenses here are solely in
advances to or on behalf of the Greeks, and objects connected with
their independence.
[_Enclosure, translated_]
To S. R. PARRUCA
10 _March_, 1824.
_Sir_,--I have the honour of answering your letter. My first wish has
always been to bring the Greeks to agree among themselves. I came here
by the invitation of the Greek Government, and I do not think that I
ought to abandon Roumelia for the Peloponnesus until that Government
shall desire it; and the more so, as this part is exposed in a greater
degree to the enemy. Nevertheless, if my presence can really be of any
assistance in uniting two or more parties, I am ready to go anywhere,
either as a mediator, or, if necessary, as a hostage. In these affairs
I have neither private views, nor private dislike of any individual,
but the sincere wish of deserving the name of the friend of your
country, and of her patriots.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 1792-1822
To T. J. HOGG
_His first marriage_
[_No date. Postmark_, Rhayader. Summer of 1811. ]
MY DEAR FRIEND,
You will perhaps see me before you can answer this; perhaps not;
Heaven knows! I shall certainly come to York, but _Harriet Westbrook_
will decide whether now or in three weeks. Her father has persecuted
her in a most horrible way, by endeavouring to compel her to go to
school. She asked my advice: resistance, was the answer, at the same
time that I essayed to mollify Mr. W. in vain! And in consequence of
my advice _she_ has thrown herself upon _my_ protection.
I set off for London on Monday. How flattering a distinction! --I am
thinking of ten million things at once.
What have I said? I declare, quite _ludicrous_. I advised her to
resist. She wrote to say that resistance was useless, but that she
would fly with me, and threw herself upon my protection. We shall have
£200 a year; when we find it run short, we must live, I suppose, upon
love! Gratitude and admiration, all demand that I should love her
_for ever. _ We shall see you at York. I will hear your arguments for
matrimonialism, by which I am now almost convinced. I can get lodgings
at York, I suppose. Direct to me at Graham's, 18, Sackville Street,
Piccadilly.
Your inclosure of £10 has arrived; I am now indebted to you £30.
In spite of philosophy, I am rather ashamed of this unceremonious
exsiccation of your financial river. But indeed, my dear friend, the
gratitude which I owe you for your society and attachment ought so far
to overbalance this consideration as to leave me nothing but that. I
must, however, pay you when I can.
I suspect that the _strain_ is gone for ever. This letter will
convince you that I am not under the influence of a _strain_.
I am thinking at once of ten million things. I shall come to live near
you, as Mr. Peyton.
Ever your most faithful friend.
I shall be at 18, Sackville Street; at least direct there. Do not send
more cash; I shall raise supplies in London.
To WILLIAM GODWIN
_An introduction_
Keswick, 3 _Jan_. 1812.
You will be surprised at hearing from a stranger. No introduction has,
nor in all probability ever will authorize that which common thinkers
would call a liberty; it is, however, a liberty which, although not
sanctioned by custom, is so far from being reprobated by reason, that
the dearest interests of mankind imperiously demand that a certain
etiquette of fashion should no longer keep 'man at a distance from
man', or impose its flimsy fancies between the free communication of
intellect.
The name of Godwin has been used to excite in me feelings of reverence
and admiration. I have been accustomed to consider him a luminary
too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him. From the earliest
period of my knowledge of his principles, I have ardently desired
to share, on the footing of intimacy, that intellect which I have
delighted to contemplate in its emanations.
Considering, then, these feelings, you will not be surprised at the
inconceivable emotions with which I learned your existence and your
dwelling. I had enrolled your name in the list of the honourable dead.
I had felt regret that the glory of your being had passed from this
earth of ours. It is not so; you still live, and, I firmly believe,
are still planning the welfare of human kind.
I have but just entered on the scene of human operations; yet my
feelings and my reasonings correspond with what yours were. My course
has been short, but eventful. I have seen much of human prejudice,
suffered much from human persecution, yet I see no reason hence
inferable which should alter my wishes for their renovation. The
ill-treatment I have met with has more than ever impressed the truth
of my principles on my judgement. I am young, I am ardent in the cause
of philanthropy and truth; do not suppose that this is vanity; I am
not conscious that it influences this portraiture. I imagine myself
dispassionately describing the state of my mind. I am young; you
have gone before me--I doubt not, are a veteran to me in the years of
persecution. Is it strange that, defying prejudice as I have done; I
should outstep the limits of custom's prescription, and endeavour to
make my desire useful by a friendship with William Godwin?
I pray you to answer this letter. Imperfect as may be my capacity,
my desire is ardent and unintermitted. Half an hour would be at least
humanely employed in the experiment. I may mistake your residence;
certain feelings, of which I may be an inadequate arbiter, may induce
you to desire concealment; I may not, in fine, have an answer to this
letter. If I do not, when I come to London, I shall seek for you. I am
convinced I could represent myself to you in such terms as not to be
thought wholly unworthy of your friendship; at least, if desire for
universal happiness has any claim upon your preference, that desire I
can exhibit. Adieu! I shall earnestly await your answer.
To THOMAS HOOKHAM
_A subscription for Hunt_
_February_ 1813.
MY DEAR SIR,
I am boiling with indignation at the horrible injustice and tyranny
of the sentence pronounced on Hunt and his brother; and it is on this
subject that I write to you. Surely the seal of abjectness and slavery
is indelibly stamped upon the character of England.
Although I do not retract in the slightest degree my wish for a
subscription for the widows and children of those poor men hung at
York, yet this £1000 which the Hunts are sentenced to pay is an affair
of more consequence. Hunt is a brave, a good, and an enlightened man.
Surely the public, for whom Hunt has done so much, will repay in part
the great debt of obligation which they owe the champion of their
liberties and virtues; or are they dead, cold, stone-hearted, and
insensible--brutalized by centuries of unremitting bondage?
