" Six weeks later,
September
20,
he had changed his mind.
he had changed his mind.
Byron
L.
Bowles.
Of course it is for him to deny them,
if they are not_. --[_Letter to Moore, September_ 17, 1821, _Letters_,
1901, v. 364. ]
[592] [A few days before Byron enclosed these lines in a letter to Moore
(September 17, 1821) he had written to Murray (September 12): "If ever I
_do_ return to England . . . I will write a poem to which _English Bards,
etc. _, shall be New Milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of
mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar. " Hence the somewhat
ambiguous title. The word "Avatar" is not only applied ironically to
George IV. as the "Messiah of Royalty," but metaphorically to the poem,
which would descend in the "Capacity of Preserver" (see Sir W. Jones,
_Asiatic Research_, i. 234).
The "fury" which sent Byron into this "lawless conscription of
rhythmus," was inspired partly by an ungenerous attack on Moore, which
appeared in the pages of _John Bull_ ("Thomas Moore is not likely to
fall in the way of knighthood . . . being public defaulter in his office
to a large amount. . . . [August 5]. It is true that we cannot from
principle esteem the writer of the _Twopenny Postbag_. . . . It is equally
true that we shrink from the profligacy," etc. , August 12, 1821); and,
partly, by the servility of the Irish, who had welcomed George IV. with
an outburst of enthusiastic loyalty, when he entered Dublin in triumph
within ten days of the death of Queen Caroline. The _Morning Chronicle_,
August 8-August 18, 1821, prints effusive leading articles, edged with
black borders, on the Queen's illness, death, funeral procession, etc. ,
over against a column (in small type) headed "The King in Dublin. "
Byron's satire is a running comment on the pages of the _Morning
Chronicle_. Moore was in Paris at the time, being, as _John Bull_ said,
"obliged to live out of England," and Byron gave him directions that
twenty copies of the _Irish Avatar_ "should be carefully and privately
printed off. " Medwin says that Byron gave him "a printed copy," but his
version (see _Conversations_, 1824, pp. 332-338), doubtless for
prudential reasons, omits twelve of the more libellous stanzas. The poem
as a whole was not published in England till 1831, when "George the
despised" was gone to his account. According to Crabb Robinson (_Diary_,
1869, ii. 437), Goethe said that "Byron's verses on George IV. (_Query?
The Irish Avatar_) were the sublime of hatred. "]
[593] {556}[The Queen died on the night (10. 20 p. m. ) of Tuesday, August
7. The King entered Dublin in state Friday, August 17. The vessel
bearing the Queen's remains sailed from Harwich on the morning of
Saturday, August 18, 1821. ]
[is] ----_such a hero becomes_. --[MS. M. ]
[594] ["Seven covered waggons arrived at the Castle (August 3). They
were laden with plate. . . . Upwards of forty men cooks will be
employed. "--_Morning Chronicle_, August 8. ]
[it] {557}_To enact in the pageant_----. -[MS. M. ]
[595] ["Never did I witness such enthusiasm. . . . Cheer followed
cheer--and shout followed shout . . . accompanied by exclamation of 'God
bless King George IV. ! ' 'Welcome, welcome, ten thousand times to these
shores! '"--_Morning Chronicle_, August 16. ]
[596] {558}["After the stanza on Grattan, . . . will it please you to
cause insert the following Addenda, which I dreamed of during to-day's
Siesta. "--Letter to Moore, September 20, 1821. ]
[iu] _Aye! back to our theme_----. --[Medwin]
[iv] _Kiss his foot, with thy blessing, for blessings
denied! _--[Medwin. ]
[iw] _Or if freedom_----. --[Medwin. ]
[597] {559}["The Earl of Fingall (Arthur James Plunkett, K. P. , eighth
earl, d. 1836), the leading Catholic nobleman, is to be created a Knight
of St. Patrick. "--_Morning Chronicle_, August 18. ]
[ix] _Wear Fingal thy ribbon_----. --[MS. M. ]
[iy] _And the King is no scoundrel--whatever the Prince_. --[MS. M. ]
[598] [There was talk of a testimonial being presented to the King.
O'Connell suggested that if possible it should take the form of "a
palace, to which not only the rank around him could contribute, but to
the erection of which every peasant could from his cottage contribute
his humble mite. "--_Morning Chronicle_, August 18. ]
[iz] _Till proudly the new_----. --[MS. M. ]
[599] {560}["The Marquis of Londonderry was cheered in the Castle-yard. "
"He was," says the correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_, "the
instrument of Ireland's degradation--he broke down her spirit, and
prostrated, I fear, for ever her independence. To see the author of this
measure cheered near the very spot," etc. ]
[ja] ----_might make Humanity doubt_. --[MS. M. ]
[jb] ----_in the heart of a king_. --[Medwin. MS. M. erased. ]
[600] {561}[Byron spoke and voted in favour of the Earl of Donoughmore's
motion for a Committee on the Roman Catholic claims, April 21, 1812.
(See "Parliamentary Speeches," Appendix II. , _Letters_, 1898, ii.
431-443. )]
[jc] _My arm, though but feeble_----. --[Medwin. ]
[jd] ----_though thou wert not my land_. --[Medwin. ]
[601] [For Grattan and Curran, see letter to Moore, October 2, 1813,
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 271, note 1; for Sheridan, see "Introduction to
_Monody_," etc. , _ante_, pp. 69, 70. ]
[je]
_Nor the steps of enslavers, and slave-kissing slaves_
_Be damp'd in the turf_----. --[Medwin. ]
[jf] _Though their virtues are blunted_----. --[Medwin. ]
[jg] {562} ----_that I envy their dead_. --[Medwin. ]
[jh] _They're the heart--the free spirit--the genius of Moore_. --[MS.
M. ]
[602] ["Signed W. L. B----, M. A. , and written with a view to a
Bishoprick. "--_Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 527, note.
Endorsed, "MS. Lord Byron. The King's visit to Ireland; a very seditious
and horrible libel, which never was intended to be published, and which
Lord B. called, himself, silly, being written in a moment of ill
nature. --C. B. "]
[603] ["I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now) a few
days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa. "--Pisa, 6th November, 1821,
_Detached Thoughts_, No. 118, _Letters_, 1901, v. 466. ]
[604] ["I told Byron that his poetical sentiments of the attractions of
matured beauty had, at the moment, suggested four lines to me; which he
begged me to repeat, and he laughed not a little when I recited the
following lines to him:--
"Oh! talk not to me of the charms of Youth's dimples,
There's surely more sentiment center'd in wrinkles.
They're the triumphs of Time that mark Beauty's decay,
Telling tales of years past, and the few left to stay. "
_Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1834, pp. 255, 256. ]
[605] [These verses were written by Lord Byron a little before he left
Italy for Greece. They were meant to suit the Hindostanee air, "Alia
Malla Punca," which the Countess Guiccioli was fond of
singing. --Editor's note, _Works, etc. _, xiv. 357, Pisa, September,
1821. ]
[606] {564}[Probably "To Lady Blessington," who includes them in her
_Conversations of Lord Byron_. ]
[607] {565}[For reproduction of Lawrence's portrait of Lady Blessington,
see "List of Illustrations," _Letters_, 1901, v. [xv. ]. ]
[608] {566}[Aristomenes, the Achilles of the Alexandrian poet Rhianus
(Grote's _History of Greece_, 1869, ii. 428), is the legendary hero of
the second Messenian War (B. C. 685-668). Thrice he slew a hundred of the
Spartan foe, and thrice he offered the Hekatomphonia on Mount Ithome.
His name was held in honour long after "the rowers on their benches"
heard the wail, "Pan, Pan is dead! " At the close of the second century
of the Christian era, Pausanias (iv. 16. 4) made a note of Messenian
maidens hymning his victory over the Lacedaemonians--
"From the heart of the plain he drove them,
And he drove them back to the hill:
To the top of the hill he drove them,
As he followed them, followed them still! "
Byron was familiar with Thomas Taylor's translation of the _Periegesis
Graeciae_ (_vide ante_, p. 109, and "Observations," etc. , _Letters_, v.
Appendix III. p. 574), and with Mitford's _Greece_ (_Don Juan_, Canto
XII. stanza xix. line 7). Hence his knowledge of Aristomenes. The
thought expressed in lines 5-11 was, possibly, suggested by Coleridge's
translation of the famous passage in Schiller's _Piccolomini_ (act ii.
sc. 4, lines 118, _sq. _, "For fable is Love's world, his home," etc. ),
which is quoted by Sir Walter Scott, in the third chapter of _Guy
Mannering_. ]
THE BLUES:
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
"Nimium ne crede colori. "--Virgil, [_Ecl_. ii. 17]
O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue,
Though your _hair_ were as _red_, as your _stockings_ are _blue_.
INTRODUCTION TO _THE BLUES_.
Byron's correspondence does not explain the mood in which he wrote _The
Blues_, or afford the slightest hint or clue to its _motif_ or occasion.
In a letter to Murray, dated Ravenna, August 7, 1821, he writes, "I send
you a thing which I scribbled off yesterday, a mere buffoonery, to quiz
'The Blues. ' If published it must be _anonymously_. . . . You may send me a
proof if you think it worth the trouble.
" Six weeks later, September 20,
he had changed his mind. "You need not," he says, "send _The Blues_,
which is a mere buffoonery not meant for publication. " With these
intimations our knowledge ends, and there is nothing to show why in
August, 1821, he took it into his head "to quiz The Blues," or why,
being so minded, he thought it worth while to quiz them in so pointless
and belated a fashion. We can but guess that an allusion in a letter
from England, an incident at a conversazione at Ravenna, or perhaps the
dialogues in Peacock's novels, _Melincourt_ and _Nightmare Abbey_,
brought to his recollection the half-modish, half-literary coteries of
the earlier years of the Regency, and that he sketches the scenes and
persons of his eclogue not from life, but from memory.
