The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume I Part 49

140.--To Henry Drury.

Constantinople, June 17, 1810.

Though I wrote to you so recently, I break in upon you again to congratulate you on a child being born, [1] as a letter from Hodgson apprizes me of that event, in which I rejoice.

I am just come from an expedition through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea and the Cyanean Symplegades, up which last I scrambled with as great risk as ever the Argonauts escaped in their hoy. You remember the beginning of the nurse's dole in the 'Medea', of which I beg you to take the following translation, done on the summit:--

"Oh how I wish that an embargo Had kept in port the good ship Argo!

Who, still unlaunched from Grecian docks, Had never pa.s.sed the Azure rocks; But now I fear her trip will be a d.a.m.ned business for my Miss Medea, etc., etc.," [2]

as it very nearly was to me;--for, had not this sublime pa.s.sage been in my head, I should never have dreamed of ascending the said rocks, and bruising my carca.s.s in honour of the ancients.

I have now sat on the Cyaneans, swam from Sestos to Abydos (as I trumpeted in my last), and, after pa.s.sing through the Morea again, shall set sail for Santa Maura, and toss myself from the Leucadian promontory;--surviving which operation, I shall probably join you in England. Hobhouse, who will deliver this, is bound straight for these parts; and, as he is bursting with his travels, I shall not antic.i.p.ate his narratives, but merely beg you not to believe one word he says, but reserve your ear for me, if you have any desire to be acquainted with the truth.

I am bound for Athens once more, and thence to the Morea; but my stay depends so much on my caprice, that I can say nothing of its probable duration. I have been out a year already, and may stay another; but I am quicksilver, and say nothing positively. We are all very much occupied doing nothing, at present. We have seen every thing but the mosques, which we are to view with a firman on Tuesday next. But of these and other sundries let H. relate, with this proviso, that 'I' am to be referred to for authenticity; and I beg leave to contradict all those things whereon he lays particular stress. But, if he soars at any time into wit, I give you leave to applaud, because that is necessarily stolen from his fellow-pilgrim. Tell Davies [3]

that Hobhouse has made excellent use of his best jokes in many of his Majesty's ships of war; but add, also, that I always took care to restore them to the right owner; in consequence of which he (Davies) is no less famous by water than by land, and reigns unrivalled in the cabin as in the "Cocoa Tree." [4]

And Hodgson has been publishing more poesy--I wish he would send me his 'Sir Edgar', [5] and Bland's 'Anthology', to Malta, where they will be forwarded. In my last, which I hope you received, I gave an outline of the ground we have covered. If you have not been overtaken by this despatch, Hobhouse's tongue is at your service.

Remember me to Dwyer, who owes me eleven guineas. Tell him to put them in my banker's hands at Gibraltar or Constantinople. I believe he paid them once, but that goes for nothing, as it was an annuity.

I wish you would write. I have heard from Hodgson frequently. Malta is my post-office. I mean to be with you by next Montem. You remember the last,--I hope for such another; but after having swam across the "broad h.e.l.lespont," I disdain Datchett. [6] Good afternoon!

I am yours, very sincerely,

BYRON.

[Footnote 1: Henry Drury, afterwards Archdeacon of Wilts.]

[Footnote 2: Euripides, 'Medea', lines 1-7--

[Greek (transliterated)]:

Eith _ophel Argous mae diaptasthai skaphos Kolch_on es aian kuaneas Symplaegadas, maed en napaisi Paeliou pedein pote tmaetheisa peukae, maed eretm_osai cheras andr_on ariste_on, oi to pagchryson deros Pelia metaelthon ou gar an despoin emae Maedeia pyrgous gaes epleus I_olkias k.t.l.]]

[Footnote 3: For Scrope Berdmore Davies, see page 165 [Letter 86], [Foot]note 2.]

[Footnote 4: "The Cocoa Tree," now 64, St. James's Street, formerly in Pall Mall, was, in the reign of Queen Anne, the Tory Chocolate House. It became a club about 1745, and was then regarded as the headquarters of the Jacobites. Probably for this reason Gibbon, whose father professed Jacobite opinions, belonged to it on coming to live in London (see his journal for November, 1762, and his letter to his stepmother, January 18, 1766: "The Cocoa Tree serves now and then to take off an idle hour"). Byron was a member.]

[Footnote 5: Hodgson's 'Sir Edgar' was published in 1810.]

[Footnote 6: Alluding to his having swum across the Thames with Henry Drury, after the Montem, to see how many times they could make the pa.s.sage backwards and forwards without touching land. In this trial Byron was the conqueror.]

141.--To his Mother.

Constantinople, June 28, 1810.

My dear Mother,--I regret to perceive by your last letter that several of mine have not arrived, particularly a very long one written in November last from Albania, where I was on a visit to the Pacha of that province. Fletcher has also written to his spouse perpetually.

Mr. Hobhouse, who will forward or deliver this, and is on his return to England, can inform you of our different movements, but I am very uncertain as to my own return. He will probably be down in Notts, some time or other; but Fletcher, whom I send back as an inc.u.mbrance (English servants are sad travellers), will supply his place in the interim, and describe our travels, which have been tolerably extensive.

I have written twice briefly from this capital, from Smyrna, from Athens and other parts of Greece; from Albania, the Pacha of which province desired his respects to my mother, and said he was sure I was a man of high birth because I had small ears, curling hair, and white hands!!! He was very kind to me, begged me to consider him as a father, and gave me a guard of forty soldiers through the forests of Acarnania. But of this and other circ.u.mstances I have written to you at large, and yet hope you will receive my letters.

