The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume I Part 46

133.--To his Mother.

Smyrna, April 9, 1810.

Dear Mother,--I know you will be glad to hear from me: I wish I could say I am equally delighted to write. However, there is no great loss in my scribbles, except to the portmanteau-makers, who, I suppose, will get all by and by.

n.o.body but yourself asks me about my creed,--what I am, am not, etc., etc. If I were to begin _explaining_, G.o.d knows where I should leave off; so we will say no more about that, if you please.

I am no "good soul," and not an atheist, but an English gentleman, I hope, who loves his mother, mankind, and his country. I have not time to write more at present, and beg you to believe me,

Ever yours, etc.,

BYRON.

P.S.-Are the Miss----anxiously expecting my arrival and contributions to their gossip and _rhymes_, which are about as bad as they can be?

B.

134.--To his Mother.

Smyrna, April 10, 1810.

Dear Mother,--To-morrow, or this evening, I sail for Constantinople in the 'Salsette' frigate, of thirty-six guns. She returns to England with our amba.s.sador, [1] whom she is going up on purpose to receive. I have written to you short letters from Athens, Smyrna, and a long one from Albania. I have not yet mustered courage for a second large epistle, and you must not be angry, since I take all opportunities of apprizing you of my safety; but even that is an effort, writing is so irksome.

I have been traversing Greece, and Epirus, Illyria, etc., etc., and you see by my date, have got into Asia. I have made but one excursion lately to the ruins of Ephesus. Malta is the rendez-vous of my letters, so address to that island. Mr. Hanson has not written, though I wished to hear of the Norfolk sale, [2] the Lancashire law-suit, etc., etc., I am anxiously expecting fresh remittances. I believe you will like Nottinghamshire, at least my share of it. [3] Pray accept my good wishes in lieu of a long letter, and believe me,

Yours sincerely and affectionately,

BYRON.

[Footnote 1: Robert (afterwards the Right Hon. Sir Robert) Adair (1763-1855), son of Sergeant-Surgeon Adair and Lady Caroline Keppel, described by an Austrian aristocrat as "le fils du plus grand 'Seigneur'

d'Angleterre," was educated at Westminster and the University of Gottingen." At the latter place Adair, always, as his kinsman Lord Albemarle said of him, "an enthusiastic admirer of the fair s.e.x"

('Recollections', vol. i. p. 229), fell in love with his tutor's daughter. He did not, however, marry "Sweet Matilda Pottingen," but Angelique Gabrielle, daughter of the Marquis d'Hazincourt. He is supposed to have contributed to the 'Rolliad'; and the "Dedication to Sir Lloyd Kenyon," "Margaret Nicholson" ('Political Eclogues', p. 207), and the "Song of Scrutina" ('Probationary Odes', p. 285), have been attributed to him. He, however, denied (Moore's 'Journal and Correspondence', vol. ii. p. 304) that he wrote any part of the 'Rolliad'. A Whig, and an intimate friend and follower of Fox, he was in 1791 at St. Petersburg, where the Tories believed that he had been sent by his chief on "half a mission" to intrigue with Russia against Pitt.

The charge was published by Dr. Pretyman, Bishop of Winchester, in his 'Life of Pitt' (1821), who may have wished to pay off old scores, and to retaliate on one of the reputed authors of the 'Rolliad' for the "Pretymaniana," and was answered in 'Two Letters from Mr. Adair to the Bishop of Winchester'. It is to this accusation that Ellis and Frere, in the 'Anti-Jacobin', refer in "A Bit of an Ode to Mr. Fox" ('Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin', edit. 1854, pp. 71-73):--

"I mount, I mount into the sky, Sweet bird, to 'Petersburg' I'll fly, Or, if you bid, to 'Paris'.

Fresh missions of the 'Fox' and 'Goose'

Successful 'Treaties' may produce, Though Pitt in all miscarries."

Sir James Mackintosh, speaking of the story, told Moore ('Journals and Correspondence', vol. iv. p. 267) that a private letter from Adair, reporting his conversations with a high official in St. Petersburg, fell into the hands of the British Government; that some members of the Council were desirous of taking proceedings upon it; but that Lord Grenville and Pitt threatened to resign, if any use was made of such a doc.u.ment so obtained. (See also the "Translation of a Letter from Bawba-Dara-Adul-Phoola," etc.--'i.e.' "Bob Adair, a dull fool"--in the 'Anti-Jacobin', p. 208.) Adair was in 1806 sent by Fox as Amba.s.sador to Vienna, and in 1809 was appointed by Canning Amba.s.sador Extraordinary at Constantinople, where, with Stratford Canning as his secretary, he negotiated the Treaty of the Dardanelles. For his services, on his return in 1810, he was made a K.C.B. He was subsequently (1831-35) employed on a mission to the Low Countries, when war appeared imminent between William, Prince of Orange and King Leopold. He was afterwards sworn a member of the Privy Council, and received a pension. George Ticknor ('Life', vol. i. p. 269), who met him at Woburn in 1819, speaks of his great conversational charms, and Moore ('Journals and Correspondence', vol. vii. p. 216) describes him, in 1838, as a man "from whom one gets, now and then, an agreeable whiff of the days of Fox, Tickell, and Sheridan." Many years after Fox's death, Adair was at a fete at Chiswick House. "'In which room,' he asked of Samuel Rogers, 'did Fox expire?' 'In this very room,' I replied. Immediately, Adair burst into tears with a vehemence of grief such as I hardly ever saw exhibited by a man" ('Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers', p. 97).]

[Footnote 2: The sale of Wymondham and other property in Norfolk, which had come to him through his great-uncle.]

[Footnote 3: Probably an allusion to his mother leaving Burgage Manor and taking up her residence at Newstead.]

135.--To his Mother.

_Salsette Frigate, off the Dardanelles_, April 17, 1810.

Dear Madam,--I write at anchor (on our way to Constantinople) off the Troad, which I traversed ten days ago. All the remains of Troy are the tombs of her destroyers, amongst which I saw that of Antilochus from my cabin window. These are large mounds of earth, like the barrows of the Danes in your island. There are several monuments, about twelve miles distant, of the Alexandrian Troas, which I also examined, but by no means to be compared with the remnants of Athens and Ephesus. This will be sent in a ship of war, bound with despatches for Malta. In a few days we shall be at Constantinople, barring accidents. I have also written from Smyrna, and shall, from time to time, transmit short accounts of my movements, but I feel totally unequal to long letters.

Believe me, yours very sincerely,

BYRON.

P.S.--No accounts from Hanson!!! Do not complain of short letters; I write to n.o.body but yourself and Mr. H.

136.--To Henry Drury.

_Salsette_ frigate, May 3, 1810.

My Dear Drury,--When I left England, nearly a year ago, you requested me to write to you--I will do so. I have crossed Portugal, traversed the south of Spain, visited Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, and thence pa.s.sed into Turkey, where I am still wandering. I first landed in Albania, the ancient Epirus, where we penetrated as far as Mount Tomarit-- excellently treated by the chief Ali Pacha,--and, after journeying through Illyria, Chaonia, etc., crossed the Gulf of Actium, with a guard of fifty Albanians, and pa.s.sed the Achelous in our route through Acarnania and aetolia. We stopped a short time in the Morea, crossed the Gulf of Lepanto, and landed at the foot of Parna.s.sus;--saw all that Delphi retains, and so on to Thebes and Athens, at which last we remained ten weeks.

His Majesty's ship, _Pylades_, brought us to Smyrna; but not before we had topographised Attica, including, of course, Marathon and the Sunian promontory. From Smyrna to the Troad (which we visited when at anchor, for a fortnight, off the tomb of Antilochus) was our next stage; and now we are in the Dardanelles, waiting for a wind to proceed to Constantinople.

This morning I _swam_ from _Sestos_ to _Abydos_. [1] The immediate distance is not above a mile, but the current renders it hazardous;--so much so that I doubt whether Leander's conjugal affection must not have been a little chilled in his pa.s.sage to Paradise. I attempted it a week ago, and failed,--owing to the north wind, and the wonderful rapidity of the tide,--though I have been from my childhood a strong swimmer. But, this morning being calmer, I succeeded, and crossed the "broad h.e.l.lespont" in an hour and ten minutes.

Well, my dear sir, I have left my home, and seen part of Africa and Asia, and a tolerable portion of Europe. I have been with generals and admirals, princes and pashas, governors and ungovernables,--but I have not time or paper to expatiate. I wish to let you know that I live with a friendly remembrance of you, and a hope to meet you again; and if I do this as shortly as possible, attribute it to any thing but forgetfulness.

Greece, ancient and modern, you know too well to require description.

Albania, indeed, I have seen more of than any Englishman (except a Mr.

Leake), for it is a country rarely visited, from the savage character of the natives, though abounding in more natural beauties than the cla.s.sical regions of Greece,--which, however, are still eminently beautiful, particularly Delphi and Cape Colonna in Attica. Yet these are nothing to parts of Illyria and Epirus, where places without a name, and rivers not laid down in maps, may, one day, when more known, be justly esteemed superior subjects, for the pencil and the pen, to the dry ditch of the Ilissus and the bogs of Boeotia.

The Troad is a fine field for conjecture and snipe-shooting, and a good sportsman and an ingenious scholar may exercise their feet and faculties to great advantage upon the spot;--or, if they prefer riding, lose their way (as I did) in a cursed quagmire of the Scamander, who wriggles about as if the Dardan virgins still offered their wonted tribute. The only vestige of Troy, or her destroyers, are the barrows supposed to contain the carca.s.ses of Achilles, Antilochus, Ajax, etc.;--but Mount Ida is still in high feather, though the shepherds are now-a-days not much like Ganymede. But why should I say more of these things? are they not written in the _Boke_ of _Gell_?

[2] and has not Hobhouse got a journal? I keep none, as I have renounced scribbling.

I see not much difference between ourselves and the Turks, save that we have----and they have none--that they have long dresses, and we short, and that we talk much, and they little. They are sensible people. Ali Pacha told me he was sure I was a man of rank, because I had _small ears_ and _hands_, and _curling hair_. By the by, I speak the Romaic, or modern Greek, tolerably. It does not differ from the ancient dialects so much as you would conceive; but the p.r.o.nunciation is diametrically opposite. Of verse, except in rhyme, they have no idea.