However that may be, they surely may be excited into some slight
acknowledgement of his merits. Whilst hundreds of thousands are sent
to the tyrants of Russia, he pines in a dungeon, far from all that can
make life desired.
Well, I am rather poor at present; but I have £20 which is not
immediately wanted. Pray, begin a subscription for the Hunts; put down
my name for that sum, and, when I hear that you have complied with my
request, I will send it you. Now, if there are any difficulties in
the way of this scheme of ours, for the love of liberty and virtue,
overcome them. Oh! that I might wallow for one night in the Bank of
England!
_Queen Mab_ is finished and transcribed. I am now preparing the notes,
which shall be long and philosophical. You will receive it with the
other poems. I think that the whole should form one volume; but of
that we can speak hereafter.
As to the French _Encyclopédie_, it is a book which I am
desirous--very desirous--of possessing, and if you could get me a few
months' credit (being at present rather low in cash), I should very
much desire to have it.
My dear sir, excuse the earnestness of the first part of my letter. I
feel warmly on this subject, and I flatter myself that so long as your
own independence and liberty remain uncompromised, you are inclined to
second my desires.
PS. If no other way can be devised for this subscription, will you
take the trouble on yourself of writing an appropriate advertisement
for the papers, inserting, by way of stimulant, my subscription?
On second thoughts, I enclose the £20.
To MR. OLLIER
_An article by Southey_
Florence, 15 _Oct_. 1819.
DEAR SIR,
The droll remarks of the _Quarterly_, and Hunt's kind defence, arrived
as safe as such poison, and safer than such an antidote, usually do.
I am on the point of sending to you 250 copies of a work which I have
printed in Italy; which you will have to pay four or five pounds duty
upon, on my account. Hunt will tell you the _kind of thing_ it is,
and in the course of the winter I shall send directions for its
publication, _until the arrival of which directions, I request that
you would have the kindness not_ to open the box, _or, if by necessity
it is opened, to abstain from observing yourself or permitting others
to observe, what it contains_. I trust this confidently to you, it
being of consequence. Meanwhile, assure yourself that this work has no
reference, direct or indirect, to politics, or religion, or personal
satire, and that this precaution is merely literary.
The _Prometheus_, a poem in my best style, whatever that may amount
to, will arrive with it, but in MS. , which you can print and publish
in the season. It is the most perfect of my productions.
Southey wrote the article in question, I am well aware. Observe the
impudence of the man in speaking of himself. The only remark worth
notice in this piece is the assertion that I imitate Wordsworth.
It may as well be said that Lord Byron imitates Wordsworth, or that
Wordsworth imitates Lord Byron, both being great poets, and deriving
from the new springs of thought and feeling, which the great events
of our age have exposed to view, a similar tone of sentiment, imagery,
and expression. A certain similarity all the best writers of any
particular age inevitably are marked with, from the spirit of that age
acting on all. This I had explained in my _Preface_, which the
writer was too disingenuous to advert to. As to the other trash, and
particularly that lame attack on my personal character, which was
meant so ill, and which I am not the man to feel, 'tis all nothing. I
am glad, with respect to that part of it which alludes to Hunt, that
it should so have happened that I dedicate, as you will see, a work
which has all the capacities for being popular to that excellent
person. I was amused, too, with the finale; it is like the end of the
first act of an opera, when that tremendous concordant discord sets
up from the orchestra, and everybody talks and sings at once. It
describes the result of my battle with their Omnipotent God; his
pulling me under the sea by the hair of my head, like Pharaoh; my
calling out like the devil who was _game_ to the last; swearing and
cursing in all comic and horrid oaths, like a French postilion on
Mount Cenis; entreating everybody to drown themselves; pretending not
to be drowned myself when I _am_ drowned; and lastly, _being_ drowned.
You would do me a particular kindness if you would call on Hunt, and
ask him when my parcel went, the name of the ship, and the name of the
captain, and whether he has any bill of lading, which, if he has, you
would oblige me by sending, together with the rest of the information,
by return of post, addressed to the Post Office, Florence.
To MRS. HUNT
_Keats and some others_
[Pisa] 11 _Nov_. 1820.
MY BEST MARIANNE,
I am delighted to hear that you complain of me for not writing to you,
although I have much more reason to complain of you for not writing to
me. At least it promises me a letter from you, and you know with what
pleasure we receive, and with what anxiety we expect intelligence from
you--almost the only friends who now remain to us.
I am afraid that the strict system of expense to which you are limited
annoys you all very much, and that Hunt's health suffers both from
that and from the incredible exertions which I see by the _Indicators_
and the _Examiners_ that he is making. Would to Heaven that I had the
power of doing you some good! but when you are sure that the wish is
sincere, the bare expression of it may help to cheer you.
The Gisbornes are arrived, and have brought news of you, and some
books, the principal part of which, however, are yet to arrive by
sea. Keats's new volume has arrived to us, and the fragment called
_Hyperion_ promises for him that he is destined to become one of the
first writers of the age. His other things are imperfect enough, and,
what is worse, written in the bad sort of style which is becoming
fashionable among those who fancy that they are imitating Hunt and
Wordsworth. But of all these things nothing is worse than ----, in
spite of Hunt's extracting the only good stanzas, with his usual good
nature. Indeed, _I_ ought not to complain of Hunt's good nature, for
no one owes so much to it. Is not the vulgarity of these wretched
imitations of Lord Byron carried to a pitch of the sublime? His
indecencies, too, both against sexual nature, and against human
nature in general, sit very awkwardly upon him. He only affects the
libertine: he is, really, a very amiable, friendly, and agreeable
man, I hear. But is not this monstrous? In Lord Byron all this has
an analogy with the general system of his character, and the wit and
poetry which surround hide with their light the darkness of the thing
itself. They contradict it even; they prove that the strength and
beauty of human nature can survive and conquer all that appears most
inconsistent with it. But for a writer to be at once filthy and dull
is a crime against gods, men, and columns. For Heaven's sake do not
show this to any one but Hunt, for it would irritate the wasp's nest
of the irritable race of poets.
Where is Keats now? I am anxiously expecting him in Italy, when I
shall take care to bestow every possible attention on him. I consider
his a most valuable life, and I am deeply interested in his safety. I
intend to be the physician both of his body and his soul, to keep
the one warm, and to teach the other Greek and Spanish. I am aware,
indeed, in part, that I am nourishing a rival who will far surpass me;
and this is an additional motive, and will be an added pleasure.
We are at this moment removing from the Bagni to Pisa, for the Serchio
has broken its banks, and all the country about is under water. An old
friend and fellow-townsman of mine, Captain Medwin, is on a visit to
us at present, and we anxiously expect Keats, to whom I would write if
I knew where to address.
Adieu, my dear Marianne. Write soon; kiss all the babes for me, and
tell me news of them, and give my love to Bessy and Hunt.
To LEIGH HUNT
_A literary collaboration_
Pisa, 26 _Aug. _ 1821.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,
Since I last wrote to you, I have been on a visit to Lord Byron at
Ravenna. The result of this visit was a determination, on his part, to
come and live at Pisa; and I have taken the finest palace on the Lung'
Arno for him. But the material part of my visit consists in a message
which he desires me to give you, and which, I think, ought to add
to your determination--for such a one I hope you have formed--of
restoring your shattered health and spirits by a migration to these
'regions mild of calm and serene air'.
He proposes that you should come out and go shares with him and me,
in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of the
contracting parties should publish all their original compositions and
share the profits. He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason it was
never brought to bear.
avoiding the imprisonment by the help of Perry's offer of the famous
secret 'Book'; and I further declined (as I think I also told you)
to avail myself of an offer on the part of a royal agent (made, of
course, in the guarded, though obvious manner in which such offers are
conveyed), to drop the prosecution, provided we would agree to
drop all future hostile mention of the Regent. But of this, too,
governments could not be expected to take notice--perhaps would regard
it as an addition to the offence. This, however, I must add, that the
whole attack on the Regent was owing, not merely to the nonsense of
the _Post_, but to his violation of those promises of conceding the
Catholic claims, to which his princely word stood pledged. The subject
of the article was the '_Dinner on St. Patrick's day_'. All the Whig
world was indignant at that violation; so were the Irish, of course,
_vehemently_; and it was on the spur of this publicly indignant
movement that I wrote what I did,--as angrily and as much in earnest
in the serious part of what I said as I was derisive in the rest.
I did not care for any factious object, nor was I what is called
anti-monarchical. I didn't know Cobbett, or Henry Hunt, or any
demagogue, _even by sight_, except Sir Francis Burdett, and him
by sight alone. Nor did I ever see, or speak a word with them,
afterwards. I knew nothing, in fact, of politics themselves, except in
some of those large and, as it appeared to me, obvious phases, which,
at all events, _have since become obvious to most people_, and in
fighting for which (if a man can be said to fight for a 'phase'! ) I
suffered all that Tories could inflict upon me,--by expenses in law
and calumnies in literature;--reform, Catholic claims, free
trade, abolition of flogging, right of free speech, as opposed by
attorneys-general. I was, in fact, all the while nothing but a poetic
student, appearing in politics once a week, but given up entirely to
letters almost all the rest of it, and loving nothing so much as a
book and a walk in the fields. I was precisely the sort of person, in
these respects, which I am at this moment. As to George the Fourth, I
aided, years afterwards, in publicly wishing him well--'years having
brought the philosophic mind'. I believe I even expressed regret at
not having given him the excuses due to all human beings (the passage,
I take it, is in the book which Colburn called _Lord Byron and his
Contemporaries_); _and when I consider that Moore has been pensioned,
not only in spite of all his libels on him, but perhaps by very reason
of their Whig partisanship, I should think it hard to be refused a
pension purely because I openly suffered for what I had earnestly
said_. I knew George the Fourth's physician, Sir William Knighton,
who had been mine before I was imprisoned (it was _not_ he who was the
royal agent alluded to); and, if my memory does not deceive me, Sir
William told me that George had been gratified by the book above
mentioned. Perhaps he had found out, by Sir William's help, that I was
not an ill-natured man, or one who could not outlive what was
mistaken in himself or resentful in others. As to my opinions about
Governments, the bad conduct of the Allies, and of Napoleon, and the
old Bourbons, certainly made them waver as to what might be ultimately
best, monarchy or republicanism; but they ended in favour of their
old predilections; and no man, for a long while, has been less a
republican than myself, monarchies and courts appearing to me salutary
for the good and graces of mankind, and Americanisms anything but
either. But nobody, I conceive, that knew my writings, or heard of me
truly from others, ever took me for a republican. William the Fourth
saw or heard nothing of me to hinder his letting Lord Melbourne give
me £200 out of the Royal Fund. Queen Victoria gave me another,
through the same kind friend. She also went twice to see my play; and
everybody knows how I praise and love her. _I do not think, therefore,
in reference to the pension, that the public would care twopence about
George the Fourth, one way or the other; or that if any remembered the
case at all, they would connect the pension in the least with anything
about him, but attribute it solely to the Queen's and Minister's
goodness, and the wants of a sincere and not undeserving man of
letters, distinguished for his loyal attachment_. I certainly think
the £500 fine ought not to have been taken out of my pocket, or the
other two £125 either; and I think also, that a liberal Whig minister
might reasonably and _privately_ think some compensation on those
accounts due to me. _I have been fighting his own fight from first to
last, and helping to prepare matters for his triumph_. But still the
above, in my opinion, is what the public would think of the matter,
_and my friends of the press could lay it entirely to the literary
account_.
GEORGE GORDON NOEL,
LORD BYRON
1788-1824
To MR. HODGSON
_Travel in Portugal_
Lisbon, 16 _July_, 1809.
Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of marvellous
sights, palaces, convents, &c. ,--which, being to be heard in my friend
Hobhouse's forthcoming Book of Travels, I shall not anticipate by
smuggling any account whatsoever to you in a private and clandestine
manner. I must just observe, that the village of Cintra in Estremadura
is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world.
I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, and talks bad Latin
to the monks, who understand it, as it is like their own,--and I goes
into society (with my pocket pistols), and I swims in the Tagus
all across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears
Portuguese, and have got bites from the mosquitoes. But what of that?
Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a-pleasuring.
When the Portuguese are pertinacious, I say '_Carracho_! '--the
great oath of the grandees, that very well supplies the place of
'Damme! '--and when dissatisfied with my neighbour, I pronounce
him '_Ambra di merdo_'. With these two phrases, and a third,'_Avra
bouro_', which signifieth 'Get an ass', I am universally understood to
be a person of degree and a master of languages. How merrily we
lives that travellers be! --if we had food and raiment. But, in sober
sadness, anything is better than England, and I am infinitely amused
with my pilgrimage, as far as it has gone.
To-morrow we start to ride post near 400 miles as far as Gibraltar,
where we embark for Melita and Byzantium. A letter to Malta will find
me, or to be forwarded, if I am absent. Pray embrace the Drury and
Dwyer, and all the Ephesians you encounter. I am writing with Butler's
donative pencil, which makes my bad hand worse. Excuse illegibility.
Hodgson! send me the news, and the deaths and defeats and capital
crimes and the misfortunes of one's friends; and let us hear of
literary matters, and the controversies and the criticisms. All this
will be pleasant--'_Suave mari magno_, &c. ' Talking of that, I have
been sea-sick, and sick of the sea. Adieu.
TO THOMAS MOORE
_Announces his engagement_
Newstead Abbey, 20 _Sept. _ 1814.
Here's to her who long
Hath waked the poet's sigh!
The girl who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
MY DEAR MOORE,
I am going to be married--that is, I am accepted, and one usually
hopes the rest will follow. My mother of the Gracchi (that _are_ to
be), _you_ think too strait-laced for me, although the paragon of only
children, and invested with 'golden opinions of all sorts of men', and
full of 'most blest conditions' as Desdemona herself. Miss Milbanke
is the lady, and I have her father's invitation to proceed there in my
elect capacity,--which, however, I cannot do until I have settled some
business in London, and got a blue coat.
She is said to be an heiress, but of that I really know nothing
certainly, and shall not inquire. But I do know, that she has talents
and excellent qualities; and you will not deny her judgement, after
having refused six suitors and taken me.
Now, if you have anything to say against this, pray do; my mind's
made up, positively fixed, determined, and therefore I will listen to
reason, because now it can do no harm. Things may occur to break it
off, but I will hope not. In the meantime I tell you (a _secret_, by
the by,--at least till I know she wishes it to be public) that I have
proposed and am accepted. You need not be in a hurry to wish me joy,
for one mayn't be married for months. I am going to town to-morrow,
but expect to be here, on my way there, within a fortnight.
If this had not happened, I should have gone to Italy. In my way down,
perhaps you will meet me at Nottingham, and come over with me here.
I need not say that nothing will give me greater pleasure. I must, of
course, reform thoroughly; and, seriously, if I can contribute to
her happiness, I shall secure my own. She is so good a person
that--that--in short, I wish I was a better.
TO JOHN MURRAY
_No bid for sweet voices_
Venice, 6 _April_, 1819.
The second canto of Don Juan was sent, on Saturday last, by post, in
four packets, two of four, and two of three sheets each, containing
in all two hundred and seventeen stanzas, octave measure. But I will
permit no curtailments. . . . You shan't make _canticles_ of my cantos.
The poem will please, if it is lively; if it is stupid, it will fail;
but I will have none of your damned cutting and slashing. If you
please, you may publish _anonymously_; it will perhaps be better; but
I will battle my way against them all, like a porcupine.
So you and Mr. Foscolo, etc. , want me to undertake what you call a
'great work'? an Epic Poem, I suppose or some such pyramid. I'll try
no such thing; I hate tasks. And then 'seven or eight years'! God send
us all well this day three months, let alone years. If one's years
can't be better employed than in sweating poesy, a man had better be a
ditcher. And works, too! --is _Childe Harold_ nothing? You have so many
'_divine_' poems, is it nothing to have written a _human_ one? without
any of your worn-out machinery. Why, man, I could have spun the
thoughts of the four cantos of that poem into twenty, had I wanted to
book-make, and its passion into as many modern tragedies. Since you
want _length_, you shall have enough of _Juan_, for I'll make fifty
cantos. . . .
Besides, I mean to write my best work in _Italian_, and it will take
me nine years more thoroughly to master the language; and then if my
fancy exist, and I exist too, I will try what I _can_ do _really_. As
to the estimation of the English which you talk of, let them
calculate what it is worth, before they insult me with their insolent
condescension.
I have not written for their pleasure. If they are pleased, it is that
they chose to be so; I have never flattered their opinions, nor their
pride; nor will I. Neither will I make 'Ladies' books' '_al dilettar
le femine e la plebe_'. I have written from the fullness of my mind,
from passion, from impulse, from many motives, but not for their
'sweet voices'.
I know the precise worth of popular applause, for few scribblers have
had more of it; and if I chose to swerve into their paths, I could
retain it, or resume it. But I neither love ye, nor fear ye; and
though I buy with ye and sell with ye, and talk with ye, I will
neither eat with ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye. They made me,
without my search, a species of popular idol; they, without reason or
judgement, beyond the caprice of their good pleasure, threw down the
image from its pedestal; it was not broken with the fall, and they
would, it seems, again replace it,--but they shall not.
You ask about my health: about the beginning of the year I was in a
state of great exhaustion . . . and I was obliged to reform my 'way of
life', which was conducting me from the 'yellow leaf' to the ground,
with all deliberate speed. I am better in health and morals, and very
much yours, &c. --
PS. I have read Hodgson's '_Friends_'. He is right in defending Pope
against the bastard pelicans of the poetical winter day, who add
insult to their parricide, by sucking the blood of the parent of
English _real_ poetry,--poetry without fault,--and then spurning the
bosom which fed them.
TO THE SAME
_The cemetery at Bologna_
Bologna, 7 _June_, 1819.
. . . I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino
and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the
beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides
the superb burial-ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded me
of the grave-digger in _Hamlet_. He has a collection of capuchins'
skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of them, said,
'This was Brother Desiderio Berro, who died at forty--one of my best
friends. I begged his head of his brethren after his decease, and they
gave it me. I put it in lime, and then boiled it. Here it is, teeth
and all, in excellent preservation. He was the merriest, cleverest
fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went, he brought joy; and whenever any
one was melancholy, the sight of him was enough to make him cheerful
again. He walked so actively, you might have taken him for a
dancer--he joked--he laughed--oh! he was such a Frate as I never saw
before, nor ever shall again! '
He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the
cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead
people; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand persons.
In showing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of
twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a princess Bartorini, dead two
centuries ago: he said that, on opening her grave, they had found
her hair complete, and 'as yellow as gold'. Some of the epitaphs at
Ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at Bologna;
for instance:--
'_Martini Luigi
Implora pace. '
'Lucrezia Picini
Implora eterna quiete_. '
Can anything be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can
be said or sought: the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted
was rest, and this they _implore_! There is all the helplessness,
and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the
grave--'_implora pace_'. I hope, whoever may survive me, and shall
see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the Lido, within the
fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put
over me. I trust they won't think of 'pickling, and bringing me home
to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall'. I am sure my bones would not rest in
an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I
believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose
that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back
to your soil. I would not even feed your worms, if I could help it.
So, as Shakespeare says of Mowbray, the banished Duke of Norfolk, who
died at Venice (see _Richard II_), that he, after fighting
Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens,
And toiled with works of war, retired himself
To Italy, and there, at _Venice_, gave
His body to that _pleasant_ country's earth,
And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.
Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your late, and Mr.
Hobhouse's sheets of _Juan_. Don't wait for further answers from
me, but address yours to Venice, as usual. I know nothing of my own
movements; I may return there in a few days, or not for some time.
All this depends on circumstances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well. . . .
My daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her hair is
growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her temper and her ways, Mr.
Hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make,
in that case, a manageable young lady.
I have never heard anything of Ada, the little Electra of my
Mycenae. . . . But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should
not live to see it. . . . What a long letter I have scribbled!
PS. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a
quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves
at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine.
TO THE SAME
_In rebellious mood_
Bologna, 24 _Aug_. 1819.
I wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for
publication, addressed to the buffoon Roberts, who has thought proper
to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written off-hand, and in the
midst of circumstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that
there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of
small acid punch:--you will tell me. Keep the _anonymous_, in any
case: it helps what fun there may be. But if the matter grow serious
about _Don Juan_, and you feel _yourself_ in a scrape, or _me_ either,
_own that I am the author. I_ will never _shrink_, and if _you_ do,
I can always answer you in the question of Guatimozin to his
minister--each being on his own coals.
I wish that I had been in better spirits; but I am out of sorts, out
of nerves, and now and then (I begin to fear) out of my senses. All
this Italy has done for me, and not England: I defy all you, and your
climate to boot, to make me mad. But if ever I do really become a
Bedlamite, and wear a strait waistcoat, let me be brought back among
you: your people will then be proper company.
I assure you what I here say and feel has nothing to do with England,
either in a literary or personal point of view. All my present
pleasures or plagues are as Italian as the opera. And, after all, they
are but trifles; for all this arises from my 'Dama's' being in the
country for three days (at Capofiume). But as I could never live but
for one human being at a time (and, I assure you, _that one_ has never
been _myself_, as you may know by the consequences, for the _selfish_
are _successful_ in life), I feel alone and unhappy.
I have sent for my daughter from Venice, and I ride daily, and walk in
a garden, under a purple canopy of grapes, and sit by a fountain, and
talk with the gardener of his tools, which seem greater than Adam's,
and with his wife, and with his son's wife, who is the youngest of the
party, and, I think, talks best of the three. Then I revisit the Campo
Santo, and my old friend, the sexton, has two--but _one_ the prettiest
daughter imaginable; and I amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful
and innocent face of fifteen with the skulls with which he has peopled
several cells, and particularly with that of one skull, dated 1766,
which was once covered (the tradition goes) by the most lovely
features of Bologna--noble and rich. When I look at these, and at
this girl--when I think of what _they were_, and what she must be--why
then, my dear Murray, I won't shock you by saying what I think. It is
little matter what becomes of us 'bearded men', but I don't like the
notion of a beautiful woman's lasting less than a beautiful tree--than
her own picture--her own shadow, which won't change so to the sun
as her face to the mirror. I must leave off, for my head aches
consumedly. I have never been quite well since the night of the
representation of Alfieri's _Mirra_, a fortnight ago.
To PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
_A trio of poets_
Ravenna, 26 _April_, 1821.
The child continues doing well, and the accounts are regular and
favourable. It is gratifying to me that you and Mrs. Shelley do not
disapprove of the step which I have taken, which is merely temporary.
I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats--is it _actually_ true?
I did not think criticism had been so killing. Though I differ from
you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor
all unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the
highest peak of Parnassus than have perished in such a manner. Poor
fellow! though with such inordinate self-love he would probably
have not been very happy. I read the review of _Endymion_ in the
_Quarterly_. It was severe,--but surely not so severe as many reviews
in that and other journals upon others.
I recollect the effect on me of the _Edinburgh_ on my first poem;
it was rage, and resistance, and redress--but not despondency nor
despair. I grant that those are not amiable feelings; but, in this
world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing,
a man should calculate upon his powers of _resistance_ before he goes
into the arena.
