Life of Lord Byron Volume II Part 29

Murray has had a letter from his brother bibliopole of Edinburgh, who says, 'he is lucky in having such a _poet_'--something as if one was a pack-horse, or 'a.s.s, or any thing that is his:' or, like Mrs. Packwood, who replied to some enquiry after the Odes on Razors,--'Laws, sir, we keeps a poet.' The same ill.u.s.trious Edinburgh bookseller once sent an order for books, poesy, and cookery, with this agreeable postscript--'The _Harold_ and _Cookery_ are much wanted.' Such is fame, and, after all, quite as good as any other 'life in other's breath.'

'Tis much the same to divide purchasers with Hannah Gla.s.se or Hannah More.

"Some editor of some magazine has _announced_ to Murray his intention of abusing the thing '_without reading it_.' So much the better; if he redde it first, he would abuse it more.

"Allen (Lord Holland's Allen--the best informed and one of the ablest men I know--a perfect Magliabecchi--a devourer, a h.e.l.luo of books, and an observer of men,) has lent me a quant.i.ty of Burns's unpublished, and never-to-be published, Letters. They are full of oaths and obscene songs. What an ant.i.thetical mind!--tenderness, roughness--delicacy, coa.r.s.eness--sentiment, sensuality--soaring and grovelling, dirt and deity--all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay!

"It seems strange; a true voluptuary will never abandon his mind to the grossness of reality. It is by exalting the earthly, the material, the _physique_ of our pleasures, by veiling these ideas, by forgetting them altogether, or, at least, never naming them hardly to one's self, that we alone can prevent them from disgusting.

"December 14, 15, 16.

"Much done, but nothing to record. It is quite enough to set down my thoughts,--my actions will rarely bear retrospection.

"December 17, 18.

"Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in Sheridan.[100] The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other _hommes marquans_, and mine was this:--'Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, _par excellence_, always the _best_ of its kind. He has written the _best_ comedy (School for Scandal), the _best_ drama, (in my mind, far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the Beggar's Opera,) the best farce (the Critic--it is only too good for a farce), and the best Address (Monologue on Garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.' Somebody told S. this the next day, and on hearing it, he burst into tears!

"Poor Brinsley! if they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said these few, but most sincere, words than have written the Iliad or made his own celebrated Philippic. Nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine, humble as it must appear to 'my elders and my betters.'

"Went to my box at Covent Garden to night; and my delicacy felt a little shocked at seeing S * * *'s mistress (who, to my certain knowledge, was actually educated, from her birth, for her profession) sitting with her mother, 'a three-piled b----d, b----d-Major to the army,' in a private box opposite. I felt rather indignant; but, casting my eyes round the house, in the next box to me, and the next, and the next, were the most distinguished old and young Babylonians of quality;--so I burst out a laughing. It was really odd; Lady * * _divorced_--Lady * * and her daughter, Lady * *, both _divorceable_--Mrs. * *[101], in the next, the _like_, and still nearer * * * * * *! What an a.s.semblage to _me_, who know all their histories. It was as if the house had been divided between your public and your _understood_ courtesans;--but the intriguantes much outnumbered the regular mercenaries. On the other side were only Pauline and _her_ mother, and, next box to her, three of inferior note. Now, where lay the difference between _her_ and _mamma_, and Lady * * and daughter? except that the two last may enter Carleton and any _other house_, and the two first are limited to the opera and b----house. How I do delight in observing life as it really is!--and myself, after all, the worst of any. But no matter--I must avoid egotism, which, just now, would be no vanity.

"I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called 'The Devil's Drive[102],' the notion of which I took from Porson's 'Devil's Walk.'

"Redde some Italian, and wrote two Sonnets on * * *. I never wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise--and I will never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. I detest the Petrarch so much[104], that I would not be the man even to have obtained his Laura, which the metaphysical, whining dotard never could.

[Footnote 100: This pa.s.sage of the Journal has already appeared in my Life of Sheridan.]

[Footnote 101: These names are all left blank in the original.]

[Footnote 102: Of this strange, wild poem, which extends to about two hundred and fifty lines, the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever wrote, he presented to Lord Holland. Though with a good deal of vigour and imagination, it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed, wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of Mr.

Coleridge[103], which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has attributed to Professor Person. There are, however, some of the stanzas of "The Devil's Drive" well worth preserving.

1.