In the Diary of 1813, 1814, there is more than one mention of the
"Blues. " For instance, November 27, 1813, he writes, "Sotheby is a
_Litterateur_, the oracle of the Coteries of the * *'s, Lydia White
(Sydney Smith's 'Tory Virgin'), Mrs. Wilmot (she, at least, is a swan,
and might frequent a purer stream), Lady Beaumont and all the Blues,
with Lady Charlemont at their head. " Again on December 1, "To-morrow
there is a party _purple_ at the 'blue' Miss Berry's. Shall I go? um! --I
don't much affect your blue-bottles;--but one ought to be civil. . . .
Perhaps that blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of book-learning Lady
Charlemont will be there" (see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 333, 358, note 2).
Byron was, perhaps, a more willing guest at literary entertainments
than he professed to be. "I met him," says Sir Walter Scott (_Memoirs of
the Life, etc. _, 1838, ii. 167), "frequently in society. . . . Some very
agreeable parties I can recollect, particularly one at Sir George
Beaumont's, where the amiable landlord had assembled some persons
distinguished for talent. Of these I need only mention the late Sir
Humphry Davy. . . . Mr. Richard Sharpe and Mr. Rogers were also present. "
Again, Miss Berry, in her _Journal_ (1866, in. 49) records, May 8, 1815,
that "Lord and Lady Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss [Lydia]
White (_vide post_, p. 587). Never have I seen a more imposing
convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered . . . Lord
Byron brought me home. He stayed to supper. " If he did not affect "your
blue-bottles," he was on intimate terms with Madame de Stael, "the
_Begum_ of Literature," as Moore called her; with the Contessa
d'Albrizzi (the De Stael of Italy); with Mrs. Wilmot, the inspirer of
"She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs. Shelley; with Lady
Blessington. Moreover, to say nothing of his "mathematical wife," who
was as "blue as ether," the Countess Guiccioli could not only read and
"inwardly digest" _Corinna_ (see letter to Moore, January 2, 1820), but
knew the _Divina Commedia_ by heart, and was a critic as well as an
inspirer of her lover's poetry.
If it is difficult to assign a reason or occasion for the composition of
_The Blues_, it is a harder, perhaps an impossible, task to identify all
the _dramatis personae_. Botherby, Lady Bluemount, and Miss Diddle are,
obviously, Sotheby, Lady Beaumont, and Lydia White. Scamp the Lecturer
may be Hazlitt, who had incurred Byron's displeasure by commenting on
his various and varying estimates of Napoleon (see _Lectures on the
English Poets_, 1818, p. 304, and _Don Juan_, Canto 1. stanza ii. line
7, note to Buonaparte). Inkel seems to be meant for Byron himself, and
Tracy, a friend, _not_ a Lake poet, for Moore. Sir Richard and Lady
Bluebottle may possibly symbolize Lord and Lady Holland; and Miss Lilac
is, certainly, Miss Milbanke, the "Annabella" of Byron's courtship, not
the "moral Clytemnestra" of his marriage and separation.
_The Blues_ was published anonymously in the third number of the
_Liberal_, which appeared April 26, 1823. The "Eclogue" was not
attributed to Byron, and met with greater contempt than it deserved. In
the _Noctes Ambrosiance_ (Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, May, 1823,
vol. xiii. p. 607), the third number of the _Liberal_ is dismissed with
the remark, "The last Number contains not one _line_ of Byron's! Thank
God! he has seen his error, and kicked them out. " Brief but contemptuous
notices appeared in the _Literary Chronicle_, April 26, and the
_Literary Gazette_, May 3, 1823; while a short-lived periodical, named
the _Literary Register_ (May 3, quoted at length in _John Bull_, May 4,
1823), implies that the author (i. e. Leigh Hunt) would be better
qualified to "catch the manners" of Lisson Grove than of May Fair. It is
possible that this was the "last straw," and that the reception of _The
Blues_ hastened Byron's determination to part company with the
profitless and ill-omened _Liberal_.
THE BLUES:[609]
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
ECLOGUE THE FIRST.
_London. --Before the Door of a Lecture Room_.
_Enter_ TRACY, _meeting_ INKEL.
_Ink_. You're too late.
_Tra_. Is it over?
_Ink_. Nor will be this hour.
But the benches are crammed, like a garden in flower.
With the pride of our belles, who have made it the fashion;
So, instead of "beaux arts," we may say "la _belle_ passion"
For learning, which lately has taken the lead in
The world, and set all the fine gentlemen reading.
_Tra_. I know it too well, and have worn out my patience
With studying to study your new publications.
There's Vamp, Scamp, and Mouthy, and Wordswords and Co. [610]
With their damnable----
_Ink_. Hold, my good friend, do you know 10
Whom you speak to?
