The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 99

Sat.u.r.day, December 11.

Sunday, December 12.

By Galt's answer, I find it is some story in _real life_, and not any work with which my late composition coincides. It is still more singular, for mine is drawn from _existence_ also.

I have sent an excuse to Madame de Stael. I do not feel sociable enough for dinner to-day;--and I will not go to Sheridan's on Wednesday. Not that I do not admire and prefer his unequalled conversation; but--that "_but_" must only be intelligible to thoughts I cannot write. Sheridan was in good talk at Rogers's the other night, but I only stayed till _nine_. All the world are to be at the Stael's to-night, and I am not sorry to escape any part of it. I only go out to get me a fresh appet.i.te for being alone. Went out--did not go to the Stael's but to Ld.

Holland's. Party numerous--conversation general. Stayed late--made a blunder--got over it--came home and went to bed, not having eaten.

Rather empty, but _fresco_, which is the great point with me.

Monday, December 13, 1813.

Called at three places--read, and got ready to leave town to-morrow.

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 packhorse, or "a.s.s, or any thing that is his;" or, like Mrs. Packwood, [1] who replied to some inquiry 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_ [2] are much wanted." Such is fame, and, after all, quite as good as any other "life in others'

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 [3] (Lord Holland's Allen--the best informed and one of the ablest men I know--a perfect Magliabecchi [4]--a devourer, a _h.e.l.luo_ of books, and an observer of men,) has lent me a quant.i.ty of Burns's [5]

unpublished and never-to-be-published Letters.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.

[Footnote 1: Mrs. Packwood is the wife of George Packwood, "the celebrated Razor Strop Maker and Author of 'The Goldfinch's Nest',"

whose shop was at 16, Gracechurch Street. 'Packwood's Whim; The Goldfinch's Nest, or the Way to get Money and be Happy', by George Packwood, was published in 1796, and reached a second edition in 1807.

It is a collection of his advertis.e.m.e.nts in prose and verse. The poet, whom Packwood kept, apparently lived in Soho (p. 21), from his verses which appeared in the 'True Briton' for November 9, 1795:

"If you wish, Sir, to Shave--nay, pray look not grave, Since nothing on earth can be worse, To P--d repair, you're shaved to a hair, Which I mean to exhibit in verse.

"When in moving the beard--I wish to be heard-- The dull razor occasions a curse, The strop that I view will its merits renew; Behold I record it in verse.

"Some in fashion's tontine disperse all their spleen, And others their destinies curse; But P--d's fine taste, with his Strops and his Paste, Which I'll show you in Prose and in Verse.

"I have taken this plan to comment on a man, Whose merit I'm proud to rehea.r.s.e; For a razor and knife he will sharpen for life, And deserves every praise in my verse.

"Soho, Nov. 6, 1795."]

[Footnote 2: 'The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy', "By a Lady," was published anonymously in 1747. The 4th edition (1751) bears the name of H. Gla.s.se. The book was at one time supposed to be the work of Dr. John Hill (1716-1775), and to contain the proverb, "First catch your hare, then cook it." But Hill's claim is untenable, and the proverb is not in the book.

Mrs. Rundell's 'Domestic Cookery' was one of Murray's most successful publications. In Byron's lines, "To Mr. Murray" (March 25, 1818), occurs the following pa.s.sage:

"Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine The works thou deemest most divine-- The 'Art of Cookery,' and mine, My Murray."]

[Footnote 3: John Allen, M.D. (1771-1843), accompanied Lord Holland to Spain (1801-5 and 1808-9), and lived with him at Holland House. His 'Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England', his numerous articles in the 'Edinburgh Review', and his life of Fox in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica', and many other works, justify Byron's praise. In the social life of Holland House he was a prominent figure, and to it, perhaps, he sacrificed his literary powers and acquirements.

He was Warden of Dulwich College (1811-20), and Master (1820-43). Allen was the author of the article in the 'Edinburgh Review' on Payne Knight's 'Taste', in which he severely criticized Pindar's Greek, and which Byron, probably trusting to Hodgson (see 'Letters', vol. i. p.

196, 'note' 1), or possibly misled by similarity of sound (H. Crabb Robinson's 'Diary', vol. i. p. 277), attributed to "cla.s.sic Hallam, much renowned for Greek" ('English Bards, etc.', line 513).]

[Footnote 4: Antonio Magliabecchi (1633-1714) was appointed, in 1673, Librarian to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, to whom he bequeathed his immense collection of 30,000 volumes. In Burton's 'Book-hunter' (p. 229) it is said that Magliabecchi

"could direct you to any book in any part of the world, with the precision with which the metropolitan policeman directs you to St.

Paul's or Piccadilly. It is of him that the stories are told of answers to inquiries after books, in these terms: 'There is but one copy of that book in the world. It is in the Grand Seignior's library at Constantinople, and is the seventh book in the second shelf on the right hand as you go in.'"]

[Footnote 5: Byron himself was "likened to Burns," and Sir Walter Scott, commenting on the comparison in a ma.n.u.script note, says,

"Burns, in depth of poetical feeling, in strong shrewd sense to balance and regulate this, in the 'tact' to make his poetry tell by connecting it with the stream of public thought and the sentiment of the age, in 'commanded' wildness of fancy and profligacy or recklessness as to moral and 'occasionally' as to religious matters, was much more like Lord Byron than any other person to whom Lord B.

says he had been compared.

"A gross blunder of the English public has been talking of Burns as if the character of his poetry ought to be estimated with an eternal recollection that he was a 'peasant'. It would be just as proper to say that Lord Byron ought always to be thought of as a 'Peer'. Rank in life was nothing to either in his true moments. Then, they were both great Poets. Some silly and sickly affectations connected with the accidents of birth and breeding may be observed in both, when they are not under the influence of 'the happier star.' Witness Burns's prate about independence, when he was an exciseman, and Byron's ridiculous pretence of Republicanism, when he never wrote sincerely about the Mult.i.tude without expressing or insinuating the very soul of scorn."]

December 14, 15, 16.