Life of Lord Byron Volume III Part 38

"I wrote again to you lately, but I hope you won't be sorry to have another epistle. I have been unwell this last month, with a kind of slow and low fever, which fixes upon me at night, and goes off in the morning; but, however, I am now better. In spring it is probable we may meet; at least I intend for England, where I have business, and hope to meet you in _your_ restored health and additional laurels.

"Murray has sent me the Quarterly and the Edinburgh. When I tell you that Walter Scott is the author of the article in the former, you will agree with me that such an article is still more honourable to him than to myself. I am perfectly pleased with Jeffrey's also, which I wish you to tell him, with my remembrances--not that I suppose it is of any consequence to him, or ever could have been, whether I am pleased or not, but simply in my private relation to him, as his well-wisher, and it may be one day as his acquaintance. I wish you would also add, what you know, that I was not, and, indeed, am not even now, the misanthropical and gloomy gentleman he takes me for, but a facetious companion, well to do with those with whom I am intimate, and as loquacious and laughing as if I were a much cleverer fellow.

"I suppose now I shall never be able to shake off my sables in public imagination, more particularly since my moral * * clove down my fame. However, nor that, nor more than that, has yet extinguished my spirit, which always rises with the rebound.

"At Venice we are in Lent, and I have not lately moved out of doors, my feverishness requiring quiet, and--by way of being more quiet--here is the Signora Marianna just come in and seated at my elbow.

"Have you seen * * *'s book of poesy? and, if you have seen it, are you not delighted with it? And have you--I really cannot go on: there is a pair of great black eyes looking over my shoulder, like the angel leaning over St. Matthew's, in the old frontispieces to the Evangelists,--so that I must turn and answer them instead of you.

"Ever," &c.

LETTER 267. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, March 25. 1817.

"I have at last learned, in default of your own writing (or _not_ writing--which should it be? for I am not very clear as to the application of the word _default_) from Murray, two particulars of (or belonging to) you; one, that you are removing to Hornsey, which is, I presume, to be nearer London; and the other, that your Poem is announced by the name of Lalla Rookh. I am glad of it,--first, that we are to have it at last, and next, I like a tough t.i.tle myself--witness The Giaour and Childe Harold, which choked half the Blues at starting. Besides, it is the tail of Alcibiades's dog,--not that I suppose you want either dog or tail. Talking of tail, I wish you had not called it a '_Persian Tale_'[130] Say a 'Poem' or 'Romance,' but not 'Tale.' I am very sorry that I called some of my own things 'Tales,' because I think that they are something better. Besides, we have had Arabian, and Hindoo, and Turkish, and a.s.syrian Tales. But, after all, this is frivolous in me; you won't, however, mind my nonsense.

"Really and truly, I want you to make a great hit, if only out of self-love, because we happen to be old cronies; and I have no doubt you will--I am sure you _can_. But you are, I'll be sworn, in a devil of a pucker; and _I_ am not at your elbow, and Rogers _is_. I envy him; which is not fair, because he does not envy any body.

Mind you send to me--that is, make Murray send--the moment you are forth.

"I have been very ill with a slow fever, which at last took to flying, and became as quick as need be.[131] But, at length, after a week of half-delirium, burning skin, thirst, hot headach, horrible pulsation, and no sleep, by the blessing of barley water, and refusing to see any physician, I recovered. It is an epidemic of the place, which is annual, and visits strangers. Here follow some versicles, which I made one sleepless night.

"I read the 'Christabel;'

Very well: I read the 'Missionary;'

Pretty--very: I tried at 'Ilderim;'

Ahem; I read a sheet of 'Marg'ret of _Anjou_;'

_Can you_?

I turn'd a page of * *'s 'Waterloo;'

Pooh! pooh!

I look'd at Wordsworth's milk-white 'Rylstone Doe:'

Hillo!

&c. &c. &c.

"I have not the least idea where I am going, nor what I am to do. I wished to have gone to Rome; but at present it is pestilent with English,--a parcel of staring b.o.o.bies, who go about gaping and wishing to be at once cheap and magnificent. A man is a fool who travels now in France or Italy, till this tribe of wretches is swept home again. In two or three years the first rush will be over, and the Continent will be roomy and agreeable.

