3.)]
[Footnote 2:
"But words are things; and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."
"Don Juan", Canto III. stanza lx.x.xviii.]
[Footnote 3:
"-----my weal, my woe, My hope on high--my all below; Earth holds no other like to thee, Or, if it doth, in vain for me: For worlds I dare not view the dame Resembling thee, yet not the same."
"The Giaour".]
Nov. 17.
No letter from----; but I must not complain. The respectable Job says, "Why should a _living man_ complain?" [1] I really don"t know, except it be that a _dead man_ can"t; and he, the said patriarch, _did_ complain, nevertheless, till his friends were tired and his wife recommended that pious prologue,"Curse--and die;" the only time, I suppose, when but little relief is to be found in swearing. I have had a most kind letter from Lord Holland on "_The Bride of Abydos_," which he likes, and so does Lady H. This is very good-natured in both, from whom I don"t deserve any quarter. Yet I _did_ think, at the time, that my cause of enmity proceeded from Holland House, and am glad I was wrong, and wish I had not been in such a hurry with that confounded satire, of which I would suppress even the memory;--but people, now they can"t get it, make a fuss, I verily believe, out of contradiction.
George Ellis [2] and Murray have been talking something about Scott and me, George _pro Scoto_,--and very right too. If they want to depose him, I only wish they would not set me up as a compet.i.tor. Even if I had my choice, I would rather be the Earl of Warwick than all the _kings_ he ever made! Jeffrey and Gifford I take to be the monarch-makers in poetry and prose. The "British Critic", in their Rokeby Review, have presupposed a comparison which I am sure my friends never thought of, and W. Scott"s subjects are injudicious in descending to. I like the man--and admire his works to what Mr. Braham calls _Entusymusy_. All such stuff can only vex him, and do me no good. Many hate his politics--(I hate all politics); and, here, a man"s politics are like the Greek _soul_--an [Greek: eidolon], besides G.o.d knows what _other soul_; but their estimate of the two generally go together.
Harry has not brought _ma pet.i.te cousine_. I want us to go to the play together;--she has been but once. Another short note from Jersey, inviting Rogers and me on the 23d. I must see my agent to-night. I wonder when that Newstead business will be finished. It cost me more than words to part with it--and to _have_ parted with it! What matters it what I do? or what becomes of me?--but let me remember Job"s saying, and console myself with being "a living man."
I wish I could settle to reading again,--my life is monotonous, and yet desultory. I take up books, and fling them down again. I began a comedy, and burnt it because the scene ran into _reality_;--a novel, for the same reason. In rhyme, I can keep more away from facts; but the thought always runs through, through ... yes, yes, through. I have had a letter from Lady Melbourne--the best friend I ever had in my life, and the cleverest of women.
Not a word from----[Lady F. W. Webster], Have they set out from----?
or has my last precious epistle fallen into the lion"s jaws? If so--and this silence looks suspicious--I must clap on my "musty morion" and "hold out my iron." [3]
I am out of practice--but I won"t begin again at Manton"s now. Besides, I would not return his shot. I was once a famous wafer-splitter; but then the bullies of society made it necessary. Ever since I began to feel that I had a bad cause to support, I have left off the exercise.
What strange tidings from that Anakim of anarchy--Buonaparte [4]!
Ever since I defended my bust of him at Harrow against the rascally time-servers, when the war broke out in 1803, he has been a _Heros de Roman_ of mine--on the Continent; I don"t want him here. But I don"t like those same flights--leaving of armies, etc., etc. I am sure when I fought for his bust at school, I did not think he would run away from himself. But I should not wonder if he banged them yet. To be beat by men would be something; but by three stupid, legitimate-old-dynasty b.o.o.bies of regular-bred sovereigns--O-hone-a-rie!--O-hone-a-rie! It must be, as Cobbett says, his marriage with the thick-lipped and thick-headed _Autrichienne_ brood. He had better have kept to her who was kept by Barras. I never knew any good come of your young wife, and legal espousals, to any but your "sober-blooded boy" who "eats fish" and drinketh "no sack." [5] Had he not the whole opera? all Paris? all France? But a mistress is just as perplexing--that is, _one_--two or more are manageable by division.
I have begun, or had begun, a song, and flung it into the fire. It was in remembrance of Mary Duff, [6] my first of flames, before most people begin to burn. I wonder what the devil is the matter with me! I can do nothing, and--fortunately there is nothing to do. It has lately been in my power to make two persons (and their connections) comfortable, _pro tempore_, and one happy, _ex tempore_,--I rejoice in the last particularly, as it is an excellent man. [7] I wish there had been more convenience and less gratification to my self-love in it, for then there had been more merit. We are all selfish--and I believe, ye G.o.ds of Epicurus! I believe in Rochefoucault about _men_, and in Lucretius (not Busby"s translation) about yourselves. [8] Your bard has made you very _nonchalant_ and blest; but as he has excused _us_ from d.a.m.nation, I don"t envy you your blessedness much--a little, to be sure. I remember, last year,----[Lady Oxford] said to me, at----[Eywood], "Have we not pa.s.sed our last month like the G.o.ds of Lucretius?" And so we had. She is an adept in the text of the original (which I like too); and when that b.o.o.by Bus. sent his translating prospectus, she subscribed. But, the devil prompting him to add a specimen, she transmitted him a subsequent answer, saying, that "after perusing it, her conscience would not permit her to allow her name to remain on the list of subscribblers." Last night, at Lord H."s--Mackintosh, the Ossulstones, Puysegur, [9] etc., there--I was trying to recollect a quotation (as _I_ think) of Stael"s, from some Teutonic sophist about architecture. "Architecture," says this Macoronico Tedescho, "reminds me of frozen music." It is somewhere--but where?--the demon of perplexity must know and won"t tell. I asked M., and he said it was not in her: but Puysegur said it must be _hers_, it was so _like_. H. laughed, as he does at all "_De l"Allemagne_"--in which, however, I think he goes a little too far. B., I hear, contemns it too. But there are fine pa.s.sages;--and, after all, what is a work--any--or every work--but a desert with fountains, and, perhaps, a grove or two, every day"s journey? To be sure, in Madame, what we often mistake, and "pant for," as the "cooling stream," turns out to be the "_mirage_" (critice _verbiage_); but we do, at last, get to something like the temple of Jove Ammon, and then the waste we have pa.s.sed is only remembered to gladden the contrast.
Called on C--, to explain----. She is very beautiful, to my taste, at least; for on coming home from abroad, I recollect being unable to look at any woman but her--they were so fair, and unmeaning, and _blonde_.
The darkness and regularity of her features reminded me of my "Jannat al Aden." But this impression wore off; and now I can look at a fair woman, without longing for a Houri. She was very good-tempered, and every thing was explained.
To-day, great news--"the Dutch have taken Holland,"--which, I suppose, will be succeeded by the actual explosion of the Thames. Five provinces have declared for young Stadt, and there will be inundation, conflagration, constupration, consternation, and every sort of nation and nations, fighting away, up to their knees, in the d.a.m.nable quags of this will-o"-the-wisp abode of Boors. It is said Bernadotte is amongst them, too; and, as Orange will be there soon, they will have (Crown) Prince Stork and King Log in their Loggery at the same time. Two to one on the new dynasty!
Mr. Murray has offered me one thousand guineas for _The Giaour_ and _The Bride of Abydos_. I won"t--it is too much, though I am strongly tempted, merely for the _say_ of it. No bad price for a fortnight"s (a week each) what?--the G.o.ds know--it was intended to be called poetry.
I have dined regularly to-day, for the first time since Sunday last--this being Sabbath, too. All the rest, tea and dry biscuits--six _per diem_. I wish to G.o.d I had not dined now!--It kills me with heaviness, stupor, and horrible dreams; and yet it was but a pint of Bucellas, and fish.[10] Meat I never touch,--nor much vegetable diet. I wish I were in the country, to take exercise,--instead of being obliged to _cool_ by abstinence, in lieu of it. I should not so much mind a little accession of flesh,--my bones can well bear it. But the worst is, the devil always came with it,--till I starved him out,--and I will _not_ be the slave of _any_ appet.i.te. If I do err, it shall be my heart, at least, that heralds the way. Oh, my head--how it aches?--the horrors of digestion! I wonder how Buonaparte"s dinner agrees with him?
Mem. I must write to-morrow to "Master Shallow, who owes me a thousand pounds," [11] and seems, in his letter, afraid I should ask him for it; [12]--as if I would!--I don"t want it (just now, at least,) to begin with; and though I have often wanted that sum, I never asked for the repayment of 10. in my life--from a friend. His bond is not due this year, and I told him when it was, I should not enforce it. How often must he make me say the same thing?
I am wrong--I did once ask----[13] to repay me. But it was under circ.u.mstances that excused me _to him_, and would to any one. I took no interest, nor required security. He paid me soon,--at least, his _padre_. My head! I believe it was given me to ache with. Good even.
[Footnote 1: "Wherefore doth a living man complain?" ("Lam". iii. 39).]
[Footnote 2: George Ellis (1753-1815), a contributor to the "Rolliad"
and the "Anti-Jacobin", and "the first converser" Walter Scott "ever knew."]
[Footnote 3:
"I dare not fight; but I will wink, and hold out mine iron."
"Henry V.", act ii. sc. I.]
[Footnote 4: Byron was not always, even at Harrow, attached to Buonaparte, for, if we may trust Harness, he "roared out" at a Buonapartist schoolfellow:
"Bold Robert Speer was Bony"s bad precursor.
Bob was a b.l.o.o.d.y dog, but Bonaparte a worser."
His feeling for him was probably that which is expressed in the following pa.s.sage from an undated letter, written to him by Moore:
"We owe great grat.i.tude to this thunderstorm of a fellow for clearing the air of all the old legitimate fogs that have settled upon us, and I sincerely trust his task is not yet over."
Ticknor ("Life", vol. i. p. 60) describes Byron"s reception of the news of the battle of Waterloo:
"After an instant"s pause, Lord Byron replied, "I am d.a.m.ned sorry for it;" and then, after another slight pause, he added, "I didn"t know but I might live to see Lord Castlereagh"s head on a pole. But I suppose I shan"t now.""
Byron"s liking for Buonaparte was probably increased by his dislike of Wellington and Blucher. The following pa.s.sages are taken from the "Detached Thoughts"(1821):
"The vanity of Victories is considerable. Of all who fell at Waterloo or Trafalgar, ask any man in company to "name you ten off hand".
They will stick at Nelson: the other will survive himself. "Nelson was" a hero, the other is a mere Corporal, dividing with Prussians and Spaniards the luck which he never deserved. He even--but I hate the fool, and will be silent."
"The Miscreant Wellington is the Cub of Fortune, but she will never lick him into shape. If he lives, he will be beaten; that"s certain.
Victory was never before wasted upon such an unprofitable soil as this dunghill of Tyranny, whence nothing springs but Viper"s eggs."
"I remember seeing Blucher in the London a.s.semblies, and never saw anything of his age less venerable. With the voice and manners of a recruiting Sergeant, he pretended to the honours of a hero; just as if a stone could be worshipped because a man stumbled over it."]