The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 64

314.--To Thomas Moore.

July 25, 1813.

I am not well versed enough in the ways of single woman to make much matrimonial progress.

I have been dining like the dragon of Wantley [1] for this last week. My head aches with the vintage of various cellars, and my brains are muddled as their dregs. I met your friends the Daltons:--she sang one of your best songs so well, that, but for the appearance of affectation, I could have cried; he reminds me of Hunt, but handsomer, and more musical in soul, perhaps. I wish to G.o.d he may conquer his horrible anomalous complaint. The upper part of her face is beautiful, and she seems much attached to her husband. He is right, nevertheless, in leaving this nauseous town. The first winter would infallibly destroy her complexion,--and the second, very probably, every thing else.

I must tell you a story. Morris [2] (of indifferent memory) was dining out the other day, and complaining of the Prince's coldness to his old wa.s.sailers. D'Israeli (a learned Jew) bored him with questions--why this? and why that? "Why did the Prince act thus?"--"Why, sir, on account of Lord----, who ought to be ashamed of himself."--"And why ought Lord----to be ashamed of himself?"--"Because the Prince, sir, --------"--"And why, sir, did the Prince cut _you_?"--"Because, G--d d--mme, sir, I stuck to my principles."--"And why did you stick to your principles?"

Is not this last question the best that was ever put, when you consider to whom? It nearly killed Morris. Perhaps you may think it stupid, but, as Goldsmith said about the peas, [3] it was a very good joke when I heard it--as I did from an ear-witness--and is only spoilt in my narration.

The season has closed with a dandy ball; [4]--but I have dinners with the Harrowbys, Rogers, and Frere and Mackintosh [5], where I shall drink your health in a silent b.u.mper, and regret your absence till "too much canaries" wash away my memory, or render it superfluous by a vision of you at the opposite side of the table. Canning has disbanded his party by a speech from his [----]--the true throne of a Tory [6].

Conceive his turning them off in a formal harangue, and bidding them think for themselves. "I have led my ragam.u.f.fins where they are well peppered. There are but three of the 150 left alive," [7] and they are for the _Townsend_ (_query_, might not Falstaff mean the Bow Street officer? I dare say Malone's posthumous edition will have it so) for life.

Since I wrote last, I have been into the country. I journeyed by night--no incident, or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in crossing Epping Forest, actually, I believe, flung down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second figure of number XIX--mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. I can only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols wherewith I had armed him; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out to me whenever we pa.s.sed any thing--no matter whether moving or stationary. Conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong. I have scribbled you a fearfully long letter. This sheet must be blank, and is merely a wrapper, to preclude the tabellarians [8] of the post from peeping. You once complained of my _not_ writing;--I will "heap coals of fire upon your head" by _not_ complaining of your _not_ reading.

Ever, my dear Moore, your'n (isn't that the Staffordshire termination?), BYRON.

[Footnote 1: Under the t.i.tle of "An excellent Ballad of a most dreadful combat, fought between Moore of Moore-Hall and the Dragon of Wantley,"

this ballad forms (in the 12th edition) the Argument of 'The Dragon of Wantley, a Burlesque Opera', performed at Covent Garden, the libretto of which is by Sig. Carini, 'i.e.' Henry Carey:

"Have you not heard of the 'Trojan' Horse; With Seventy Men in his Belly?

This Dragon was not quite so big, But very near, I'll tell you; Devoured he poor Children three, That could not with him grapple; And at one sup he eat them up, As one would eat an Apple.

"All sorts of Cattle this Dragon did eat, Some say he eat up Trees, And that the Forest sure he would Devour by degrees.

For Houses and Churches were to him Geese and Turkies; He eat all, and left none behind, But some Stones, dear Jack, which he could not crack, Which on the Hills you'll find."]

[Footnote 2: Charles Morris (1745-1838) served in the 17th Foot, the Royal Irish Dragoons, and finally in the Second Life Guards. He was laureate and punch-maker to the Beef-steak Club, founded in 1735 by John Rich, patentee of Covent Garden Theatre. The Prince of Wales became a member of the Club in 1785, and Morris was a frequent guest at Carlton House. Another member of the Club was the Duke of Norfolk, who gave Morris the villa at Brockham, near Betchworth, where he lived and died.

Morris, who was an admirable song-writer and singer, attached himself politically to the Prince's party, and attacked Pitt in such popular ballads as "Billy's too young to drive us," and "Billy Pitt and the Farmer." He was, however, disappointed in his hope of reward from his political patrons, and vented his spleen in his ode, "The Old Whig Poet to his Old Buff Waistcoat"

"Farewell, thou poor rag of the Muse!

In the bag of the clothesman go lie; A farthing thou'lt fetch from the Jews, Which the hard-hearted Christians deny," etc.

Some of his poems deserve the censure of 'The Shade of Pope' (line 225):

"There reeling Morris and his b.e.s.t.i.a.l songs."

But others, in their ease and vivacity, hold their own with all but the best of Moore's songs. A collection of them was printed in two volumes by Bentley, in 1840, under the t.i.tle of 'Lyra Urbanica'.]

[Footnote 3: In Forster's 'Life of Goldsmith' (vol. i. p. 34) it is related that Goldsmith ran away from Trinity College, Dublin, because he had been beaten by one of the Fellows. He started for Cork with a shilling in his pocket, on which he lived for three days. He told Reynolds that he thought

"a handful of grey pease, given him by a girl at a wake (after fasting for twenty-four hours) the most comfortable repast he had ever made."