I remember Mahmout Pacha, the grandson of Ali Pacha, at Yanina, (a little fellow of ten years of age, with large black eyes, which our ladies would purchase at any price, and those regular features which distinguish the Turks,) asked me how I came to travel so young, without anybody to take care of me. This question was put by the little man with all the gravity of threescore. I cannot now write copiously; I have only time to tell you that I have pa.s.sed many a fatiguing, but never a tedious moment; and all that I am afraid of is that I shall contract a gypsy like wandering disposition, which will make home tiresome to me: this, I am told, is very common with men in the habit of peregrination, and, indeed, I feel it so. On the 3rd of May I swam from _Sestos_ to _Abydos_. You know the story of Leander, but I had no _Hero_ to receive me at landing.

I also pa.s.sed a fortnight on the Troad. The tombs of Achilles and aesyetes still exist in large barrows, similar to those you have doubtless seen in the North. The other day I was at Belgrade (a village in these environs), to see the house built on the same site as Lady Mary Wortley's.[1] By-the-by, her ladyship, as far as I can judge, has lied, but not half so much as any other woman would have done in the same situation.

I have been in all the princ.i.p.al mosques by the virtue of a firman: this is a favor rarely permitted to Infidels, but the amba.s.sador's departure obtained it for us. I have been up the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, round the walls of the city, and, indeed, I know more of it by sight than I do of London. I hope to amuse you some winter's evening with the details, but at present you must excuse me;--I am not able to write long letters in June. I return to spend my summer in Greece. I write often, but you must not be alarmed when you do not receive my letters; consider we have no regular post farther than Malta, where I beg you will in future send your letters, and not to this city.

Fletcher is a poor creature, and requires comforts that I can dispense with. He is very sick of his travels, but you must not believe his account of the country. He sighs for ale, and idleness, and a wife, and the devil knows what besides. I have not been disappointed or disgusted. I have lived with the highest and the lowest. I have been for days in a Pacha's palace, and have pa.s.sed many a night in a cowhouse, and I find the people inoffensive and kind. I have also pa.s.sed some time with the princ.i.p.al Greeks in the Morea and Livadia, and, though inferior to the Turks, they are better than the Spaniards, who, in their turn, excel the Portuguese. Of Constantinople you will find many descriptions in different travels; but Lady Mary Wortley errs strangely when she says, "St. Paul's would cut a strange figure by St. Sophia's." [2] I have been in both, surveyed them inside and out attentively. St. Sophia's is undoubtedly the most interesting from its immense antiquity, and the circ.u.mstance of all the Greek emperors, from Justinian, having been crowned there, and several murdered at the altar, besides the Turkish Sultans who attend it regularly. But it is inferior in beauty and size to some of the mosques, particularly "Soleyman," etc., and not to be mentioned in the same page with St.

Paul's (I speak like a _c.o.c.kney_). However, I prefer the Gothic cathedral of Seville to St. Paul's, St. Sophia's, and any religious building I have ever seen.

The walls of the Seraglio are like the walls of Newstead gardens, only higher, and much in the same _order_; but the ride by the walls of the city, on the land side, is beautiful. Imagine four miles of immense triple battlements, covered with ivy, surmounted with 218 towers, and, on the other side of the road, Turkish burying-grounds (the loveliest spots on earth), full of enormous cypresses. I have seen the ruins of Athens, of Ephesus, and Delphi. I have traversed great part of Turkey, and many other parts of Europe, and some of Asia; but I never beheld a work of nature or art which yielded an impression like the prospect on each side from the Seven Towers to the end of the Golden Horn. [3]

Now for England. I am glad to hear of the progress of 'English Bards', etc. Of course, you observed I have made great additions to the new edition. Have you received my picture from Sanders, Vigo Lane, London?

It was finished and paid for long before I left England: pray, send for it. You seem to be a mighty reader of magazines: where do you pick up all this intelligence, quotations, etc., etc.? Though I was happy to obtain my seat without the a.s.sistance of Lord Carlisle, I had no measures to keep with a man who declined interfering as my relation on that occasion, and I have done with him, though I regret distressing Mrs. Leigh, [4] poor thing!--I hope she is happy.

It is my opinion that Mr. B----ought to marry Miss R----. Our first duty is not to do evil; but, alas! that is impossible: our next is to repair it, if in our power. The girl is his equal: if she were his inferior, a sum of money and provision for the child would be some, though a poor, compensation: as it is, he should marry her. I will have no gay deceivers on my estate, and I shall not allow my tenants a privilege I do not permit myself--_that_ of debauching each other's daughters. G.o.d knows, I have been guilty of many excesses; but, as I have laid down a resolution to reform, and lately kept it, I expect this Lothario to follow the example, and begin by restoring this girl to society, or, by the beard of my father! he shall hear of it. Pray take some notice of Robert, who will miss his master; poor boy, he was very unwilling to return. I trust you are well and happy. It will be a pleasure to hear from you.

Believe me, yours very sincerely,

BYRON.

P.S.--How is Joe Murray?

P.S.--I open my letter again to tell you that Fletcher having pet.i.tioned to accompany me into the Morea, I have taken him with me, contrary to the intention expressed in my letter.

[Footnote 1: Alluding to his having swum across the Thames with Henry Drury, after the Montem, to see how many times they could make the pa.s.sage backwards and forwards without touching land. In this trial Byron was the conqueror.]

[Footnote 2: Lady Mary describes the village of Belgrade in a letter to Pope, dated June 17, 1717 ('Letters', edit. 1893, vol. i. pp. 331-333).

But Walsh ('Narrative of a Residence in Constantinople', vol. ii. 108, 109), who visited Belgrade in 1821, says that no trace of her description was then to be seen--no view of the Black Sea, no houses of the wealthy Christians, no fountains, and no fruit-trees. "The very tradition" of the house, which had disappeared before Dallaway visited Belgrade in 1794, had perished.]