My Recollections of Lord Byron Part 31

I have already said that he almost wished to be eclipsed, that Moore might shine the more prominently.

"The best way to make the public 'forget' me is to remind them of yourself. You can not suppose that I would ask you or advise you to publish, if I thought you would _fail_. I really have no literary envy; and I do not believe a friend's success ever sat nearer another's heart, than yours does to the wishes of mine. It is for _elderly gentlemen_ to 'bear no brother near,' and can not become our disease for more years than we may perhaps number. I wish you to be out before Eastern subjects are again before the public."

He meanwhile got Murray to use his influence to point out to Moore the best time for appearing.

"I need not say, that I have his success much at heart; not only because he is my friend, but something much better--a man of great talent, of which he is less sensible than, I believe, any even of his enemies. If you can so far oblige me as to step down, do so," etc.

Lord Byron had never ceased to press Moore to publish his poem. When it appeared, he wrote to him from Venice:--

"I am glad that we are to have it at last. 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_.[31] Mind you send to me--that is, make Murray send--the moment you are forth."

"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."

And then, writing again to Murray, from Venice (June, 1817):--

"It gives me great pleasure to hear of Moore's success, and the more so that I never doubted that it would be complete. Whatever good you can tell me of him and his poem will be most acceptable; I feel very anxious indeed to receive it. I hope that he is as happy in his fame and reward as I wish him to be; for I know no one who deserves both more, if any so much."

A month later he added:--

"I have got the sketch and extracts from 'Lalla Rookh'--which I humbly suspect will knock up ..." (he intended himself), "and show young gentlemen that something more than having been across a camel's hump is necessary to write a good Oriental tale. The plan, as well as the extracts I have seen, please me very much indeed, and I feel impatient for the whole."

And, lastly, after he had received it:--

"I have read 'Lalla Rookh.' ... I am very glad to hear of his popularity, for Moore is a very n.o.ble fellow, in all respects, and will enjoy it without any of the bad feelings which success, good or evil, sometimes engenders in the men of rhyme."

He wrote to Moore from Ravenna, in a sort of jest,--"I am not quite sure that I shall allow the Miss Byrons to read 'Lalla Rookh,'--in the first place, on account of this sad _pa.s.sion_, and in the second, that they mayn't discover that there was a better poet than Papa."[32]

To end these quotations, let us add that, shortly before his death, he said to Medwin:--"Moore is one of the small number of writers, who will survive the century which has appreciated his worth. The Irish Melodies will go to posterity with their music, and the poems and the music will last as long as Ireland, or music or poetry."

CAMPBELL.

Campbell, the author of "Pleasures of Hope," and who stands fourth in the triangle, was spared, with Rogers, in the famous satire--

"Come forth, oh! Campbell, give thy talents scope: Who dare aspire, if thou must cease to hope?"

This homage was strengthened by a note, in which Byron called the "Pleasures of Hope" one of the finest didactic poems in the English language.

Byron's relations with Campbell were never as intimate as with other poets. Not only because circ.u.mstances prevented it, but also in consequence of a fault in Campbell's character, which lessened the sympathy raised by the admiration of his talent and of his worth. This fault consisted in an _excessive_ opinion of himself, which prevented his being just toward his rivals, and bearing patiently with their successes, or the criticisms of his own work.

Coleridge at this time was giving lectures upon poetry, in which he taught a new system of poetry.

"He attacks," says Lord Byron, "the 'Pleasures of Hope,' and all other pleasure whatever.... Campbell will be desperately annoyed. I never saw a man (and of him I have seen very little) so sensitive. What a happy temperament! I am sorry for it; what can _he_ fear from criticism?"

Lord Byron had just published the "Bride of Abydos," when he wrote in his journal, "Campbell last night seemed a little nettled at something or other--I know not what. We were standing in the ante-saloon, when Lord H---- brought out of the other room a vessel of some composition similar to that which is used in Catholic churches for burning incense, and seeing us, he exclaimed, 'Here is some incense for you.' Campbell answered, 'Carry it to Lord Byron; he is used to it.'

"Now this comes of 'bearing no brother near the throne.' I who have no throne am at perfect peace with all the poetical fraternity."

But if this weakness of Campbell lessened Byron's sympathy for him, or rather interfered with his intimacy, it never altered his just appreciation of his merits, or made him less generous to him.

"By-the-by," writes Byron to Moore, "Campbell has a printed poem which is not yet published, the scene of which is laid in Germany. It is perfectly magnificent, and equal to himself. I wonder why he does not publish it."

Later on, in Italy, when in his reply to Blackwood, Byron criticises modern poetry, and gives, without sparing any body, not even himself, his unbiased opinion about the poets of the day, he says: "We are all on a false track, except Rogers, Campbell, and Crabbe."