_Tra_. Right well, boy, and so does "the Row:"[611]
You're an author--a poet--
_Ink_. And think you that I
Can stand tamely in silence, to hear you decry
The Muses?
_Tra_. Excuse me: I meant no offence
To the Nine; though the number who make some pretence
To their favours is such----but the subject to drop,
I am just piping hot from a publisher's shop,
(Next door to the pastry-cook's; so that when I
Cannot find the new volume I wanted to buy
On the bibliopole's shelves, it is only two paces, 20
As one finds every author in one of those places:)
Where I just had been skimming a charming critique,
So studded with wit, and so sprinkled with Greek!
Where your friend--you know who--has just got such a threshing,
That it is, as the phrase goes, extremely "_refreshing. _"[612]
What a beautiful word!
_Ink_. Very true; 'tis so soft
And so cooling--they use it a little too oft;
And the papers have got it at last--but no matter.
So they've cut up our friend then?
_Tra_. Not left him a tatter--
Not a rag of his present or past reputation, 30
Which they call a disgrace to the age, and the nation.
_Ink_. I'm sorry to hear this! for friendship, you know--
Our poor friend! --but I thought it would terminate so.
Our friendship is such, I'll read nothing to shock it.
You don't happen to have the Review in your pocket?
_Tra_. No; I left a round dozen of authors and others
(Very sorry, no doubt, since the cause is a brother's)
All scrambling and jostling, like so many imps,
And on fire with impatience to get the next glimpse.
_Ink_. Let us join them.
_Tra_. What, won't you return to the lecture? 40
_Ink_. Why the place is so crammed, there's not room for a spectre.
Besides, our friend Scamp is to-day so absurd--[613]
_Tra_. How can you know that till you hear him?
_Ink_. I heard
Quite enough; and, to tell you the truth, my retreat
Was from his vile nonsense, no less than the heat.
_Tra_. I have had no great loss then?
_Ink_. Loss! --such a palaver!
I'd inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver
Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours
To the torrent of trash which around him he pours,
Pumped up with such effort, disgorged with such labour, 50
That----come--do not make me speak ill of one's neighbour.
_Tra_. _I_ make you!
_Ink_. Yes, you! I said nothing until
You compelled me, by speaking the truth----
_Tra_. _To speak ill? _
Is that your deduction?
_Ink_. When speaking of Scamp ill,
I certainly _follow, not set_ an example.
The fellow's a fool, an impostor, a zany.
_Tra_. And the crowd of to-day shows that one fool makes many.
But we two will be wise.
_Ink_. Pray, then, let us retire.
_Tra_. I would, but----
_Ink_. There must be attraction much higher
Than Scamp, or the Jew's harp he nicknames his lyre, 60
To call you to this hotbed.
_Tra_. I own it--'tis true--
A fair lady----
_Ink_. A spinster?
_Tra_. Miss Lilac.
_Ink_. The Blue!
_Tra_. The heiress! The angel!
_Ink_. The devil! why, man,
Pray get out of this hobble as fast as you can.
_You_ wed with Miss Lilac! 'twould be your perdition:
She's a poet, a chymist, a mathematician. [614]
_Tra_. I say she's an angel.
_Ink_. Say rather an angle.
If you and she marry, you'll certainly wrangle.
I say she's a Blue, man, as blue as the ether.
_Tra_. And is that any cause for not coming together? 70
_Ink_. Humph! I can't say I know any happy alliance
Which has lately sprung up from a wedlock with science.
She's so learned in all things, and fond of concerning
Herself in all matters connected with learning,
That----
_Tra_. What?
_Ink_. I perhaps may as well hold my tongue;
But there's five hundred people can tell you you're
wrong.
_Tra_. You forget Lady Lilac's as rich as a Jew.
_Ink_. Is it miss or the cash of mamma you pursue?
_Tra_. Why, Jack, I'll be frank with you--something of both.
The girl's a fine girl.
_Ink_. And you feel nothing loth 80
To her good lady-mother's reversion; and yet
Her life is as good as your own, I will bet.
_Tra_. Let her live, and as long as she likes; I demand
Nothing more than the heart of her daughter and hand.
_Ink_. Why, that heart's in the inkstand--that hand on the pen.
_Tra_. A propos--Will you write me a song now and then?
_Ink_. To what purpose?
_Tra_. You know, my dear friend, that in prose
My talent is decent, as far as it goes;
But in rhyme----
_Ink_. You're a terrible stick, to be sure.
_Tra_. I own it; and yet, in these times, there's no lure 90
For the heart of the fair like a stanza or two;
And so, as I can't, will you furnish a few?
_Ink_. In your name?
_Tra_. In my name. I will copy them out,
To slip into her hand at the very next rout.
_Ink_. Are you so far advanced as to hazard this?
_Tra_. Why,
Do you think me subdued by a Blue-stocking's eye,
So far as to tremble to tell her in rhyme
What I've told her in prose, at the least, as sublime?
_Ink_. _As sublime! _ If i be so, no need of my Muse.
_Tra_. But consider, dear Inkel, she's one of the "Blues.
if they are not_. --[_Letter to Moore, September_ 17, 1821, _Letters_,
1901, v. 364. ]
[592] [A few days before Byron enclosed these lines in a letter to Moore
(September 17, 1821) he had written to Murray (September 12): "If ever I
_do_ return to England . . . I will write a poem to which _English Bards,
etc. _, shall be New Milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of
mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar. " Hence the somewhat
ambiguous title. The word "Avatar" is not only applied ironically to
George IV. as the "Messiah of Royalty," but metaphorically to the poem,
which would descend in the "Capacity of Preserver" (see Sir W. Jones,
_Asiatic Research_, i. 234).
The "fury" which sent Byron into this "lawless conscription of
rhythmus," was inspired partly by an ungenerous attack on Moore, which
appeared in the pages of _John Bull_ ("Thomas Moore is not likely to
fall in the way of knighthood . . . being public defaulter in his office
to a large amount. . . . [August 5]. It is true that we cannot from
principle esteem the writer of the _Twopenny Postbag_. . . . It is equally
true that we shrink from the profligacy," etc. , August 12, 1821); and,
partly, by the servility of the Irish, who had welcomed George IV. with
an outburst of enthusiastic loyalty, when he entered Dublin in triumph
within ten days of the death of Queen Caroline. The _Morning Chronicle_,
August 8-August 18, 1821, prints effusive leading articles, edged with
black borders, on the Queen's illness, death, funeral procession, etc. ,
over against a column (in small type) headed "The King in Dublin. "
Byron's satire is a running comment on the pages of the _Morning
Chronicle_. Moore was in Paris at the time, being, as _John Bull_ said,
"obliged to live out of England," and Byron gave him directions that
twenty copies of the _Irish Avatar_ "should be carefully and privately
printed off. " Medwin says that Byron gave him "a printed copy," but his
version (see _Conversations_, 1824, pp. 332-338), doubtless for
prudential reasons, omits twelve of the more libellous stanzas. The poem
as a whole was not published in England till 1831, when "George the
despised" was gone to his account. According to Crabb Robinson (_Diary_,
1869, ii. 437), Goethe said that "Byron's verses on George IV. (_Query?
The Irish Avatar_) were the sublime of hatred. "]
[593] {556}[The Queen died on the night (10. 20 p. m. ) of Tuesday, August
7. The King entered Dublin in state Friday, August 17. The vessel
bearing the Queen's remains sailed from Harwich on the morning of
Saturday, August 18, 1821. ]
[is] ----_such a hero becomes_. --[MS. M. ]
[594] ["Seven covered waggons arrived at the Castle (August 3). They
were laden with plate. . . . Upwards of forty men cooks will be
employed. "--_Morning Chronicle_, August 8. ]
[it] {557}_To enact in the pageant_----. -[MS. M. ]
[595] ["Never did I witness such enthusiasm. . . . Cheer followed
cheer--and shout followed shout . . . accompanied by exclamation of 'God
bless King George IV. ! ' 'Welcome, welcome, ten thousand times to these
shores! '"--_Morning Chronicle_, August 16. ]
[596] {558}["After the stanza on Grattan, . . . will it please you to
cause insert the following Addenda, which I dreamed of during to-day's
Siesta. "--Letter to Moore, September 20, 1821. ]
[iu] _Aye! back to our theme_----. --[Medwin]
[iv] _Kiss his foot, with thy blessing, for blessings
denied! _--[Medwin. ]
[iw] _Or if freedom_----. --[Medwin. ]
[597] {559}["The Earl of Fingall (Arthur James Plunkett, K. P. , eighth
earl, d. 1836), the leading Catholic nobleman, is to be created a Knight
of St. Patrick. "--_Morning Chronicle_, August 18. ]
[ix] _Wear Fingal thy ribbon_----. --[MS. M. ]
[iy] _And the King is no scoundrel--whatever the Prince_. --[MS. M. ]
[598] [There was talk of a testimonial being presented to the King.
O'Connell suggested that if possible it should take the form of "a
palace, to which not only the rank around him could contribute, but to
the erection of which every peasant could from his cottage contribute
his humble mite. "--_Morning Chronicle_, August 18. ]
[iz] _Till proudly the new_----. --[MS. M. ]
[599] {560}["The Marquis of Londonderry was cheered in the Castle-yard. "
"He was," says the correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_, "the
instrument of Ireland's degradation--he broke down her spirit, and
prostrated, I fear, for ever her independence. To see the author of this
measure cheered near the very spot," etc. ]
[ja] ----_might make Humanity doubt_. --[MS. M. ]
[jb] ----_in the heart of a king_. --[Medwin. MS. M. erased. ]
[600] {561}[Byron spoke and voted in favour of the Earl of Donoughmore's
motion for a Committee on the Roman Catholic claims, April 21, 1812.
(See "Parliamentary Speeches," Appendix II. , _Letters_, 1898, ii.
431-443. )]
[jc] _My arm, though but feeble_----. --[Medwin. ]
[jd] ----_though thou wert not my land_. --[Medwin. ]
[601] [For Grattan and Curran, see letter to Moore, October 2, 1813,
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 271, note 1; for Sheridan, see "Introduction to
_Monody_," etc. , _ante_, pp. 69, 70. ]
[je]
_Nor the steps of enslavers, and slave-kissing slaves_
_Be damp'd in the turf_----. --[Medwin. ]
[jf] _Though their virtues are blunted_----. --[Medwin. ]
[jg] {562} ----_that I envy their dead_. --[Medwin. ]
[jh] _They're the heart--the free spirit--the genius of Moore_. --[MS.
M. ]
[602] ["Signed W. L. B----, M. A. , and written with a view to a
Bishoprick. "--_Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 527, note.
Endorsed, "MS. Lord Byron. The King's visit to Ireland; a very seditious
and horrible libel, which never was intended to be published, and which
Lord B. called, himself, silly, being written in a moment of ill
nature. --C. B. "]
[603] ["I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now) a few
days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa. "--Pisa, 6th November, 1821,
_Detached Thoughts_, No. 118, _Letters_, 1901, v. 466. ]
[604] ["I told Byron that his poetical sentiments of the attractions of
matured beauty had, at the moment, suggested four lines to me; which he
begged me to repeat, and he laughed not a little when I recited the
following lines to him:--
"Oh! talk not to me of the charms of Youth's dimples,
There's surely more sentiment center'd in wrinkles.
They're the triumphs of Time that mark Beauty's decay,
Telling tales of years past, and the few left to stay. "
_Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1834, pp. 255, 256. ]
[605] [These verses were written by Lord Byron a little before he left
Italy for Greece. They were meant to suit the Hindostanee air, "Alia
Malla Punca," which the Countess Guiccioli was fond of
singing. --Editor's note, _Works, etc. _, xiv. 357, Pisa, September,
1821. ]
[606] {564}[Probably "To Lady Blessington," who includes them in her
_Conversations of Lord Byron_. ]
[607] {565}[For reproduction of Lawrence's portrait of Lady Blessington,
see "List of Illustrations," _Letters_, 1901, v. [xv. ]. ]
[608] {566}[Aristomenes, the Achilles of the Alexandrian poet Rhianus
(Grote's _History of Greece_, 1869, ii. 428), is the legendary hero of
the second Messenian War (B. C. 685-668). Thrice he slew a hundred of the
Spartan foe, and thrice he offered the Hekatomphonia on Mount Ithome.
His name was held in honour long after "the rowers on their benches"
heard the wail, "Pan, Pan is dead! " At the close of the second century
of the Christian era, Pausanias (iv. 16. 4) made a note of Messenian
maidens hymning his victory over the Lacedaemonians--
"From the heart of the plain he drove them,
And he drove them back to the hill:
To the top of the hill he drove them,
As he followed them, followed them still! "
Byron was familiar with Thomas Taylor's translation of the _Periegesis
Graeciae_ (_vide ante_, p. 109, and "Observations," etc. , _Letters_, v.
Appendix III. p. 574), and with Mitford's _Greece_ (_Don Juan_, Canto
XII. stanza xix. line 7). Hence his knowledge of Aristomenes. The
thought expressed in lines 5-11 was, possibly, suggested by Coleridge's
translation of the famous passage in Schiller's _Piccolomini_ (act ii.
sc. 4, lines 118, _sq. _, "For fable is Love's world, his home," etc. ),
which is quoted by Sir Walter Scott, in the third chapter of _Guy
Mannering_. ]
THE BLUES:
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
"Nimium ne crede colori. "--Virgil, [_Ecl_. ii. 17]
O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue,
Though your _hair_ were as _red_, as your _stockings_ are _blue_.
INTRODUCTION TO _THE BLUES_.
Byron's correspondence does not explain the mood in which he wrote _The
Blues_, or afford the slightest hint or clue to its _motif_ or occasion.
In a letter to Murray, dated Ravenna, August 7, 1821, he writes, "I send
you a thing which I scribbled off yesterday, a mere buffoonery, to quiz
'The Blues. ' If published it must be _anonymously_. . . . You may send me a
proof if you think it worth the trouble.
" Six weeks later, September 20,
he had changed his mind. "You need not," he says, "send _The Blues_,
which is a mere buffoonery not meant for publication. " With these
intimations our knowledge ends, and there is nothing to show why in
August, 1821, he took it into his head "to quiz The Blues," or why,
being so minded, he thought it worth while to quiz them in so pointless
and belated a fashion. We can but guess that an allusion in a letter
from England, an incident at a conversazione at Ravenna, or perhaps the
dialogues in Peacock's novels, _Melincourt_ and _Nightmare Abbey_,
brought to his recollection the half-modish, half-literary coteries of
the earlier years of the Regency, and that he sketches the scenes and
persons of his eclogue not from life, but from memory.
