LETTER 306. TO MR. MURRAY.

Venice, January 27. 1818. "My father-that is, my Armenian father, Padre Pasquali - in the name of all the other fathers of our Convent, sends you the inclosed, greeting.

"Inasmuch as it has pleased the translators of the long-lost and lately-found portions of the text of Eusebius to put forth the inclosed prospectus, of which I send six copies, you are hereby implored to obtain subscribers in the two Universities, and among the learned, and the unlearned who would unlearn their ignorance. · - This they (the Convent) request, I request, and do you

request.

"I sent you Beppo some weeks agone. You must publish it alone; it has politics and ferocity, and won't do for your isthmus of a Journal.

"Mr. Hobhouse, if the Alps have not broken his neck, is, or ought to be, swimming with my commentaries and his own coat of mail in his teeth and right hand, in a cork jacket, between Calais and Dover.

"It is the height of the Carnival, and I am in the extreme and agonies of a new intrigue with I don't exactly know whom or what, except that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has light hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that I met her at the Masque, and that when her mask is off, I am as wise as ever. I shall make what I can of the remainder of my youth."

LETTER 307. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, February 2. 1818. Your letter of December 8th arrived but this day, by some delay, common but inexplicable. Your domestic calamity is very grievous, and I feel with you as much as I dare feel at all. Throughout life, your loss must be my loss, and your gain my gain; and, though my heart may ebb, there will always be a drop for you among the dregs.

I know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the substratum of our damnable clay) I am quite wrapt up in my own children. Besides my little legiti

1 This possibly may have been the subject of the Poem given in p. 5.

2 Having seen by accident the passage in one of his letters to Mr. Murray, in which he denounces, as false and worthless, the poetical system on which the greater number of his cotemporaries, as well as himself, founded their reputation, I took an opportunity, in the next letter I wrote to him, of jesting a little on this opinion, and his motives for it. It was, no doubt (I ventured to say), ex

mate, I have made unto myself an illegimate since (to say nothing of one before '), and I look forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever reachwhich I hope. I never shall that desolating period. I have a great love for my little Ada, though perhaps she may torture me like

*

"Your offered address will be as acceptable as you can wish. I don't much care what the wretches of the world think of me -all that's past. But I care a good deal what you think of me, and, so say what you like. You know that I am not sullen; and, as to being savage, such things depend on circumstances. However, as to being in good humour in your society, there is no great merit in that, because it would be an effort, or an insanity, to be otherwise.

2

I don't know what Murray may have been saying or quoting. I called Crabbe and Sam the fathers of present Poesy; and said, that I thought-except them—all of us youth' were on a wrong tack. But I never said that we did not sail well. Our fame will be hurt by admiration and imitation. When I say our, I mean all (Lakers included), except the postscript of the Augustans. The next generation (from the quantity and facility of imitation) will tumble and break their necks off our Pegasus, who runs away with us; but we keep the saddle, because we broke the rascal and can ride. But though easy to mount, he is the devil to guide; and the next fellows must go back to the ridingschool and the manège, and learn to ride the 'great horse.'

Talking of horses, by the way, I have transported my own, four in number, to the Lido (beach in English), a strip of some ten miles along the Adriatic, a mile or two from the city; so that I not only get a row in my gondola, but a spanking gallop of some miles daily along a firm and solitary beach, from the fortress to Malamocco, the which contributes considerably to my health and spirits.

"I have hardly had a wink of sleep this week past. We are in the agonies of the Carnival's last days, and I must be up all night again, as well as to-morrow. I have had some curious masking adventures this

cellent policy in him, who had made sure of his own im. mortality in this style of writing, thus to throw overboard all us poor devils who were embarked with him. He was, in fact, I added, behaving towards us much in the manner of the Methodist preacher who said to his con gregation" You may think, at the Last Day, to get to heaven by laying hold on my skirts; but I'll cheat you all. for I'll wear a spencer, I'll wear a spencer!"- [This preacher was the Rev. Rowland Hill.]

Carnival'; but, as they are not yet over, I shall not say on. I will work the mine of my youth to the last veins of the ore, and then- good night. I have lived, and am

content.

“Hobhouse went away before the Carnival began, so that he had little or no fun. Besides, it requires some time to be thoroughgoing with the Venetians; but of all this anon, in some other letter.

"I must dress for the evening. There is an opera and ridotto, and I know not what, besides balls; and so, ever and ever yours, "B.

"P. S.-I send this without revision, so excuse errors. I delight in the fame and fortune of Lalla, and again congratulate you on your well-merited success.

Of his daily rides on the Lido, which he mentions in this letter, the following account, by a gentleman who lived a good deal with him at Venice, will be found not a little interesting:

"Almost immediately after Mr. Hobhouse's departure, Lord Byron proposed to me to accompany him in his rides on the Lido. One of the long narrow islands which separate the Lagune, in the midst of which Venice stands, from the Adriatic, is more particularly distinguished by this name. At one extremity is a fortification, which, with the Castle of St. Andrea on an island on the opposite side, defends the nearest entrance to the city from the sea. In times of peace this fortification is almost dismantled, and Lord Byron had hired here of the Commandant an unoccupied stable, where he kept his horses. The distance from the city was not very considerable; it was much less than to the Terra Firma, and, as far as it went, the spot was not ineligible for riding.

"Every day that the weather would permit Lord Byron called for me in his gondola, and we found the horses waiting for us outside of the fort. We rode as far as we could along the sea-shore, and then on a kind of dyke, or embankment, which has been raised where the island was very narrow, as far as another small fort about half way between the principal one which I have already mentioned, and the town or village of Malamocco, which is near the other extremity of the island, the distance between the two forts being about three miles.

"On the land side of the embankment, not far from the smaller fort, was a boundary stone which probably marked some division of property, - all the side of the island nearest the Lagune being divided into gardens for the cultivation of vegetables for

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the Venetian markets. At the foot of this stone Lord Byron repeatedly told me that I should cause him to be interred, if he should die in Venice, or its neighbourhood, during my residence there; and he appeared to think, as he was not a Catholic, that, on the part of the government, there could be no obstacle to his interment in an unhallowed spot of ground by the sea-side. At all events, I was to overcome whatever difficulties might be raised on this account. I was, by no means, he repeatedly told me, to allow his body to be removed to England, nor permit any of his family to interfere with his funeral.

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Nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the Lido were to me. We were from half to three quarters of an hour crossing the water, during which his conversation was always most amusing and interesting. Sometimes he would bring with him any new book he had received, and read to me the passages which most struck him. Often he would repeat to me whole stanzas of the poems he was engaged in writing, as he had composed them on the preceding evening; and this was the more interesting to me, because I could frequently trace in them some idea which he had started in our conversation of the preceding day, or some remark, the effect of which he had been

evidently trying upon me. Occasionally, too, he spoke of his own affairs, making me repeat all I had heard with regard to him, and desiring that I would not spare him, but let him know the worst that was said.

which came last week, much quicker than any before, owing to Mr. Croker's kind attention, and the official exterior of the bags; and all safe, except much friction amongst the magnesia, of which only two bottles came entire; but it is all very well, and I am exceedingly obliged to you.

"The books I have read, or rather am reading. Pray, who may be the Sexagenarian', whose gossip is very amusing? Many of his sketches Irecognise, particularly Gifford, Mackintosh, Drummond, Dutens, H. Walpole, Mrs. Inchbald, Opie, &c., with the Scotts, Loughborough, and most of the divines and lawyers, besides a few shorter hints of authors, and a few lines about a certain noble author,' characterised as malignant and sceptical, according to the good old story, as it was in the beginning, is now, but not always shall be :' do you know such a person, Master Murray? eh? And pray, of the booksellers, which be you? the dry, the dirty, the honest, the opulent, the finical, the splendid, or the coxcomb bookseller? Stap my vitals, but the author grows scurrilous in his grand climacteric !