Byron may mean that any joke seems good to a man who had not heard one for a day.]

[Footnote 4:

"I liked the Dandies," says Byron, in his 'Detached Thoughts'; "they were always very civil to _me_, though in general they disliked literary people, and persecuted and mystified Madme. de Stael, Lewis, Horace Twiss, and the like, d.a.m.nably. They persuaded Madme. de Stael that Alvanley had a hundred thousand a year, etc., etc., till she praised him to his _face_ for his _beauty!_ and made a set at him for Albertine ('Libertine', as Brummell baptized her, though the poor girl was, and is, as correct as maid or wife can be, and very amiable withal), and a hundred other fooleries besides. The truth is, that, though I gave up the business early, I had a tinge of Dandyism in my minority, and probably retained enough of it to conciliate the great ones at four and twenty. I had gamed and drunk and taken my degrees in most dissipations, and, having no pedantry, and not being overbearing, we ran quietly together. I knew them all more or less, and they made me a member of Watier's (a superb club at that time), being, I take it, the only literary man (except 'two' others, both men of the world, M[oore] and S[pencer]) in it. Our Masquerade was a grand one; so was the Dandy Ball too--at the Argyle,--but 'that' (the latter) was given by the four chiefs--B[rummel?], M[idmay?], A[lvanley?], and P[ierreoint?], if I err not."]

[Footnote 5: Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832), after studying medicine, was called to the English Bar in 1795. Originally a supporter of the French Revolution, he answered Burke's 'Reflections' with his 'Vindiciae Gallicae' (1791). He is "Mr. Macfungus" in the 'Anti-Jacobin's' account of the "Meeting of the Friends of Freedom." But his revolutionary sympathies rapidly cooled, and he publicly disavowed them in his 'Introductory Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations'

(1799). He remained, however, throughout his life, a Whig. His lectures on "'The Law of Nature and Nations'," delivered at Lincoln's Inn, in 1799, brought him into prominence, both at the Bar and in society. In 1803 he was knighted on accepting the Recordership of Bombay. He returned to England in 1812, entered Parliament as member for Nairn, advocated some useful measures, became a Privy Councillor in 1828, and held office in the Whig Ministry of 1830 as Commissioner of the Board of Control. In politics, as well as in literature, he disappointed expectation. His princ.i.p.al works, besides those mentioned above, were his 'Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy' (1830), and his 'History of the Revolution in England in 1688' (1834).

His great intellectual powers were shown to most advantage in society.

Rogers ('Table-Talk', pp. 197, 198) thought him one of the three acutest men he had ever known.

"He had a prodigious memory, and could repeat by heart more of Cicero than you could easily believe.... I never met a man with a fuller mind than Mackintosh,--such readiness on all subjects, such a talker."

"Till subdued by age and illness," wrote Sydney Smith ('Life of Mackintosh', vol. ii. p. 500), "his conversation was more brilliant and instructive than that of any human being I ever had the good fortune to be acquainted with."

As in political life, so in society, he was too much of the lecturer.

Ticknor ('Life', vol. i. p. 265) thought him "a little too precise, a little too much made up in his manners and conversation." But on all sides there is evidence to confirm the testimony of Rogers ('Table-Talk', p. 207) that he was a man "who had not a particle of envy or jealousy in his nature."]

[Footnote 6: George Canning (1770-1827) had been offered the Foreign Office in 1812 after the a.s.sa.s.sination of Perceval, on condition that Castlereagh should lead the House of Commons. He refused the offer.

Elected M.P. for Liverpool in 1812, he had, in July, 1813, disbanded his followers, and in 1814 left England. He supported Lord Liverpool in carrying the repressive measures known as the Six Acts (1817-20), and, on the death of Lord Londonderry, in 1822, entered the Government as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. It is to the private speech to his followers, in July, 1813, that Byron refers.

The 'Morning Chronicle' for July 29, 1813, has the following paragraph:

"Mr. Canning it seems has (to use a French phrase) 'reformed' his political corps. He a.s.sembled them at the close of the Session, and with many expressions of regret for the failure of certain negociations, which might have been favourable to them as a body, relieved them from their oaths of allegiance, and recommended them to pursue in future their objects separately. The Right Honourable gentleman, perhaps, finds it more convenient for himself to act unenc.u.mbered; and both he and one or two others may find their interest in disbanding the squad; but some of them are turned off 'without a character'."

The 'Courier' for July 29, quoting the first part of the statement, adds,

"We believe ... that Mr. Canning is not indisposed to join the present Cabinet, and may wish one or two of his particular friends to come in with him."]

[Footnote 7:

"I have led my ragam.u.f.fins where they are pepper'd: there's but three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's end, to beg during life."

('Henry IV'., Part I. act v. sc. 3). Townshend, the Bow Street officer, is described by Cronow ('Reminiscences', vol. i. p. 286) as

"a little fat man with a flaxen wig, Kersey-mere breeches, a blue straight-cut coat, and a broad-brimmed white hat. To the most daring courage he added great dexterity and cunning; and was said, 'in propria persona', to have taken more thieves than all the other Bow Street officers put together."]

[Footnote 8: