The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 34

Byron met Clarke at Cambridge in November, 1811, discussed Greece with him, and was relieved to find that he knew "no Romaic." Clarke was an indefatigable traveller, and, as he was a botanist, mineralogist, antiquary, and numismatist, he made good use of his opportunities. The marbles, including the Eleusinian Ceres, which he brought home, are in the Fitzwilliam Museum. His mineralogical collections were purchased, after his death, by the University of Cambridge; and his coins by Payne Knight. His 'Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa'

appeared at intervals, from 1810 to 1823, in six quarto volumes. The following letter was written by Clarke to Byron, after the appearance of 'Childe Harold':

"Trumpington, Wednesday morning.

"DEAR LORD BYRON,--From the eagerness which I felt to make known my opinions of your poem before others had expressed _any_ upon the subject, I waited upon you to deliver my hasty, although hearty, commendation. If it be worthy your acceptance, take it once more, in a more deliberate form! Upon my arrival in town I found that Mathias entirely coincided with me. 'Surely,' said I to him, 'Lord Byron, at this time of life, cannot have experienced such keen anguish as those exquisite allusions to what older men _may_ have felt seem to denote!' This was his answer: 'I fear he has--he could not else have written such a poem.' This morning I read the second canto with all the attention it so highly merits, in the peace and stillness of my study; and I am ready to confess I was never so much affected by any poem, pa.s.sionately fond of poetry as I have been from my earliest youth....

"The eighth stanza, '_Yet if as holiest men_,' etc., has never been surpa.s.sed. In the twenty-third, the sentiment is at variance with Dryden:

'Strange cozenage! _none_ would live past years again.'

"And it is perhaps an instance wherein, for the first time, I found not within my own breast an echo to your thought, for I would not '_be once more a boy_;' but the generality of men will agree with you, and wish to tread life's path again.

"In the twelfth stanza of the same canto, you might really add a very curious note to these lines:

'Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains,'

"by stating this fact: When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and, in moving it, a great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs, was thrown down by the work men whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe out of his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri--[Greek: Telos]! I was present at the time.

"Once more I thank you for the gratification you have afforded me.

"Believe me, ever yours most truly, "E. D. CLARKE."]

[Footnote 2: In Clarke's 'Travels' (Part II. sect. i. chap, xii., "Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land") will be found an account of Djezzar Pasha, who fortified Acre in 1775, and with Sir Sidney Smith, defended it against Buonaparte, March 16 to May 20, 1799. Clarke ('ibid'.) mentions the Druses detained by Djezzar as hostages.]

241.--To Walter Scott. [1]

St. James's Street, July 6, 1812.

SIR,--I have just been honoured with your letter.--I feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the "evil works of my nonage," as the thing is suppressed _voluntarily_, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale a.s.sertions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities: he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I thought the 'Lay'. He said his own opinion was nearly similar. In speaking of the others, I told him that I thought you more particularly the poet of _Princes_, as _they_ never appeared more fascinating than in 'Marmion' and the 'Lady of the Lake'. He was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on the description of your Jameses as no less royal than poetical.

He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of the Turks [2] and your humble servant) you were in very good company. I defy Murray to have exaggerated his Royal Highness's opinion of your powers, nor can I pretend to enumerate all he said on the subject; but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to _manners_, certainly superior to those of any living _gentleman_ [3].

This interview was accidental. I never went to the levee; for having seen the courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed; and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, "no business there." To be thus praised by your Sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately and sincerely,

Your obliged and obedient servant,

BYRON.

P.S.--Excuse this scrawl, scratched in a great hurry, and just after a journey.

[Footnote 1: The correspondence which begins with this letter laid the foundation of a firm friendship between the two poets. Scott was naturally annoyed by the attack upon him in 'English Bards, etc'. (lines 171-174), made by "a young whelp of a Lord Byron." Though 'Childe Harold' seemed to him "a clever poem," it did not raise his opinion of Byron's character. Murray, hoping to heal the breach between them, wrote to Scott, June 27, 1812 ('Memoir of John Murray', vol. i. p. 213), giving Byron's account of the conversation with the Prince Regent.

"But the Prince's great delight," says Murray, "was Walter Scott, whose name and writings he dwelt upon and recurred to incessantly. He preferred him far beyond any other poet of the time, repeated several pa.s.sages with fervour, and criticized them faithfully.... Lord Byron called upon me, merely to let off the raptures of the Prince respecting you, thinking, as he said, that if I were likely to have occasion to write to you, it might not be ungrateful for you to hear of his praises."

Scott's answer (July 2) enclosed the following letter from himself to Byron:

"Edinburgh, July 3d, 1812.

"MY LORD,--I am uncertain if I ought to profit by the apology which is afforded me, by a very obliging communication from our acquaintance, John Murray, of Fleet Street, to give your Lordship the present trouble. But my intrusion concerns a large debt of grat.i.tude due to your Lordship, and a much less important one of explanation, which I think I owe to myself, as I dislike standing low in the opinion of any person whose talents rank so highly in my own, as your Lordship's most deservedly do.

"The first 'count', as our technical language expresses it, relates to the high pleasure I have received from the 'Pilgrimage of Childe Harold', and from its precursors; the former, with all its cla.s.sical a.s.sociations, some of which are lost on so poor a scholar as I am, possesses the additional charm of vivid and animated description, mingled with original sentiment; but besides this debt, which I owe your Lordship in common with the rest of the reading public, I have to acknowledge my particular thanks for your having distinguished by praise, in the work which your Lordship rather dedicated in general to satire, some of my own literary attempts. And this leads me to put your Lordship right in the circ.u.mstances respecting the sale of 'Marmion', which had reached you in a distorted and misrepresented form, and which, perhaps, I have some reason to complain, were given to the public without more particular inquiry. The poem, my Lord, was _not_ written upon contract for a sum of money--though it is too true that it was sold and published in a very unfinished state (which I have since regretted), to enable me to extricate myself from some engagements which fell suddenly upon me by the unexpected misfortunes of a very near relation. So that, to quote statute and precedent, I really come under the case cited by Juvenal, though not quite in the extremity of the cla.s.sic author:

'Esurit, intactam Paridi nisi vendit Agaven.'

"And so much for a mistake, into which your Lordship might easily fall, especially as I generally find it the easiest way of stopping sentimental compliments on the beauty, etc., of certain poetry, and the delights which the author must have taken in the composition, by a.s.signing the readiest reason that will cut the discourse short, upon a subject where one must appear either conceited or affectedly rude and cynical.

"As for my attachment to literature, I sacrificed for the pleasure of pursuing it very fair chances of opulence and professional honours, at a time of life when I fully knew their value; and I am not ashamed to say, that in deriving advantages in compensation from the partial favour of the public, I have added some comforts and elegancies to a bare independence. I am sure your Lordship's good sense will easily put this unimportant egotism to the right account, for--though I do not know the motive would make me enter into controversy with a fair or an 'unfair' literary critic--I may be well excused for a wish to clear my personal character from any tinge of mercenary or sordid feeling in the eyes of a contemporary of genius. Your Lordship will likewise permit me to add that you would have escaped the trouble of this explanation, had I not understood that the satire alluded to had been suppressed, not to be reprinted. For in removing a prejudice on your Lordship's own mind, I had no intention of making any appeal by or through you to the public, since my own habits of life have rendered my defence as to avarice or rapacity rather too easy.

"Leaving this foolish matter where it lies, I have to request your Lordship's acceptance of my best thanks for the flattering communication which you took the trouble to make Mr. Murray on my behalf, and which could not fail to give me the gratification which I am sure you intended. I dare say our worthy bibliopolist overcoloured his report of your Lordship's conversation with the Prince Regent, but I owe my thanks to him nevertheless, for the excuse he has given me for intruding these pages on your Lordship. Wishing you health, spirit, and perseverance, to continue your pilgrimage through the interesting countries which you have still to pa.s.s with 'Childe Harold', I have the honour to be, my Lord,

"Your Lordship's obedient servant,

"WALTER SCOTT.

"P.S.--Will your Lordship permit me a verbal criticism on 'Childe Harold', were it only to show I have read his Pilgrimage with attention? 'Nuestra Dama de la Pena' means, I suspect, not our Lady of Crime or Punishment, but our Lady of the Cliff; the difference is, I believe, merely in the accentuation of 'pena'."

To Scott Byron replied with the letter given in the text. Scott's answer, which followed in due course, will be found in Appendix V.

The Prince Regent, it may be added, showed his appreciation of Scott's poetry by offering him, on the death of Pye, the post of poet laureate.

Scott refused, on the ground, apparently, that the office had been made ridiculous by the previous holder.

"At the time when Scott and Byron were the two 'lions' of London, Hookham Frere observed, 'Great poets formerly (Homer and Milton) were blind; now they are lame'"

('Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers', P. 194).]

[Footnote 2: The Turkish amba.s.sador and suite were at the ball.]

[Footnote 3: Byron had already written his "Stanzas to a Lady Weeping,"

suggested by the rumour that Princess Charlotte had burst into tears, on being told that there would be no change of Ministry when the Prince of Wales a.s.sumed the Regency. They appeared anonymously in the 'Morning Chronicle' for March 7, 1812, under the t.i.tle of a "Sympathetic 'Address' to a Young Lady." They were published, as Byron's work, with 'The Corsair', in February, 1814. The verses rather betray the influence of Moore than express his own feelings at the time. In 'Don Juan' (Canto XII. stanza lx.x.xiv.) he thus speaks of the Regent:

"There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now) A Prince, the prince of princes at the time, With fascination in his very bow, And full of promise, as the spring of prime.

Though royalty was written on his brow, He had 'then' the grace, too, rare in every clime, Of being, without alloy of fop or beau, A finish'd gentleman from top to toe."