In the Diary of 1813, 1814, there is more than one mention of the
"Blues. " For instance, November 27, 1813, he writes, "Sotheby is a
_Litterateur_, the oracle of the Coteries of the * *'s, Lydia White
(Sydney Smith's 'Tory Virgin'), Mrs. Wilmot (she, at least, is a swan,
and might frequent a purer stream), Lady Beaumont and all the Blues,
with Lady Charlemont at their head. " Again on December 1, "To-morrow
there is a party _purple_ at the 'blue' Miss Berry's. Shall I go? um! --I
don't much affect your blue-bottles;--but one ought to be civil. . . .
Perhaps that blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of book-learning Lady
Charlemont will be there" (see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 333, 358, note 2).
Byron was, perhaps, a more willing guest at literary entertainments
than he professed to be. "I met him," says Sir Walter Scott (_Memoirs of
the Life, etc. _, 1838, ii. 167), "frequently in society. . . . Some very
agreeable parties I can recollect, particularly one at Sir George
Beaumont's, where the amiable landlord had assembled some persons
distinguished for talent. Of these I need only mention the late Sir
Humphry Davy. . . . Mr. Richard Sharpe and Mr. Rogers were also present. "
Again, Miss Berry, in her _Journal_ (1866, in. 49) records, May 8, 1815,
that "Lord and Lady Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss [Lydia]
White (_vide post_, p. 587). Never have I seen a more imposing
convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered . . . Lord
Byron brought me home. He stayed to supper. " If he did not affect "your
blue-bottles," he was on intimate terms with Madame de Stael, "the
_Begum_ of Literature," as Moore called her; with the Contessa
d'Albrizzi (the De Stael of Italy); with Mrs. Wilmot, the inspirer of
"She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs. Shelley; with Lady
Blessington. Moreover, to say nothing of his "mathematical wife," who
was as "blue as ether," the Countess Guiccioli could not only read and
"inwardly digest" _Corinna_ (see letter to Moore, January 2, 1820), but
knew the _Divina Commedia_ by heart, and was a critic as well as an
inspirer of her lover's poetry.
If it is difficult to assign a reason or occasion for the composition of
_The Blues_, it is a harder, perhaps an impossible, task to identify all
the _dramatis personae_. Botherby, Lady Bluemount, and Miss Diddle are,
obviously, Sotheby, Lady Beaumont, and Lydia White. Scamp the Lecturer
may be Hazlitt, who had incurred Byron's displeasure by commenting on
his various and varying estimates of Napoleon (see _Lectures on the
English Poets_, 1818, p. 304, and _Don Juan_, Canto 1. stanza ii. line
7, note to Buonaparte). Inkel seems to be meant for Byron himself, and
Tracy, a friend, _not_ a Lake poet, for Moore. Sir Richard and Lady
Bluebottle may possibly symbolize Lord and Lady Holland; and Miss Lilac
is, certainly, Miss Milbanke, the "Annabella" of Byron's courtship, not
the "moral Clytemnestra" of his marriage and separation.
_The Blues_ was published anonymously in the third number of the
_Liberal_, which appeared April 26, 1823. The "Eclogue" was not
attributed to Byron, and met with greater contempt than it deserved. In
the _Noctes Ambrosiance_ (Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, May, 1823,
vol. xiii. p. 607), the third number of the _Liberal_ is dismissed with
the remark, "The last Number contains not one _line_ of Byron's! Thank
God! he has seen his error, and kicked them out. " Brief but contemptuous
notices appeared in the _Literary Chronicle_, April 26, and the
_Literary Gazette_, May 3, 1823; while a short-lived periodical, named
the _Literary Register_ (May 3, quoted at length in _John Bull_, May 4,
1823), implies that the author (i. e. Leigh Hunt) would be better
qualified to "catch the manners" of Lisson Grove than of May Fair. It is
possible that this was the "last straw," and that the reception of _The
Blues_ hastened Byron's determination to part company with the
profitless and ill-omened _Liberal_.
THE BLUES:[609]
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
ECLOGUE THE FIRST.
_London. --Before the Door of a Lecture Room_.
_Enter_ TRACY, _meeting_ INKEL.
_Ink_. You're too late.
_Tra_. Is it over?
_Ink_. Nor will be this hour.
But the benches are crammed, like a garden in flower.
With the pride of our belles, who have made it the fashion;
So, instead of "beaux arts," we may say "la _belle_ passion"
For learning, which lately has taken the lead in
The world, and set all the fine gentlemen reading.
_Tra_. I know it too well, and have worn out my patience
With studying to study your new publications.
There's Vamp, Scamp, and Mouthy, and Wordswords and Co. [610]
With their damnable----
_Ink_. Hold, my good friend, do you know 10
Whom you speak to?
_Tra_. Right well, boy, and so does "the Row:"[611]
You're an author--a poet--
_Ink_. And think you that I
Can stand tamely in silence, to hear you decry
The Muses?
