Life of Lord Byron Volume III Part 21

LETTER 221. TO MR. MURRAY.

"May 21. 1815.

"You must have thought it very odd, not to say ungrateful, that I made no mention of the drawings[80], &c. when I had the pleasure of seeing you this morning. The fact is, that till this moment I had not seen them, nor heard of their arrival: they were carried up into the library, where I have not been till just now, and no intimation given to me of their coming. The present is so very magnificent, that--in short, I leave Lady Byron to thank you for it herself, and merely send this to apologise for a piece of apparent and unintentional neglect on my own part. Yours," &c.

[Footnote 80: Mr. Murray had presented Lady Byron with twelve drawings, by Stothard, from Lord Byron's Poems.]

LETTER 222. TO MR. MOORE.[81]

"13. Piccadilly Terrace, June 12. 1815.

"I have nothing to offer in behalf of my late silence, except the most inveterate and ineffable laziness; but I am too supine to invent a lie, or I _certainly_ should, being ashamed of the truth.

K * *, I hope, has appeased your magnanimous indignation at his blunders. I wished and wish you were in the Committee, with all my heart.[82] It seems so hopeless a business, that the company of a friend would be quite consoling,--but more of this when we meet.

In the mean time, you are entreated to prevail upon Mrs. Esterre to engage herself. I believe she has been written to, but your influence, in person or proxy, would probably go further than our proposals. What they are, I know not; all _my_ new function consists in listening to the despair of Cavendish Bradshaw, the hopes of Kinnaird, the wishes of Lord Ess.e.x, the complaints of Whitbread, and the calculations of Peter Moore,--all of which, and whom, seem totally at variance. C. Bradshaw wants to light the theatre with _gas_, which may, perhaps (if the vulgar be believed), poison half the audience, and all the _dramatis personae_. Ess.e.x has endeavoured to persuade K * * not to get drunk, the consequence of which is, that he has never been sober since. Kinnaird, with equal success, would have convinced Raymond, that he, the said Raymond, had too much salary. Whitbread wants us to a.s.sess the pit another sixpence,--a d----d insidious proposition,--which will end in an O.P. combustion. To crown all, R * *, the auctioneer, has the impudence to be displeased, because he has no dividend. The villain is a proprietor of shares, and a long lunged orator in the meetings. I hear he has prophesied our incapacity,--'a foregone conclusion,' whereof I hope to give him signal proofs before we are done.

"Will you give us an opera? No, I'll be sworn; but I wish you would.

"To go on with the poetical world, Walter Scott has gone back to Scotland. Murray, the bookseller, has been cruelly cudgelled of misbegotten knaves, 'in Kendal green,' at Newington b.u.t.ts, in his way home from a purlieu dinner,--and robbed--would you believe it?--of three or four bonds of forty pound a piece, and a seal-ring of his grandfather's, worth a million! This is his version,--but others opine that D'Israeli, with whom he dined, knocked him down with his last publication, 'The Quarrels of Authors,' in a dispute about copyright. Be that as it may, the newspapers have teemed with his 'injuria formae,' and he has been embrocated, and invisible to all but the apothecary ever since.

"Lady B. is better than three months advanced in her progress towards maternity, and, we hope, likely to go well through with it.

We have been very little out this season, as I wish to keep her quiet in her present situation. Her father and mother have changed their names to Noel, in compliance with Lord Wentworth's will, and in complaisance to the property bequeathed by him.

"I hear that you have been gloriously received by the Irish,--and so you ought. But don't let them kill you with claret and kindness at the national dinner in your honour, which, I hear and hope, is in contemplation. If you will tell me the day, I'll get drunk myself on this side of the water, and waft you an applauding hiccup over the Channel.

"Of politics, we have nothing but the yell for war; and C * * h is preparing his head for the pike, on which we shall see it carried before he has done. The loan has made every body sulky. I hear often from Paris, but in direct contradiction to the home statements of our hirelings. Of domestic doings, there has been nothing since Lady D * *. Not a divorce stirring,--but a good many in embryo, in the shape of marriages.

"I enclose you an epistle received this morning from I know not whom; but I think it will amuse you. The writer must be a rare fellow.[83]

"P.S. A gentleman named D'Alton (not your Dalton) has sent me a National Poem called 'Dermid.' The same cause which prevented my writing to you operated against my wish to write to him an epistle of thanks. If you see him, will you make all kinds of fine speeches for me, and tell him that I am the laziest and most ungrateful of mortals?

"A word more;--don't let Sir John Stevenson (as an evidence on trials for copy-right, &c.) talk about the price of your next poem, or they will come upon you for the _property tax_ for it. I am serious, and have just heard a long story of the rascally tax-men making Scott pay for his. So, take care. Three hundred is a devil of a deduction out of three thousand."

[Footnote 81: This and the following letter were addressed to me in Ireland, whither I had gone about the middle of the preceding month.]

[Footnote 82: He had lately become one of the members of the Sub-Committee, (consisting, besides himself, of the persons mentioned in this letter,) who had taken upon themselves the management of Drury Lane Theatre; and it had been his wish, on the first construction of the Committee, that I should be one of his colleagues. To some mistake in the mode of conveying this proposal to me, he alludes in the preceding sentence.]

