The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 16

[ah] _And reckon up our balance with the devil_.--[MS.]

{62}[79] ["Carissimo, do review the whole scene, and think what you would say of it, if written by another."--[H.] "I would say, read 'The Miracle' ['A Tale from Boccace'] in Hobhouse's poems, and 'January and May,' and 'Paulo Purganti,' and 'Hans Carvel,' and 'Joconde.' _These_ are laughable: it is the _serious_--Little's poems and _Lalla Rookh_--that affect seriously. Now l.u.s.t is a serious pa.s.sion, and cannot be excited by the ludicrous."--[B.]--_Marginal Notes in Revise_.]

For the "Miracle," see _Imitations and Translations_, 1809, pp.

111--128. "January and May" is Pope's version of Chaucer's _Merchant's Tale_. "Paulo Purganti" and "Hans Carvel" are by Matthew Prior; and for "Joconde" (_Nouvelle Tiree de L'Ariosto_, canto xxviii.) see _Contes et Nouvelles en Vers_, de Mr. de la Fontaine, 1691, i. 1-19.]

{63}[80] [Compare "The use made in the French tongue of the word _tact_, to denote that delicate sense of propriety, which enables a man to _feel his way_ in the difficult intercourse of polished society, seems to have been suggested by similar considerations (i.e. similar to those which suggested the use of the word _taste_)."--_Outlines of Moral Philosophy_, by Dugald Stewart, Part I. sect. x. ed. 1855, p. 48. For D'Alembert's use of _tact_, to denote "that peculiar delicacy of perception (which, like the nice touch of a blind man) arises from habits of close attention to those slighter feelings which escape general notice," see _Philosophical Essays_, by Dugald Stewart, 1818, p.

603.]

{64}[ai] _With base suspicion now no longer haunted._--[MS.]

[81] [For the incident of the shoes, Lord Byron was probably indebted to the Scottish ballad--

"Our goodman came hame at e'en, and hame came he; He spy'd a pair of jack-boots, where nae boots should be, What's this now, goodwife? What's this I see?

How came these boots there, without the leave o' me!

Boots! quo' she: Ay, boots, quo' he.

Shame fa' your cuckold face, and ill mat ye see, It's but a pair of water stoups the cooper sent to me," etc.

See James Johnson's _Musical Museum_, 1787, etc., v. 466.]

{66}[aj] _Found--heaven knows how--his solitary way._--[MS.]

[82] [William Brodie Gurney (1777-1855), the son and grandson of eminent shorthand writers, "reported the proceedings against the Duke of York in 1809, the trials of Lord Cochrane in 1814, and of Thistlewood in 1820, and the proceedings against Queen Caroline."--_Dict. of Nat. Biog_., art. "Gurney."]

{67}[83] ["Venice, December 7, 1818.

"After _that stanza_ in the first canto of _Don Juan_ (sent by Lord Lauderdale) towards the _conclusion_ of the canto--I speak of the stanza whose two last lines are--

"'The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney, Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey,'

insert the following stanzas, 'But Donna Inez,' etc."--B.

The text is based on a second or revised copy of stanzas cxc.-cxcviii.

Many of the corrections and emendations which were inserted in the first draft are omitted in the later and presumably improved version. Byron's first intention was to insert seven stanzas after stanza clx.x.xix., descriptive and highly depreciatory of Brougham, but for reasons of "fairness" (_vide infra_) he changed his mind. The casual mention of "blundering Brougham" in _English Bards, etc._ (line 524, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 338, note 2), is a proof that his suspicions were not aroused as to the authorship of the review of _Hours of Idleness_ (_Edin. Rev._, January, 1808), and it is certain that Byron's animosity was due to the part played by Brougham at the time of the Separation.

(In a letter to Byron, dated February 18, 1817, Murray speaks of a certain B. "as your incessant persecutor--the source of all affected public opinion respecting you.") The stanzas, with the accompanying notes, are not included in the editions of 1833 or 1837, and are now printed for the first time.

I.

"'Twas a fine cause for those in law delighting-- 'Tis pity that they had no Brougham in Spain, Famous for always talking, and ne'er fighting, For calling names, and taking them again; For bl.u.s.tering, bungling, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, wrangling, writing, Groping all paths to power, and all in vain-- Losing elections, character, and temper, A foolish, clever, fellow--_Idem semper!_

II.

"Bully in Senates, skulker in the Field,[*A]

The Adulterer's advocate when duly feed, The libeller's gratis Counsel, dirty shield Which Law affords to many a dirty deed; A wondrous Warrior against those who yield-- A rod to Weakness, to the brave a reed-- The People's sycophant, the Prince's foe, And serving him the more by being so.

III.

"Tory by nurture, Whig by Circ.u.mstance, A Democrat some once or twice a year, Whene'er it suits his purpose to advance His vain ambition in its vague career: A sort of Orator by sufferance, Less for the comprehension than the ear; With all the arrogance of endless power, Without the sense to keep it for an hour.

IV.

"The House-of-Commons Damocles of words-- Above him, hanging by a single hair, On each harangue depend some hostile Swords; And deems he that we _always_ will forbear?

Although Defiance oft declined affords A blotted shield no Shire's true knight would wear: Thersites of the House. Parolles[*B] of Law, The double Bobadill[*C] takes Scorn for Awe.

V.

"How n.o.ble is his language--never pert-- How grand his sentiments which ne'er run riot!

As when he swore 'by G.o.d he'd sell his shirt To head the poll!' I wonder who would buy it The skin has pa.s.sed through such a deal of dirt In grovelling on to power--such stains now dye it-- So black the long-worn Lion's hide in hue, You'd swear his very heart had sweated through.

VI.

"Panting for power--as harts for cooling streams-- Yet half afraid to venture for the draught; A go-between, yet blundering in extremes, And tossed along the vessel fore and aft; Now shrinking back, now midst the first he seems, Patriot by force, and courtisan[*D] by craft; Quick without wit, and violent without strength-- A disappointed Lawyer, at full length.

VII.

"A strange example of the force of Law, And hasty temper on a kindling mind-- Are these the dreams his young Ambition saw?

Poor fellow! he had better far been blind!

I'm sorry thus to probe a wound so raw-- But, then, as Bard my duty to Mankind, For warning to the rest, compels these raps-- As Geographers lay down a Shoal in Maps."

[[*A] For Brougham's Fabian tactics with regard to duelling, _vide post_, Canto XIII. stanza lx.x.xiv. line 1, p. 506, note 1.]

[[*B] Vide post, Canto XIII. stanza lx.x.xiv. line 1, p. 506, note 1.]

[[*C] For "Captain Bobadill, a Paul's man," see Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humour_, act iv. sc. 5, et pa.s.sim.]

[[*D] The _N. Eng. Dict._, quotes a pa.s.sage in _Phil. Trans._, iv. 286 (1669), as the latest instance of "courtisan" for "courtier."]

NOTE TO THE ANNEXED STANZAS ON BROUGHAM.

"Distrusted by the Democracy, disliked by the Whigs, and detested by the Tories, too much of a lawyer for the people, and too much of a demagogue for Parliament, a contestor of counties, and a Candidate for cities, the refuse of half the Electors of England, and representative at last upon sufferance of the proprietor of some rotten borough, which it would have been more independent to have purchased, a speaker upon all questions, and the outcast of all parties, his support has become alike formidable to all his enemies (for he has no friends), and his vote can be only valuable when accompanied by his Silence. A disappointed man with a bad temper, he is endowed with considerable but not first-rate abilities, and has blundered on through life, remarkable only for a fluency, in which he has many rivals at the bar and in the Senate, and an eloquence in which he has several Superiors. 'Willing to wound and _not_ afraid to strike, until he receives a blow in return, he has not yet betrayed any illegal ardour, or Irish alacrity, in accepting the defiances, and resenting the disgraceful terms which his p.r.o.neness to evil-speaking have (sic) brought upon him. In the cases of Mackinnon and Manners,[*E] he sheltered himself behind those parliamentary privileges, which Fox, Pitt, Canning, Castlereagh, Tierney, Adam, Shelburne, Grattan, Corry, Curran, and Clare disdained to adopt as their buckler. The House of Commons became the Asylum of his Slander, as the Churches of Rome were once the Sanctuary of a.s.sa.s.sins.

"His literary reputation (with the exception of one work of his early career) rests upon some anonymous articles imputed to him in a celebrated periodical work; but even these are surpa.s.sed by the Essays of others in the same Journal. He has tried every thing and succeeded in nothing; and he may perhaps finish as a Lawyer without practice, as he has already been occasionally an orator without an audience, if not soon cut short in his career.

"The above character is _not_ written impartially, but by one who has had occasion to know some of the baser parts of it, and regards him accordingly with shuddering abhorrence, and just so much fear as he deserves. In him is to be dreaded the crawling of the centipede, not the spring of the tiger--the venom of the reptile, not the strength of the animal--the rancour of the miscreant, not the courage of the Man.

"In case the prose or verse of the above should be actionable, I put my name, that the man may rather proceed against me than the publisher--not without some faint hope that the brand with which I blast him may induce him, however reluctantly, to a manlier revenge."

[*E] [Possibly George Manners (1778-1853), editor of _The Satirist_, whose appointment to a foreign consulate Brougham sharply criticized in the House of Commons, July 9, 1817 (_Parl. Deb._, vol. x.x.xvi. pp. 1320, 1321); and Daniel Mackinnon (1791-1836), the nephew of Henry Mackinnon, who fell at Ciudad Rodrigo. Byron met "Dan" Mackinnon at Lisbon in 1809, and (Gronow, _Reminiscences_, 1889, ii. 259, 260) was amused by his "various funny stories."]

EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO MURRAY.

"I enclose you the stanzas which were intended for 1st Canto, after the line

'Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey:'

but I do not mean them for present publication, because I will not, at this distance, publish _that_ of a Man, for which he has a claim upon another too remote to give him redress.

"With regard to the Miscreant Brougham, however, it was only long after the fact, and I was made acquainted with the language he had held of me on my leaving England (with regard to the D^ss^ of D.'s house),[*F] and his letter to Me. de Stael, and various matters for all of which the first time he and I foregather--be it in England, be it on earth--he shall account, and one of the two be carried home.