_Tra_. Excuse me: I meant no offence
To the Nine; though the number who make some pretence
To their favours is such----but the subject to drop,
I am just piping hot from a publisher's shop,
(Next door to the pastry-cook's; so that when I
Cannot find the new volume I wanted to buy
On the bibliopole's shelves, it is only two paces, 20
As one finds every author in one of those places:)
Where I just had been skimming a charming critique,
So studded with wit, and so sprinkled with Greek!
Where your friend--you know who--has just got such a threshing,
That it is, as the phrase goes, extremely "_refreshing. _"[612]
What a beautiful word!
_Ink_. Very true; 'tis so soft
And so cooling--they use it a little too oft;
And the papers have got it at last--but no matter.
So they've cut up our friend then?
_Tra_. Not left him a tatter--
Not a rag of his present or past reputation, 30
Which they call a disgrace to the age, and the nation.
_Ink_. I'm sorry to hear this! for friendship, you know--
Our poor friend! --but I thought it would terminate so.
Our friendship is such, I'll read nothing to shock it.
You don't happen to have the Review in your pocket?
_Tra_. No; I left a round dozen of authors and others
(Very sorry, no doubt, since the cause is a brother's)
All scrambling and jostling, like so many imps,
And on fire with impatience to get the next glimpse.
_Ink_. Let us join them.
_Tra_. What, won't you return to the lecture? 40
_Ink_. Why the place is so crammed, there's not room for a spectre.
Besides, our friend Scamp is to-day so absurd--[613]
_Tra_. How can you know that till you hear him?
_Ink_. I heard
Quite enough; and, to tell you the truth, my retreat
Was from his vile nonsense, no less than the heat.
_Tra_. I have had no great loss then?
_Ink_. Loss! --such a palaver!
I'd inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver
Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours
To the torrent of trash which around him he pours,
Pumped up with such effort, disgorged with such labour, 50
That----come--do not make me speak ill of one's neighbour.
_Tra_. _I_ make you!
_Ink_. Yes, you! I said nothing until
You compelled me, by speaking the truth----
_Tra_. _To speak ill? _
Is that your deduction?
_Ink_. When speaking of Scamp ill,
I certainly _follow, not set_ an example.
The fellow's a fool, an impostor, a zany.
_Tra_. And the crowd of to-day shows that one fool makes many.
But we two will be wise.
_Ink_. Pray, then, let us retire.
_Tra_. I would, but----
_Ink_. There must be attraction much higher
Than Scamp, or the Jew's harp he nicknames his lyre, 60
To call you to this hotbed.
_Tra_. I own it--'tis true--
A fair lady----
_Ink_. A spinster?
_Tra_. Miss Lilac.
_Ink_. The Blue!
_Tra_. The heiress! The angel!
_Ink_. The devil! why, man,
Pray get out of this hobble as fast as you can.
_You_ wed with Miss Lilac! 'twould be your perdition:
She's a poet, a chymist, a mathematician. [614]
_Tra_. I say she's an angel.
_Ink_. Say rather an angle.
If you and she marry, you'll certainly wrangle.
I say she's a Blue, man, as blue as the ether.
_Tra_. And is that any cause for not coming together? 70
_Ink_. Humph! I can't say I know any happy alliance
Which has lately sprung up from a wedlock with science.
She's so learned in all things, and fond of concerning
Herself in all matters connected with learning,
That----
_Tra_. What?
_Ink_. I perhaps may as well hold my tongue;
But there's five hundred people can tell you you're
wrong.
_Tra_. You forget Lady Lilac's as rich as a Jew.
_Ink_. Is it miss or the cash of mamma you pursue?
_Tra_. Why, Jack, I'll be frank with you--something of both.
The girl's a fine girl.
_Ink_. And you feel nothing loth 80
To her good lady-mother's reversion; and yet
Her life is as good as your own, I will bet.
_Tra_. Let her live, and as long as she likes; I demand
Nothing more than the heart of her daughter and hand.
_Ink_. Why, that heart's in the inkstand--that hand on the pen.
_Tra_. A propos--Will you write me a song now and then?
_Ink_. To what purpose?
_Tra_. You know, my dear friend, that in prose
My talent is decent, as far as it goes;
But in rhyme----
_Ink_. You're a terrible stick, to be sure.
_Tra_. I own it; and yet, in these times, there's no lure 90
For the heart of the fair like a stanza or two;
And so, as I can't, will you furnish a few?
_Ink_. In your name?
_Tra_. In my name. I will copy them out,
To slip into her hand at the very next rout.
_Ink_. Are you so far advanced as to hazard this?
_Tra_. Why,
Do you think me subdued by a Blue-stocking's eye,
So far as to tremble to tell her in rhyme
What I've told her in prose, at the least, as sublime?
_Ink_. _As sublime! _ If i be so, no need of my Muse.
_Tra_. But consider, dear Inkel, she's one of the "Blues.