[Footnote 83: The following is the enclosure here referred to:--

"Darlington, June 3. 1815.

"My Lord,

"I have lately purchased a set of your works, and am quite vexed that you have not cancelled the Ode to Buonaparte. It certainly was prematurely written, without thought or reflection. Providence has now brought him to reign over millions again, while the same Providence keeps as it were in a garrison another potentate, who, in the language of Mr. Burke, 'he hurled from his throne.' See if you cannot make amends for your folly, and consider that, in almost every respect, human nature is the same, in every clime and in every period, and don't act the part of a _foolish boy_.--Let not Englishmen talk of the stretch of tyrants, while the torrents of blood shed in the East Indies cry aloud to Heaven for retaliation.

Learn, good sir, not to cast the first stone. I remain your Lordship's servant,

"J. R * *."

LETTER 223. TO MR. MOORE.

"July 7. 1815.

"'Grata superveniet,' &c. &c. I had written to you again, but burnt the letter, because I began to think you seriously hurt at my indolence, and did not know how the buffoonery it contained might be taken. In the mean time, I have yours, and all is well.

"I had given over all hopes of yours. By-the-by, my 'grata superveniet' should be in the present tense; for I perceive it looks now as if it applied to this present scrawl reaching you, whereas it is to the receipt of thy Kilkenny epistle that I have tacked that venerable sentiment.

"Poor Whitbread died yesterday morning,--a sudden and severe loss.

His health had been wavering, but so fatal an attack was not apprehended. He dropped down, and I believe never spoke afterwards. I perceive Perry attributes his death to Drury Lane,--a consolatory encouragement to the new Committee. I have no doubt that * *, who is of a plethoric habit, will be bled immediately; and as I have, since my marriage, lost much of my paleness, and--'horresco referens' (for I hate even _moderate_ fat)--that happy slenderness, to which, when I first knew you, I had attained, I by no means sit easy under this dispensation of the Morning Chronicle. Every one must regret the loss of Whitbread; he was surely a great and very good man.

"Paris is taken for the second time. I presume it, for the future, will have an anniversary capture. In the late battles, like all the world, I have lost a connection,--poor Frederick Howard, the best of his race. I had little intercourse, of late years, with his family, but I never saw or heard but good of him. Hobhouse's brother is killed. In short, the havoc has not left a family out of its tender mercies.

"Every hope of a republic is over, and we must go on under the old system. But I am sick at heart of politics and slaughters; and the luck which Providence is pleased to lavish on Lord Castlereagh is only a proof of the little value the G.o.ds set upon prosperity, when they permit such * * * s as he and that drunken corporal, old Blucher, to bully their betters. From this, however, Wellington should be excepted. He is a man,--and the Scipio of our Hannibal.

However, he may thank the Russian frosts, which destroyed the _real elite_ of the French army, for the successes of Waterloo.

"La! Moore--how you blasphemes about 'Parna.s.sus' and 'Moses!' I am ashamed for you. Won't you do any thing for the drama? We beseech an Opera. Kinnaird's blunder was partly mine. I wanted you of all things in the Committee, and so did he. But we are now glad you were wiser; for it is, I doubt, a bitter business.

"When shall we see you in England? Sir Ralph Noel (_late_ Milbanke--he don't promise to be _late_ Noel in a hurry), finding that one man can't inhabit two houses, has given his place in the north to me for a habitation; and there Lady B. threatens to be brought to bed in November. Sir R. and my Lady Mother are to quarter at Kirby--Lord Wentworth's that was. Perhaps you and Mrs.

Moore will pay us a visit at Seaham in the course of the autumn. If so, you and I (_without_ our _wives_) will take a lark to Edinburgh and embrace Jeffrey. It is not much above one hundred miles from us. But all this, and other high matters, we will discuss at meeting, which I hope will be on your return. We don't leave town till August.

"Ever," &c.

LETTER 224. TO MR. SOTHEBY.

"Sept. 15. 1815. Piccadilly Terrace.

"Dear Sir,

"'Ivan' is accepted, and will be put in progress on Kean's arrival.

"The theatrical gentlemen have a confident hope of its success. I know not that any alterations for the stage will be necessary; if any, they will be trifling, and you shall be duly apprised. I would suggest that you should not attend any except the latter rehearsals--the managers have requested me to state this to you.

You can see them, viz. Dibdin and Rae, whenever you please, and I will do any thing you wish to be done on your suggestion, in the mean time.

"Mrs. Mardyn is not yet out, and nothing can be determined till she has made her appearance--I mean as to her capacity for the part you mention, which I take it for granted is not in Ivan--as I think Ivan may be performed very well without her. But of that hereafter.

Ever yours, very truly,

"BYRON.

"P.S. You will be glad to hear that the season has begun uncommonly well--great and constant houses--the performers in much harmony with the Committee and one another, and as much good-humour as can be preserved in such complicated and extensive interests as the Drury Lane proprietary."