"With myriads of thanks, I am ever, &c. "My sixteenth edition of respects to Lady H.- How she must laugh at all this! "I wish Murray, my publisher, to print off some copies as soon as your Lordship returns to town-it will ensure correctness in the papers afterwards."

LETTER 105. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"Far be from him that hour which asks in vain Tears such as flow for Garrick in his strain; or,

"Far be that hour that vainly asks in turn

Scrown'd his Such verse for him as wept o'er Garrick's urn. "September 30. 1812.

"Will you choose between these added to the lines on Sheridan? I think they will wind up the panegyric, and agree with the train of thought preceding them.

"Now, one word as to the Committee how could they resolve on a rough copy of an Address never sent in, unless you had been good enough to retain in memory, or on paper, the thing they have been good enough to adopt? By the by, the circumstances of the case should make the Committee less 'avidus gloriæ,' for all praise of them would look plaguy suspicious. If necessary to be stated at all, the simple facts bear them out. They surely had a right to act as they pleased. My sole object is one which, I trust, my whole conduct has shown; viz. that Í did nothing insidious sent in no Address whatever but, when applied to, did my best for them and myself; but, above all, that there was no undue partiality, which will be what the rejected will endeavour to make out. Fortunately most fortunately - I sent in no lines on the occasion. For I am sure that had they, in that case, been preferred, it would have been asserted that I was known, and owed the preference to private friendship. This is what we shall probably have to encounter; but, if once spoken and approved, we sha'n't be much embarrassed by their brilliant conjectures ; and, as to criticism, an old author, like an old bull, grows cooler (or ought) at every baiting.

--

"The only thing would be to avoid a party on the night of delivery afterwards, the more the better, and the whole transaction inevitably tends to a good deal of discussion. Murray tells me there are myriads of ironical Addresses ready—some, in imitation of what is called my style. If they are as good as the Probationary Odes,

These added lines, as may be seen by reference to the printed Address, were not retained.

"Pray have the goodness to send those despatches, and a No. of the Edinburgh Review with the rest. I hope you have written to Mr. Thompson, thanked him in name for his present, and told him that I shall be truly happy to comply with his request. How do you go on? and when is the graven image, with bays and wicked rhyme upon't,' to grace, or disgrace, some of our tardy editions? "Send me "

Rokeby. Who the deuce is he?- no matter, he has good connections, and will be well introduced. I thank you for your inquiries: I am so so, but my thermometer is sadly below the poetical point. What will you give me or mine for a poem of six cantos, (when complete - no rhyme, no recompense,) as like the last two as I can make them? I have some ideas that one day may be embodied, and till winter I shall have much leisure.

"Cheltenham, Sept. 14. 1812.

"The parcels contained some letters and verses, all (but one) anonymous and complimentary, and very anxious for my conversion from certain infidelities into which my good-natured correspondents conceive me to have fallen. The books were presents of a convertible kind also,—' Christian Knowledge' and the Bioscope,' a religious Dial of Life explained : to the author of the former (Cadell, publisher,) I beg you will forward my best thanks for his letter, his present, and, above all, his good intentions. The 'Bioscope contained a MS. copy of very excellent verses, from

2

whom I know not, but evidently the composition of some one in the habit of writing, and of writing well. I do not know if he be the author of the Bioscope' which accompanied them; but whoever he is, if you can discover him, thank him from me most heartily. The other letters were from ladies, who are welcome to convert me when they please; and if I can discover them, and they be young, as they say they are, I could convince them perhaps of my devotion. I had also a letter from Mr. Walpole on matters of this world, which I have answered.

"So you are Lucien's publisher! I am promised an interview with him, and think I shall ask you for a letter of introduction, as the gods have made him poetical.' From whom could it come with a better grace than from his publisher and mine? Is it not somewhat treasonable in you to have to do with a relative of the direful foe,' as the Morning Post calls his brother?

But my book on 'Diet and Regimen,' where is it? I thirst for Scott's Rokeby; let me have your first-begotten copy. The Anti-jacobin Review is all very well, and not a bit worse than the Quarterly, and at least less harmless. By the by, have you secured my books? I want all the Reviews, at least the critiques, quarterly, monthly, &c., Portuguese and English, extracted, and bound up in one volume for my old age; and pray, sort Romaic books, and get the had them now a long time. If any thing volumes lent to Mr. Hobhouse - he has occurs, you will favour me with a line, and in winter we shall be nearer neighbours. "Yours, &c.

my

"BYRON."

"P. S. I was applied to to write the Address for Drury Lane, but the moment I heard of the contest, I gave up the idea of contending against all Grub Street, and threw a few thoughts on the subject into the fire. I did this out of respect to you, being sure you would have turned off any of your authors who had entered the lists with such scurvy competitors. To triumph would have been no glory; and to have been defeated 'sdeath! I would have choked myself, like Otway, with a quartern loaf: so, remember I had, and have, nothing to do with it, upon my honour!”

1 [In Kenney's farce of" Raising the Wind."]

2 [The author of both works was Granville Penn, Esq., a gentleman descended from the family of Penn of Pennsylvania, and much distinguished for his learning and piety.]

3 [See BYRONIANA.]

4 [This is recorded by one of his biographers; but Pope, in Spence's Anecdotes, relates that Otway died of a fever caught by violent pursuit of an assassin who had fired at one of his friends.]

LETTER 109. TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES.

"Cheltenham, September 28. 1812.

"My dear Bankes,

"When you point out to one how people can be intimate at the distance of some seventy leagues, I will plead guilty to your charge, and accept your farewell, but not wittingly, till you give me some better reason than my silence, which merely proceeded from a notion founded on your own declaration of old, that you hated writing and receiving letters. Besides, how was I to find out a man of many residences? If I had addressed you now, it had been to your borough, where I must have conjectured you were amongst your constituents. So now, in despite of Mr. N. and Lady W., you shall be as much better' as the Hexham postoffice will allow me to make you. I do assure you I am much indebted to you for thinking of me at all, and can't spare you even from amongst the superabundance of friends with whom you suppose me surrounded.

are

"You heard that Newstead' is soldthe sum 140,000.; sixty to remain in mortgage on the estate for three years, paying interest, of course. Rochdale is also likely to do well so my worldly matters mending. I have been here some time drinking the waters, simply because there are waters to drink, and they are very medicinal, and sufficiently disgusting. In a few days I set out for Lord Jersey's, but return here, where I am quite alone, go out very little, and enjoy in its fullest extent the dolce far niente.' What you are about I cannot guess, even from your date; - not dauncing to the sound of the gitourney in the Halls of the Lowthers? one of whom is here, ill, poor thing, with a phthisic. heard that you passed through here (at the sordid inn where I first alighted) the very day before I arrived in these parts. We

I

1 "Early in the autumn of 1812," says Mr. Dallas, “he told me that he was urged by his man of business, and that Newstead must be sold." It was accordingly brought to the hammer at Garraway's, but not, at that time, sold, only 90,000. being offered for it The private sale to which he alludes in this letter took place soon after,Mr. Claughton, the agent for Mr. Leigh, being the purchaser. It was never, however, for reasons which we shall see, completed.

2 [The party were returning from Tintern Abbey in a pleasure boat, and were preparing to land below the bridge at Chepstow, when, on coming through the centre arch, where a barge was moored across, the rope taking the bottom of the boat, upset it. Out of the twelve of which the party consisted, seven actually perished.]

3 A mode of signature he frequently adopted at this time.

had a very pleasant set here; at first the Jerseys, Melbournes, Cowpers, and Hollands, but all gone; and the only persons I know are the Rawdons and Oxfords, with some later acquaintances of less brilliant descent.

"But I do not trouble them much; and as for your rooms and your assemblies, 'they are not dreamed of in our philosophy!!'- Did you read of a sad accident in the Wye t' other day? A dozen drowned; and Mr. Rossoe, a corpulent gentleman, preserved by a boat-hook or an eel-spear, begged, when he heard his wife

was saved - lost to be thrown in again!! as if he could not have thrown himself in, had he wished it; but this for a trait of sensibility. What strange beings men are, in and out of the Wye! 2

66

passes

"I have to ask you a thousand pardons for not fulfilling some orders before I left town; but if you knew all the cursed entanglements I had to wade through, it would be unnecessary to beg your forgiveness. When will Parliament (the new one) meet?

-in sixty days, on account of Ireland, I presume the Irish election will demand a longer period for completion than the constitutional allotment. Yours, of course, is safe, and all your side of the question. Salamanca is the ministerial watchword, and all will go well with you. I hope you will speak more frequently, I am sure at least you ought, and it will be expected. I see Portman means to stand again. night.

Good

"Ever yours most affectionately,

marked and directed, reached the committee. The builders of the lofty pile were totally at a loss to know how to dispose of the builders of the lofty rhyme: the latter all spoke different languages, and all, to the former, equally unintelligible. The committee were alike confounded with the number of addresses, and their own debates. No such confusion of tongues had accompanied any erection since the building of Babel; nor could matters have been set to rights (unless by a miracle), if the convenient though not very candid plan of rejecting all the addresses had not occurred as a mezzotermine in which the whole committee might safely agree; and the addresses were rejected accordingly. We do not think that they deserved, in true poetical justice, a better fate: not one was excellent, two or three only were tolerable, and the rest so execrable that we wonder this committee of taste did not agree upon one of them. But, as the several bards were induced to expend their precious time

their subsequent application to me, I have written a prologue, which has been received, and will be spoken. The MS. is now in the hands of Lord Holland.

"I write this merely to say, that (however it is received by the audience) you will publish it in the next edition of Childe Harold; and I only beg you at present to keep my name secret till you hear further from me, and as soon as possible I wish you to have a correct copy, to do with as you think proper.

"P. S.-I should wish a few copies printed off before, that the newspaper copies may be correct after the delivery."

LETTER 111. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Cheltenham, Oct. 12. 1812.

"I have a very strong objection to the engraving of the portrait, and request that it may, on no account, be prefixed; but let all the proofs be burnt, and the plate broken. I will be at the expense which has been incurred; it is but fair that I should, since I cannot permit the publication. I beg, as a particular favour, that you will lose no time in having this done, for which I have reasons that I will state when I see you. Forgive all the trouble I have occasioned you.

"I have received no account of the reception of the Address, but see it is vituperated in the papers, which does not much embarrass an old author. I leave it to your own judgment to add it, or not, to your next edition when required. Pray comply strictly with my wishes as to the engraving, and believe me, &c.

64

P. S.- Favour me with an answer, as

I

shall not be easy till I hear that the proofs, &c. are destroyed. I hear that the Satirist has reviewed Childe Harold, in what manner I need not ask; but I wish to know if the old personalities are revived? I have a better reason for asking this than any that merely concerns myself; but in publica

and more precious paper, by the implicit engagement on the part of the committee that the best bidder should have the contract, we think they have a right to protest against the injustice of this wholesale rejection. It was about as fair as it would be in Messrs. Bish and Carter, after they had disposed of all their lottery tickets, to acquaint the holders that there should be no drawing, but that they intended to transfer the twenty thousand pound prize to an acquaintance of their own. The committee, we readily admit, made an absurd engagement; but surely they were bound to keep it! In the dilemma to which that learned body was reduced by the rejection of all the biddings, they put themselves under the care of Lord Byron, who prescribed in their case a composition which bears the honour of his name."- Quart. Rev. vol. iii. p. 175.]

A miniature by Sanders. Besides this miniature, Sanders had also painted a full-length of his Lordship,

tions of that kind, others, particularly female names, are sometimes introduced."

LETTER 112. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"My dear Lord,

"Cheltenham, Oct. 14. 1812.

"I perceive that the papers, yea, even Perry's, are somewhat ruffled at the inju dicious preference of the Committee. My friend Perry has, indeed, 'et tu Brute'-d me rather scurvily, for which I will send him, for the M. C., the next epigram I scribble, as a token of my full forgiveness.

"Do the Committee mean to enter into no explanation of their proceedings? You must see there is a leaning towards a charge of partiality. You will, at least, acquit me of any great anxiety to push myself before so many elder and better anonymous, to whom the twenty guineas (which I take to be about two thousand pounds Bank currency) and the honour would have been equally welcome. Honour,' I see, ‘hath skill in paragraph-writing.'

"I wish to know how it went off at the second reading, and whether any one has had the grace to give it a glance of approbation. I have seen no paper but Perry's and two Sunday ones. Perry is severe, and the others silent. If, however, you and your Committee are not now dissatisfied with your own judgments, I shall not much embarrass myself about the brilliant remarks of the journals. My own opinion upon it is what it always was, perhaps pretty near that of the public.

"Believe me, my dear Lord, &c. &c. "P. S.- My best respects to Lady H., whose smiles will be very consolatory, even

at this distance."

from which the portrait prefixed to the quarto edition of this work is engraved. In reference to the latter picture, Lord Byron says, in a note to Mr. Rogers, "If you think the picture you saw at Murray's worth your acceptance, it is yours; and you may put a glove or mask on it, if you like." 3 Among the Addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Committee was one by Dr. Busby, entitled a Monologue, of which the Parody was enclosed in this letter. A short specimen of this trifle will be sufficient. The four first lines of the Doctor's Address are as follows:

"When energising objects men pursue,
What are the prodigies they cannot do?
A magic Edifice you here survey,

Shot from the ruins of the other day!"

Which verses are thus ridiculed, unnecessarily, in the Parody: