Life of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 15

"I have finished the first Canto (a long one, of about 180 octaves) of a poem in the style and manner of 'Beppo', encouraged by the good success of the same. It is called 'Don Juan', and is meant to be a little quietly facetious upon every thing. But I doubt whether it is not--at least, as far as it has yet gone--too free for these very modest days. However, I shall try the experiment, anonymously, and if it don't take, it will be discontinued. It is dedicated to S * * in good, simple, savage verse, upon the * * * *'s politics, and the way he got them. But the bore of copying it out is intolerable; and if I had an amanuensis he would be of no use, as my writing is so difficult to decipher.

"My poem's Epic, and is meant to be Divided in twelve books, each book containing With love and war, a heavy gale at sea-- A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning-- New characters, &c. &c.

The above are two stanzas, which I send you as a brick of my Babel, and by which you can judge of the texture of the structure.

"In writing the Life of Sheridan, never mind the angry lies of the humbug Whigs. Recollect that he was an Irishman and a clever fellow, and that we have had some very pleasant days with him.

Don't forget that he was at school at Harrow, where, in my time, we used to show his name--R.B. Sheridan, 1765,--as an honour to the walls. Remember * *. Depend upon it that there were worse folks going, of that gang, than ever Sheridan was.

"What did Parr mean by 'haughtiness and coldness?' I listened to him with admiring ignorance, and respectful silence. What more could a talker for fame have?--they don't like to be answered. It was at Payne Knight's I met him, where he gave me more Greek than I could carry away. But I certainly meant to (and _did_) treat him with the most respectful deference.

"I wish you a good night, with a Venetian benediction, 'Benedetto te, e la terra che ti fara!'--'May you be blessed, and the _earth_ which you will _make_!'--is it not pretty? You would think it still prettier if you had heard it, as I did two hours ago, from the lips of a Venetian girl, with large black eyes, a face like Faustina's, and the figure of a Juno--tall and energetic as a Pythoness, with eyes flashing, and her dark hair streaming in the moonlight--one of those women who may be made any thing. I am sure if I put a poniard into the hand of this one, she would plunge it where I told her,--and into _me_, if I offended her. I like this kind of animal, and am sure that I should have preferred Medea to any woman that ever breathed. You may, perhaps, wonder that I don't in that case. I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl, any thing, but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood alone upon my hearth, with my household G.o.ds shivered around me[27]

* * Do you suppose I have forgotten or forgiven it? It has comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and I am only a spectator upon earth, till a tenfold opportunity offers. It may come yet. There are others more to be blamed than * * * *, and it is on these that my eyes are fixed unceasingly."

[Footnote 26: This little child had been sent to him by its mother about four or five months before, under the care of a Swiss nurse, a young girl not above nineteen or twenty years of age, and in every respect unfit to have the charge of such an infant, without the superintendence of some more experienced person. "The child, accordingly," says my informant, "was but ill taken care of;--not that any blame could attach to Lord Byron, for he always expressed himself most anxious for her welfare, but because the nurse wanted the necessary experience. The poor girl was equally to be pitied; for, as Lord Byron's household consisted of English and Italian men servants, with whom she could hold no converse, and as there was no other female to consult with and a.s.sist her in her charge, nothing could be more forlorn than her situation proved to be."

Soon after the date of the above letter, Mrs. Hoppner, the lady of the Consul General, who had, from the first, in compa.s.sion both to father and child, invited the little Allegra occasionally to her house, very kindly proposed to Lord Byron to take charge of her altogether, and an arrangement was accordingly concluded upon for that purpose.]

[Footnote 27:

"I had one only fount of quiet left, And that they poison'd! _My pure household G.o.ds Were shivered on my hearth._" MARINO FALIERO.

LETTER 323. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, September 24. 1818.

"In the one hundredth and thirty-second stanza of Canto fourth, the stanza runs in the ma.n.u.script--

"And thou, who never yet of human wrong Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!

and _not 'lost,'_ which is nonsense, as what losing a scale means, I know not; but _leaving_ an unbalanced scale, or a scale unbalanced, is intelligible.[28] Correct this, I pray,--not for the public, or the poetry, but I do not choose to have blunders made in addressing any of the deities so seriously as this is addressed.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. In the translation from the Spanish, alter

"In increasing squadrons flew,

to--

To a mighty squadron grew.

"What does 'thy waters _wasted_ them' mean (in the Canto)? _That is not me._[29] Consult the MS. _always_.

"I have written the first Canto (180 octave stanzas) of a poem in the style of Beppo, and have Mazeppa to finish besides.

"In referring to the mistake in stanza 132. I take the opportunity to desire that in future, in all parts of my writings referring to religion, you will be more careful, and not forget that it is possible that in addressing the Deity a blunder may become a blasphemy; and I do not choose to suffer such infamous perversions of my words or of my intentions.

"I saw the Canto by accident."

[Footnote 28: This correction, I observe, has never been made,--the pa.s.sage still remaining, unmeaningly,

"_Lost_ the unbalanced scale."

[Footnote 29: This pa.s.sage also remains uncorrected.]

LETTER 324. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, January 20. 1819.

"The opinions which I have asked of Mr. H. and others were with regard to the poetical merit, and not as to what they may think due to the _cant_ of the day, which still reads the Bath Guide, Little's Poems, Prior, and Chaucer, to say nothing of Fielding and Smollet. If published, publish entire, with the above-mentioned exceptions; or you may publish anonymously, or _not at all_. In the latter event, print 50 on my account, for private distribution.

"Yours, &c.

"I have written to Messrs. K. and H. to desire that they will not erase more than I have stated.

"The second Canto of Don Juan is finished in 206 stanzas."

LETTER 325. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, January 25. 1819.

"You will do me the favour to print privately (for private distribution) fifty copies of 'Don Juan.' The list of the men to whom I wish it to be presented, I will send hereafter. The other two poems had best be added to the collective edition: I do not approve of _their_ being published separately. Print Don Juan _entire_, omitting, of course, the lines on Castlereagh, as I am not on the spot to meet him. I have a second Canto ready, which will be sent by and by. By this post, I have written to Mr.

Hobhouse, addressed to your care.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. I have acquiesced in the request and representation; and having done so, it is idle to detail my arguments in favour of my own self-love and 'Poeshie;' but I _protest_. If the poem has poetry, it would stand; if not, fall; the rest is 'leather and prunello,' and has never yet affected any human production 'pro or con.' Dulness is the only annihilator in such cases. As to the cant of the day, I despise it, as I have ever done all its other finical fashions, which become you as paint became the ancient Britons. If you admit this prudery, you must omit half Ariosto, La Fontaine, Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Ma.s.singer, Ford, all the Charles Second writers; in short, _something_ of most who have written before Pope and are worth reading, and much of Pope himself. _Read him_--most of you _don't_--but _do_--and I will forgive you; though the inevitable consequence would be that you would burn all I have ever written, and all your other wretched Claudians of the day (except Scott and Crabbe) into the bargain. I wrong Claudian, who _was_ a _poet_, by naming him with such fellows; but he was the 'ultimus Romanorum,' the tail of the comet, and these persons are the tail of an old gown cut into a waistcoat for Jackey; but being both _tails_, I have compared the one with the other, though very unlike, like all similes. I write in a pa.s.sion and a sirocco, and I was up till six this morning at the Carnival: but I _protest_, as I did in my former letter."

LETTER 326. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, February 1. 1819.

"After one of the concluding stanzas of the first Canto of 'Don Juan,' which ends with (I forget the number)--

"To have ...

... when the original is dust, A book, a d----d bad picture, and worse bust,

insert the following stanza:--