"The Devil return'd to h.e.l.l by two, And he stay'd at home till five; When he dined on some homicides done in _ragout_, And a rebel or so in an _Irish_ stew, And sausages made of a self-slain Jew, And bethought himself what next to do, 'And,' quoth he, 'I'll take a drive.

I walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night; In darkness my children take most delight, And I'll see how my favourites thrive.'

2.

"'And what shall I ride in?' quoth Lucifer, then-- 'If I follow'd my taste, indeed, I should mount in a wagon of wounded men, And smile to see them bleed.

But these will be furnish'd again and again, And at present my purpose is speed; To see my manor as much as I may, And watch that no souls shall be poach'd away.

3.

"'I have a state coach at Carleton House, A chariot in Seymour Place; But they're lent to two friends, who make me amends By driving my favourite pace: And they handle their reins with such a grace, I have something for both at the end of the race.

4.

"'So now for the earth to take my chance.'

Then up to the earth sprung he; And making a jump from Moscow to France, He stepped across the sea, And rested his hoof on a turnpike road, No very great way from a bishop's abode.

5.

"But first as he flew, I forgot to say, That he hover'd a moment upon his way To look upon Leipsic plain; And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare, And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair, That he perch'd on a mountain of slain; And he gazed with delight from its growing height; Not often on earth had he seen such a sight, Nor his work done half as well: For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead, That it blush'd like the waves of h.e.l.l!

Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he-- 'Methinks they have here little need of me!' * * *

8.

"But the softest note that sooth'd his ear Was the sound of a widow sighing, And the sweetest sight was the icy tear, Which Horror froze in the blue eye clear Of a maid by her lover lying-- As round her fell her long fair hair; And she look'd to Heaven with that frenzied air Which seem'd to ask if a G.o.d were there!

And, stretch'd by the wall of a ruin'd hut, With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut, A child of famine dying: And the carnage begun, when resistance is done, And the fall of the vainly flying!

10.

"But the Devil has reach'd our cliffs so white, And what did he there, I pray?

If his eyes were good, he but saw by night What we see every day; But he made a tour, and kept a journal Of all the wondrous sights nocturnal, And he sold it in shares to the _Men_ of the _Row_, Who bid pretty well--but they _cheated_ him, though!

11.

"The Devil first saw, as he thought, the _Mail_, Its coachman and his coat; So instead of a pistol, he c.o.c.k'd his tail, And seized him by the throat: 'Aha,' quoth he, 'what have we here?

'Tis a new barouche, and an ancient peer!'

12.

"So he sat him on his box again, And bade him have no fear, But be true to his club, and stanch to his rein, His brothel, and his beer; 'Next to seeing a lord at the council board.

I would rather see him here.'

17.

"The Devil gat next to Westminster, And he turn'd to 'the room' of the Commons; But he heard, as he purposed to enter in there, That 'the Lords' had received a summons; And he thought, as a '_quondam_ aristocrat,'

He might peep at the peers, though to _hear_ them were flat: And he walk'd up the house, so like one of our own, That they say that he stood pretty near the throne.

18.

"He saw the Lord L----l seemingly wise, The Lord W----d certainly silly, And Johnny of Norfolk--a man of some size-- And Chatham, so like his friend Billy; And he saw the tears in Lord E----n's eyes, Because the Catholics would _not_ rise, In spite of his prayers and his prophecies; And he heard--which set Satan himself a staring-- A certain Chief Justice say something like _swearing_.

And the Devil was shock'd--and quoth he, 'I must go, For I find we have much better manners below.

If thus he harangues when he pa.s.ses my border, I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order.'"

[Footnote 103: Or Mr. Southey,--for the right of authorship in them seems still undecided.]

[Footnote 104: He learned to think more reverently of "the Petrarch"

afterwards.]

"January 16. 1814.

"To-morrow I leave town for a few days. I saw Lewis to-day, who is just returned from Oatlands, where he has been squabbling with Mad. de Stael about himself, Clarissa Harlowe, Mackintosh, and me. My homage has never been paid in that quarter, or we would have agreed still worse. I don't talk--I can't flatter, and won't listen, except to a pretty or a foolish woman. She bored Lewis with praises of himself till he sickened--found out that Clarissa was perfection, and Mackintosh the first man in England. There I agree, at least _one_ of the first--but Lewis did not.

As to Clarissa, I leave to those who can read it to judge and dispute. I could not do the one, and am, consequently, not qualified for the other.