And in his memoranda in 1821, at Ravenna, we find the following pa.s.sage:----

"Read Campbell's 'Poets' ... justly celebrated. His defense of Pope is glorious. To be sure, it is his own cause too--but no matter, it is very good, and does him great credit.... If any thing could add to my esteem of this gentleman poet, it would be his cla.s.sical defense of Pope against the cant of the present day."

On the fifth line of the triangle come the names of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, commonly called the "Lakers," because they had resided near the Lakes of c.u.mberland and Westmoreland. He was certainly bitter against these in his satire; but owing simply to their efforts to upset the school of Pope, of which he had made a deep study, and to their endeavors to start an aesthetical school, which he strenuously opposed.

As, however, in blaming, he allowed his pa.s.sion at times to master his opinions and judgments of their merits, he generously made amends and owned his error some years later. He kept to his own notions of poetry and art, but n.o.bly recognized the talent of the Lakers, knowing, however, very well that he would never obtain from them a reciprocity of good feeling.

SOUTHEY.

"Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey,--the best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet's head and shoulders, I would almost have written his 'Sapphics.' He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that--and--there is his eulogy."

"Southey I have not seen much of. His appearance is epic; and he is the only existing entire man of letters. His manners are mild, but not those of a man of the world, and his talents of the first order. His prose is perfect. Of his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps, too much of it for the present generation--posterity will probably select. He has pa.s.sages equal to any thing. At present he has a party, but no public--except for his prose writings. The 'Life of Nelson' is beautiful."

WORDSWORTH.

Underneath some lines of his satire upon Wordsworth, Byron in 1816 wrote in Switzerland the word "unjust!"

He often praised Wordsworth, even at times when the latter had, for reasons which I will mention hereafter, lost all claims to Byron's indulgence. Even in his poem of the "Island," written shortly before his departure for Greece, where he was to die, Byron found means of inserting a pa.s.sage from Wordsworth's poem, which he considered exquisite.

COLERIDGE.

Among the three Lakers, Coleridge was the one to whom he showed the most generous feeling. He was poor, and lived by his pen. Lord Byron, putting this consideration above all others, wished to a.s.sist at his readings, and praised them warmly. Coleridge having asked him on one occasion to interest himself with the director of Drury-lane Theatre (on the committee of which Byron then stood) the latter did his best to gratify the wishes of Coleridge, and wrote him the most flattering letter, blaming the satire which had been the effect of a youthful ebullition of feeling:--

"P.S.--You mention my 'satire,' lampoon, or whatever you or others please to call it. I can only say that it was written when I was very young and very angry, and has been a thorn in my side ever since; more particularly as almost all the persons animadverted upon became subsequently my acquaintances, and some of them my friends, which is 'heaping fire upon an enemy's head,' and forgiving me too readily to permit me to forgive myself. The part applied to you is pert, and petulant, and shallow enough; but, although I have long done every thing in my power to suppress the circulation of the whole thing, I shall always regret the wantonness or generality of many of its attacks. If Coleridge writes his promised tragedy, Drury Lane will be set up."

Though hara.s.sed with pecuniary difficulties of all kinds, Byron contrived to help Coleridge, who he had heard was in the greatest distress.

He wrote to Moore:--"By the way, if poor Coleridge--who is a man of wonderful talent, and in distress, and about to publish two volumes of poesy and biography, and who has been worse used by the critics than ever we were--will you, if he comes out, promise me to review him favorably in the E.R.? Praise him I think you must; but will you also praise him well,--of all things the most difficult? It will be the making of him.

"This must be a secret between you and me, as Jeffrey might not like such a project: nor, indeed, might he himself like it. But I do think he only wants a pioneer and a spark or two to explode most gloriously."

He sent Murray a MS. tragedy of Coleridge, begging him to read it and to publish it:----

"When you have been enabled to form an opinion on Mr. Coleridge's MS., you will oblige me by returning it, as, in fact, I have no authority to let it out of my hands. I think most highly of it, and feel anxious that you should be the publisher; but if you are not, I do not despair of finding those who will."

As the reader knows, Byron, while in England, always gave away the produce of his poems. To Coleridge he destined part of the sum offered to him by Murray for "Parisina" and the "Siege of Corinth." Some difficulty, however, having arisen, because Murray refused to pay the 100 guineas to any other than Byron himself, he borrowed it himself to give it to Coleridge.

At the same time Byron paid so n.o.ble a tribute to Coleridge's talent, and to his poem of "Christabel," by inserting a note on the subject in his preface to the "Siege of Corinth," that Coleridge's editor took this note as the epigraph.

"Christabel!--I won't have any one," he said, "sneer at 'Christabel;' it is a fine wild poem."

In 1816 he wrote from Venice to Moore:--