Expect not life from pain nor danger free,
Nor deem the doom of man reserved for thee.
You know my opinion of _that second-hand_ school of poetry. You
also know my high opinion of your own poetry,--because it is of
_no_ school. I read _Cenci_--but, besides that I think the _subject_
essentially _un_ dramatic, I am not an admirer of our old dramatists,
_as models_. I deny that the English have hitherto had a drama at all.
Your _Cenci_, however, was a work of power, and poetry. As to _my_
drama, pray revenge yourself upon it, by being as free as I have been
with yours.
I have not yet got your _Prometheus_, which I long to see. I have
heard nothing of mine, and do not know that it is yet published. I
have published a pamphlet on the Pope controversy, which you will not
like. Had I known that Keats was dead--or that he was alive and so
sensitive--I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry,
to which I was provoked by his _attack_ upon _Pope_, and my
disapprobation of _his own_ style of writing.
You want me to undertake a great poem--I have not the inclination nor
the power. As I grow older, the indifference--_not_ to life, for we
love it by instinct--but to the stimuli of life, increases. Besides,
this late failure of the Italians has latterly disappointed me for
many reasons,--some public, some personal. My respects to Mrs. S.
PS. Could not you and I contrive to meet this summer? Could not you
take a run here _alone_?
To LADY BYRON
_A plain statement of facts_
Pisa, 17 _Nov_. 1821,
I have to acknowledge the receipt of 'Ada's hair', which is very soft
and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years
old, if I may judge from what I recollect of some in Augusta's
possession, taken at that age. But it don't curl,--perhaps from its
being let grow.
I also thank you for the inscription of the date and name, and I will
tell you why;--I believe that they are the only two or three words of
your handwriting in my possession. For your letters I returned; and
except the two words, or rather the one word, 'Household', written
twice in an old account book, I have no other. I burnt your last
note, for two reasons:--firstly, it was written in a style not
very agreeable; and, secondly, I wished to take your word without
documents, which are the worldly resources of suspicious people.
I suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about Ada's
birthday--the 10th of December, I believe. She will then be six,
so that in about twelve more I shall have some chance of meeting
her;--perhaps sooner, if I am obliged to go to England by business
or otherwise. Recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or
nearness;--every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a
period, rather soften our mutual feelings, which must always have one
rallying-point as long as our child exists, which I presume we both
hope will be long after either of her parents.
The time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably
more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer
one of our prior acquaintance. We both made a bitter mistake; but now
it is over, and irrevocably so. For, at thirty-three on my part, and a
few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life,
still it is one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as
to admit of no modification; and as we could not agree when younger,
we should with difficulty do so now.
I say all this, because I own to you, that, notwithstanding
everything, I considered our reunion as not impossible for more than
a year after the separation;--but then I gave up the hope entirely and
for ever. But this very impossibility of reunion seems to me at least
a reason why, on all the few points of discussion which can arise
between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of
its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve perhaps more
easily than nearer connexions. For my own part, I am violent, but not
malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentments. To
you, who are colder and more concentrated, I would just hint, that
you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a
worse feeling for duty. I assure you that I bear you _now_ (whatever
I may have done) no resentment whatever. Remember, that _if you have
injured me_ in aught, this forgiveness is something; and that, if I
have _injured you_, it is something more still, if it be true, as the
moralists say, that the most offending are the least forgiving.
Whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on
yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things,--viz.
that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet
again. I think if you also consider the two corresponding points with
reference to myself, it will be better for all three.
To MR. BARFF
_Sympathy with the Greeks_
10 _March_, 1824.
Enclosed is an answer to Mr. Parruca's letter, and I hope that you
will assure him from me, that I have done and am doing all I can to
reunite the Greeks with the Greeks.
I am extremely obliged by your offer of your country-house (as for all
other kindness) in case that my health should require my removal; but
I cannot quit Greece while there is a chance of my being of any (even
supposed) utility:--there is a stake worth millions such as I am, and
while I can stand at all, I must stand by the cause. When I say this,
I am at the same time aware of the difficulties and dissensions and
defects of the Greeks themselves; but allowance must be made for them
by all reasonable people.
My chief, indeed _nine-tenths_ of my expenses here are solely in
advances to or on behalf of the Greeks, and objects connected with
their independence.
[_Enclosure, translated_]
To S. R. PARRUCA
10 _March_, 1824.
_Sir_,--I have the honour of answering your letter. My first wish has
always been to bring the Greeks to agree among themselves. I came here
by the invitation of the Greek Government, and I do not think that I
ought to abandon Roumelia for the Peloponnesus until that Government
shall desire it; and the more so, as this part is exposed in a greater
degree to the enemy. Nevertheless, if my presence can really be of any
assistance in uniting two or more parties, I am ready to go anywhere,
either as a mediator, or, if necessary, as a hostage. In these affairs
I have neither private views, nor private dislike of any individual,
but the sincere wish of deserving the name of the friend of your
country, and of her patriots.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 1792-1822
To T. J. HOGG
_His first marriage_
[_No date. Postmark_, Rhayader. Summer of 1811. ]
MY DEAR FRIEND,
You will perhaps see me before you can answer this; perhaps not;
Heaven knows! I shall certainly come to York, but _Harriet Westbrook_
will decide whether now or in three weeks. Her father has persecuted
her in a most horrible way, by endeavouring to compel her to go to
school. She asked my advice: resistance, was the answer, at the same
time that I essayed to mollify Mr. W. in vain! And in consequence of
my advice _she_ has thrown herself upon _my_ protection.
I set off for London on Monday. How flattering a distinction! --I am
thinking of ten million things at once.
What have I said? I declare, quite _ludicrous_. I advised her to
resist. She wrote to say that resistance was useless, but that she
would fly with me, and threw herself upon my protection. We shall have
£200 a year; when we find it run short, we must live, I suppose, upon
love! Gratitude and admiration, all demand that I should love her
_for ever. _ We shall see you at York. I will hear your arguments for
matrimonialism, by which I am now almost convinced. I can get lodgings
at York, I suppose. Direct to me at Graham's, 18, Sackville Street,
Piccadilly.
Your inclosure of £10 has arrived; I am now indebted to you £30.
In spite of philosophy, I am rather ashamed of this unceremonious
exsiccation of your financial river. But indeed, my dear friend, the
gratitude which I owe you for your society and attachment ought so far
to overbalance this consideration as to leave me nothing but that. I
must, however, pay you when I can.
I suspect that the _strain_ is gone for ever. This letter will
convince you that I am not under the influence of a _strain_.
I am thinking at once of ten million things. I shall come to live near
you, as Mr. Peyton.
Ever your most faithful friend.
I shall be at 18, Sackville Street; at least direct there. Do not send
more cash; I shall raise supplies in London.
To WILLIAM GODWIN
_An introduction_
Keswick, 3 _Jan_. 1812.
You will be surprised at hearing from a stranger. No introduction has,
nor in all probability ever will authorize that which common thinkers
would call a liberty; it is, however, a liberty which, although not
sanctioned by custom, is so far from being reprobated by reason, that
the dearest interests of mankind imperiously demand that a certain
etiquette of fashion should no longer keep 'man at a distance from
man', or impose its flimsy fancies between the free communication of
intellect.
The name of Godwin has been used to excite in me feelings of reverence
and admiration. I have been accustomed to consider him a luminary
too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him. From the earliest
period of my knowledge of his principles, I have ardently desired
to share, on the footing of intimacy, that intellect which I have
delighted to contemplate in its emanations.
Considering, then, these feelings, you will not be surprised at the
inconceivable emotions with which I learned your existence and your
dwelling. I had enrolled your name in the list of the honourable dead.
I had felt regret that the glory of your being had passed from this
earth of ours. It is not so; you still live, and, I firmly believe,
are still planning the welfare of human kind.
I have but just entered on the scene of human operations; yet my
feelings and my reasonings correspond with what yours were. My course
has been short, but eventful. I have seen much of human prejudice,
suffered much from human persecution, yet I see no reason hence
inferable which should alter my wishes for their renovation. The
ill-treatment I have met with has more than ever impressed the truth
of my principles on my judgement. I am young, I am ardent in the cause
of philanthropy and truth; do not suppose that this is vanity; I am
not conscious that it influences this portraiture. I imagine myself
dispassionately describing the state of my mind. I am young; you
have gone before me--I doubt not, are a veteran to me in the years of
persecution. Is it strange that, defying prejudice as I have done; I
should outstep the limits of custom's prescription, and endeavour to
make my desire useful by a friendship with William Godwin?
I pray you to answer this letter. Imperfect as may be my capacity,
my desire is ardent and unintermitted. Half an hour would be at least
humanely employed in the experiment. I may mistake your residence;
certain feelings, of which I may be an inadequate arbiter, may induce
you to desire concealment; I may not, in fine, have an answer to this
letter. If I do not, when I come to London, I shall seek for you. I am
convinced I could represent myself to you in such terms as not to be
thought wholly unworthy of your friendship; at least, if desire for
universal happiness has any claim upon your preference, that desire I
can exhibit. Adieu! I shall earnestly await your answer.
To THOMAS HOOKHAM
_A subscription for Hunt_
_February_ 1813.
MY DEAR SIR,
I am boiling with indignation at the horrible injustice and tyranny
of the sentence pronounced on Hunt and his brother; and it is on this
subject that I write to you. Surely the seal of abjectness and slavery
is indelibly stamped upon the character of England.
Although I do not retract in the slightest degree my wish for a
subscription for the widows and children of those poor men hung at
York, yet this £1000 which the Hunts are sentenced to pay is an affair
of more consequence. Hunt is a brave, a good, and an enlightened man.
Surely the public, for whom Hunt has done so much, will repay in part
the great debt of obligation which they owe the champion of their
liberties and virtues; or are they dead, cold, stone-hearted, and
insensible--brutalized by centuries of unremitting bondage?
However that may be, they surely may be excited into some slight
acknowledgement of his merits. Whilst hundreds of thousands are sent
to the tyrants of Russia, he pines in a dungeon, far from all that can
make life desired.
Well, I am rather poor at present; but I have £20 which is not
immediately wanted. Pray, begin a subscription for the Hunts; put down
my name for that sum, and, when I hear that you have complied with my
request, I will send it you. Now, if there are any difficulties in
the way of this scheme of ours, for the love of liberty and virtue,
overcome them. Oh! that I might wallow for one night in the Bank of
England!
_Queen Mab_ is finished and transcribed. I am now preparing the notes,
which shall be long and philosophical. You will receive it with the
other poems. I think that the whole should form one volume; but of
that we can speak hereafter.
As to the French _Encyclopédie_, it is a book which I am
desirous--very desirous--of possessing, and if you could get me a few
months' credit (being at present rather low in cash), I should very
much desire to have it.
My dear sir, excuse the earnestness of the first part of my letter. I
feel warmly on this subject, and I flatter myself that so long as your
own independence and liberty remain uncompromised, you are inclined to
second my desires.
PS. If no other way can be devised for this subscription, will you
take the trouble on yourself of writing an appropriate advertisement
for the papers, inserting, by way of stimulant, my subscription?
On second thoughts, I enclose the £20.
To MR. OLLIER
_An article by Southey_
Florence, 15 _Oct_. 1819.
DEAR SIR,
The droll remarks of the _Quarterly_, and Hunt's kind defence, arrived
as safe as such poison, and safer than such an antidote, usually do.