"I stayed at Venice chiefly because it is not one of their 'dens of thieves;' and here they but pause and pa.s.s. In Switzerland it was really noxious. Luckily, I was early, and had got the prettiest place on all the Lake before they were quickened into motion with the rest of the reptiles. But they crossed me every where. I met a family of children and old women half-way up the Wengen Alp (by the Jungfrau) upon mules, some of them too old and others too young to be the least aware of what they saw.

"By the way, I think the Jungfrau, and all that region of Alps, which I traversed in September--going to the very top of the Wengen, which is not the highest (the Jungfrau itself is inaccessible) but the best point of view--much finer than Mont-Blanc and Chamouni, or the Simplon I kept a journal of the whole for my sister Augusta, part of which she copied and let Murray see.

"I wrote a sort of mad Drama, for the sake of introducing the Alpine scenery in description: and this I sent lately to Murray.

Almost all the _dram. pers._ are spirits, ghosts, or magicians, and the scene is in the Alps and the other world, so you may suppose what a Bedlam tragedy it must be: make him show it you. I sent him all three acts piece-meal, by the post, and suppose they have arrived.

"I have now written to you at least six letters, or lettered, and all I have received in return is a note about the length you used to write from Bury Street to St. James's Street, when we used to dine with Rogers, and talk laxly, and go to parties, and hear poor Sheridan now and then. Do you remember one night he was so tipsy that I was forced to put his c.o.c.ked hat on for him,--for he could not,--and I let him down at Brookes's, much as he must since have been let down into his grave. Heigh ho! I wish I was drunk--but I have nothing but this d----d barley-water before me.

"I am still in love,--which is a dreadful drawback in quitting a place, and I can't stay at Venice much longer. What I shall do on this point I don't know. The girl means to go with me, but I do not like this for her own sake. I have had so many conflicts in my own mind on this subject, that I am not at all sure they did not help me to the fever I mentioned above. I am certainly very much attached to her, and I have cause to be so, if you knew all. But she has a child; and though, like all the 'children of the sun,'

she consults nothing but pa.s.sion, it is necessary I should think for both; and it is only the virtuous, like * * * *, who can afford to give up husband and child, and live happy ever after.

"The Italian ethics are the most singular ever met with. The perversion, not only of action, but of reasoning, is singular in the women. It is not that they do not consider the thing itself as wrong, and very wrong, but _love_ (the _sentiment_ of love) is not merely an excuse for it, but makes it an _actual virtue_, provided it is disinterested, and not a _caprice_, and is confined to one object. They have awful notions of constancy; for I have seen some ancient figures of eighty pointed out as amorosi of forty, fifty, and sixty years' standing. I can't say I have ever seen a husband and wife so coupled.

"Ever, &c.

"P.S. Marianna, to whom I have just translated what I have written on our subject to you, says--'If you loved me thoroughly, you would not make so many fine reflections, which are only good _forbirsi i scarpi_,'--that is, 'to clean shoes withal,'--a Venetian proverb of appreciation, which is applicable to reasoning of all kinds."

[Footnote 130: He had been misinformed on this point,--the work in question having been, from the first, ent.i.tled an "Oriental Romance." A much worse mistake (because wilful, and with no very charitable design) was that of certain persons, who would have it that the poem was meant to be epic!--Even Mr. D'Israeli has, for the sake of a theory, given in to this very gratuitous a.s.sumption:--"The Anacreontic poet," he says, "remains only Anacreontic in his Epic."]

[Footnote 131: In a note to Mr. Murray, subjoined to some corrections for Manfred, he says, "Since I wrote to you last, the _slow_ fever I wot of thought proper to mend its pace, and became similar to one which I caught some years ago in the marshes of Elis, in the Morea."]

LETTER 268. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, March 25. 1817.

"Your letter and enclosure are safe; but 'English gentlemen' are very rare--at least in Venice. I doubt whether there are at present any, save, the consul and vice-consul, with neither of whom I have the slightest acquaintance. The moment I can pounce upon a witness, I will send the deed properly signed: but must he necessarily be genteel? Venice is not a place where the English are gregarious; their pigeon-houses are Florence, Naples, Rome, &c.; and to tell you the truth, this was one reason why I stayed here till the season of the purgation of Rome from these people, which is infected with them at this time, should arrive. Besides, I abhor the nation and the nation me; it is impossible for me to describe my _own_ sensation on that point, but it may suffice to say, that, if I met with any of the race in the beautiful parts of Switzerland, the most distant glimpse or aspect of them poisoned the whole scene, and I do not choose to have the Pantheon, and St.