I am on the point of sending to you 250 copies of a work which I have
printed in Italy; which you will have to pay four or five pounds duty
upon, on my account. Hunt will tell you the _kind of thing_ it is,
and in the course of the winter I shall send directions for its
publication, _until the arrival of which directions, I request that
you would have the kindness not_ to open the box, _or, if by necessity
it is opened, to abstain from observing yourself or permitting others
to observe, what it contains_. I trust this confidently to you, it
being of consequence. Meanwhile, assure yourself that this work has no
reference, direct or indirect, to politics, or religion, or personal
satire, and that this precaution is merely literary.
The _Prometheus_, a poem in my best style, whatever that may amount
to, will arrive with it, but in MS. , which you can print and publish
in the season. It is the most perfect of my productions.
Southey wrote the article in question, I am well aware. Observe the
impudence of the man in speaking of himself. The only remark worth
notice in this piece is the assertion that I imitate Wordsworth.
It may as well be said that Lord Byron imitates Wordsworth, or that
Wordsworth imitates Lord Byron, both being great poets, and deriving
from the new springs of thought and feeling, which the great events
of our age have exposed to view, a similar tone of sentiment, imagery,
and expression. A certain similarity all the best writers of any
particular age inevitably are marked with, from the spirit of that age
acting on all. This I had explained in my _Preface_, which the
writer was too disingenuous to advert to. As to the other trash, and
particularly that lame attack on my personal character, which was
meant so ill, and which I am not the man to feel, 'tis all nothing. I
am glad, with respect to that part of it which alludes to Hunt, that
it should so have happened that I dedicate, as you will see, a work
which has all the capacities for being popular to that excellent
person. I was amused, too, with the finale; it is like the end of the
first act of an opera, when that tremendous concordant discord sets
up from the orchestra, and everybody talks and sings at once. It
describes the result of my battle with their Omnipotent God; his
pulling me under the sea by the hair of my head, like Pharaoh; my
calling out like the devil who was _game_ to the last; swearing and
cursing in all comic and horrid oaths, like a French postilion on
Mount Cenis; entreating everybody to drown themselves; pretending not
to be drowned myself when I _am_ drowned; and lastly, _being_ drowned.
You would do me a particular kindness if you would call on Hunt, and
ask him when my parcel went, the name of the ship, and the name of the
captain, and whether he has any bill of lading, which, if he has, you
would oblige me by sending, together with the rest of the information,
by return of post, addressed to the Post Office, Florence.
To MRS. HUNT
_Keats and some others_
[Pisa] 11 _Nov_. 1820.
MY BEST MARIANNE,
I am delighted to hear that you complain of me for not writing to you,
although I have much more reason to complain of you for not writing to
me. At least it promises me a letter from you, and you know with what
pleasure we receive, and with what anxiety we expect intelligence from
you--almost the only friends who now remain to us.
I am afraid that the strict system of expense to which you are limited
annoys you all very much, and that Hunt's health suffers both from
that and from the incredible exertions which I see by the _Indicators_
and the _Examiners_ that he is making. Would to Heaven that I had the
power of doing you some good! but when you are sure that the wish is
sincere, the bare expression of it may help to cheer you.
The Gisbornes are arrived, and have brought news of you, and some
books, the principal part of which, however, are yet to arrive by
sea. Keats's new volume has arrived to us, and the fragment called
_Hyperion_ promises for him that he is destined to become one of the
first writers of the age. His other things are imperfect enough, and,
what is worse, written in the bad sort of style which is becoming
fashionable among those who fancy that they are imitating Hunt and
Wordsworth. But of all these things nothing is worse than ----, in
spite of Hunt's extracting the only good stanzas, with his usual good
nature. Indeed, _I_ ought not to complain of Hunt's good nature, for
no one owes so much to it. Is not the vulgarity of these wretched
imitations of Lord Byron carried to a pitch of the sublime? His
indecencies, too, both against sexual nature, and against human
nature in general, sit very awkwardly upon him. He only affects the
libertine: he is, really, a very amiable, friendly, and agreeable
man, I hear. But is not this monstrous? In Lord Byron all this has
an analogy with the general system of his character, and the wit and
poetry which surround hide with their light the darkness of the thing
itself. They contradict it even; they prove that the strength and
beauty of human nature can survive and conquer all that appears most
inconsistent with it. But for a writer to be at once filthy and dull
is a crime against gods, men, and columns. For Heaven's sake do not
show this to any one but Hunt, for it would irritate the wasp's nest
of the irritable race of poets.
Where is Keats now? I am anxiously expecting him in Italy, when I
shall take care to bestow every possible attention on him. I consider
his a most valuable life, and I am deeply interested in his safety. I
intend to be the physician both of his body and his soul, to keep
the one warm, and to teach the other Greek and Spanish. I am aware,
indeed, in part, that I am nourishing a rival who will far surpass me;
and this is an additional motive, and will be an added pleasure.
We are at this moment removing from the Bagni to Pisa, for the Serchio
has broken its banks, and all the country about is under water. An old
friend and fellow-townsman of mine, Captain Medwin, is on a visit to
us at present, and we anxiously expect Keats, to whom I would write if
I knew where to address.
Adieu, my dear Marianne. Write soon; kiss all the babes for me, and
tell me news of them, and give my love to Bessy and Hunt.
To LEIGH HUNT
_A literary collaboration_
Pisa, 26 _Aug. _ 1821.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,
Since I last wrote to you, I have been on a visit to Lord Byron at
Ravenna. The result of this visit was a determination, on his part, to
come and live at Pisa; and I have taken the finest palace on the Lung'
Arno for him. But the material part of my visit consists in a message
which he desires me to give you, and which, I think, ought to add
to your determination--for such a one I hope you have formed--of
restoring your shattered health and spirits by a migration to these
'regions mild of calm and serene air'.
He proposes that you should come out and go shares with him and me,
in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of the
contracting parties should publish all their original compositions and
share the profits. He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason it was
never brought to bear.