Peter's, and the Capitol, spoiled for me too. This feeling may be probably owing to recent events; but it does not exist the less, and while it exists, I shall conceal it as little as any other.

"I have been seriously ill with a fever, but it is gone. I believe or suppose it was the indigenous fever of the place, which comes every year at this time, and of which the physicians change the name annually, to despatch the people sooner. It is a kind of typhus, and kills occasionally. It was pretty smart, but nothing particular, and has left me some debility and a great appet.i.te.

There are a good many ill at present, I suppose, of the same.

"I feel sorry for Horner, if there was any thing in the world to make him like it; and still more sorry for his friends, as there was much to make them regret him. I had not heard of his death till by your letter.

"Some weeks ago I wrote to you my acknowledgments of Walter Scott's article. Now I know it to be his, it cannot add to my good opinion of him, but it adds to that of myself. _He_, and Gifford, and Moore, are the only _regulars_ I ever knew who had nothing of the _garrison_ about their manner: no nonsense, nor affectations, look you! As for the rest whom I have known, there was always more or less of the author about them--the pen peeping from behind the ear, and the thumbs a little inky, or so.

"'Lalla Rookh'--you must recollect that, in the way of t.i.tle, the '_Giaour_' has never been p.r.o.nounced to this day; and both it and Childe Harold sounded very facetious to the blue-bottles of wit and humour about town, till they were taught and startled into a proper deportment; and therefore Lalla Rookh, which is very orthodox and oriental, is as good a t.i.tle as need be, if not better. I could wish rather that he had not called it '_a Persian Tale_;' firstly, because we have had Turkish Tales, and Hindoo Tales, and a.s.syrian Tales, already; and _tale_ is a word of which it repents me to have nicknamed poesy. 'Fable' would be better; and, secondly, 'Persian Tale' reminds one of the lines of Pope on Ambrose Phillips; though no one can say, to be sure, that this tale has been 'turned for half-a-crown;' still it is as well to avoid such clashings.

'Persian Story'--why not?--or Romance? I feel as anxious for Moore as I could do for myself, for the soul of me, and I would not have him succeed otherwise than splendidly, which I trust he will do.

"With regard to the 'Witch Drama,' I sent all the three acts by post, week after week, within this last month. I repeat that I have not an idea if it is good or bad. If bad, it must, on no account, be risked in publication; if good, it is at your service I value it at _three hundred_ guineas, or less, if you like it. Perhaps, if published, the best way will be to add it to your winter volume, and not publish separately. The price will show you I don't pique myself upon it; so speak out. You may put it in the fire, if you like, and Gifford don't like.

"The Armenian Grammar is published--that is, _one_; the other is still in MS. My illness has prevented me from moving this month past, and I have done nothing more with the Armenian.

"Of Italian or rather Lombard manners, I could tell you little or nothing: I went two or three times to the governor's conversazione, (and if you go once, you are free to go always,) at which, as I only saw very plain women, a formal circle, in short a _worst sort_ of rout, I did not go again. I went to Academie and to Madame Albrizzi's, where I saw pretty much the same thing, with the addition of some literati, who are the same _blue_[132], by ----, all the world over. I fell in love the first week with Madame * *, and I have continued so ever since, because she is very pretty and pleasing, and talks Venetian, which amuses me, and is nave.

"Very truly, &c.

"P.S. Pray send the red tooth-powder by a _safe hand_, and speedily.[133]

"To hook the reader, you, John Murray, Have publish'd 'Anjou's Margaret,'

Which won't be sold off in a hurry (At least, it has not been as yet); And then, still further to bewilder 'em, Without remorse you set up 'Ilderim;'

So mind you don't get into debt, Because as how, if you should fail, These books would be but baddish bail.

And mind you do _not_ let escape These rhymes to Morning Post or Perry, Which would be _very_ treacherous--_very_, And get me into such a sc.r.a.pe!

For, firstly, I should have to sally, All in my little boat, against a _Gally_; And, should I chance to slay the a.s.syrian wight, Have next to combat with the female knight.

"You may show these matters to Moore and the select, but not to the _profane_; and tell Moore, that I wonder he don't write to one now and then."

[Footnote 132: Whenever a word or pa.s.sage occurs (as in this instance) which Lord Byron would have p.r.o.nounced emphatically in speaking, it appears, in his handwriting, as if written with something of the same vehemence.]

[Footnote 133: Here follow the same rhymes ("I read the Christabel,"