"I remember to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, and in private parties, but not frequently: and I never can recollect him except as drunk or brutal, and generally both: I mean in an evening, for in the hall he dined at the Dean's table, and I at the Vice-master's, so that I was not near him; and he then and there appeared sober in his demeanour, nor did I ever hear of excess or outrage on his part in public,-commons, college, or chapel; but I have seen him in a private party of undergraduates, many of them fresh men and strangers, take up a poker to one of them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his action. I have seen Sheridan drunk, too, with all the world; but his intoxication was that of Bacchus, and Por

1 ["The Sexagenarian, or Recollections of a Literary Life," though a posthumous publication, was printed under the inspection of its author, the Rev. William Beloe, translator of Herodotus, one of the proprietors of the British Critic, and author of "Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books," &c. &c. He died in 1817.]

2 ["Neither would I have you ask the noble author. Him, I mean, who is certainly possessed of great intellectual powers, and a peculiar turn for a certain line of poetry; but whose bad passions so perpetually insinuate themselves in every thing which he writes, that it is hardly possible to escape the injury of his venom, and scarcely worth while to separate the gold from the dross." — Sexagenarian, vol. ii. p. 228.]

9 [For a review of her " France," see Quart. Rev. vol. xvii. p. 260.]

4[" It is perhaps as bitter a critique as ever was written, and enough to make sad work for Dr. Morgan, both as a husband, and an apothecary-unless she should say, as

Of all the disgusting

son's that of Silenus. brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most bestial, as far as the few times that I saw him went, which were only at William Bankes's (the Nubian discoverer's) rooms. I saw him once go away in a rage, because nobody knew the name of the Cobbler of Messina,' insulting their ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. He was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents, as the Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or rather vomit, pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition than this man's intoxication.

"I perceive, in the book you sent me, a long account of him, which is very savage. I cannot judge, as I never saw him sober, except in hall or combination-room; and then I was never near enough to hear, and hardly to see him. Of his drunken deportment I can be sure, because I saw it.

With the Reviews I have been much entertained. It requires to be as far from England as I am to relish a periodical paper properly: it is like soda-water in an Italian summer. But what cruel work you make with Lady Morgan! You should recollect that she is a woman; though, to be sure, they are now and then very provoking: still, as authoresses, they can do no great harm; and I think it a pity so much good invective should have been laid out upon her, when there is such a fine field of us Jacobin gentlemen for you to work upon.+

"I heard from Moore lately, and was sorry to be made aware of his domestic loss. Thus it is medio de fonte leporum'-in the acmé of his fame and of his happiness comes a drawback as usual.

"Mr. Hoppner, whom I saw this morning, has been made the father of a very fine boy.

Pope did of some attack upon him, that it is as good for her as a dose of hartshorn.""-MS.]

5 On the birth of this child, who was christened John William Rizzo, Lord Byron wrote the four following lines, which are in no other respect remarkable than that they were thought worthy of being metrically translated into no less than ten different languages; namely, Greek, Latin, Italian (also in the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan :

"His father's sense, his mother's grace
In him, I hope, will always fit so;
With (still to keep him in good case)
The health and appetite of Rizzo."

The original lines, with the different versions just mentioned, were printed, in a small neat volume (which now lies before me), in the seminary of Padua. [See Works, p. 571.]

“P.S.—In the course of a month or two, Hanson will have probably to send off a clerk with conveyances to sign (Newstead being sold in November last for ninety-four thousand and five hundred pounds), in which case I supplicate supplies of articles as usual, for which desire Mr. Kinnaird to settle from funds in their bank, and deduct from my account with him.

"P. S.-To-morrow night I am going to see 'Otello,' an opera from our 'Othello,' and one of Rossini's best, it is said. It will be curious to see in Venice the Venetian story itself represented, besides to discover what they will make of Shakspeare in

music."

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LETTER 309. TO MR. HOPPNER.

My dear Sir,

"Venice, February 28. 1818.

"Our friend, il Conte M., threw me into a cold sweat last night, by telling me of a menaced version of Manfred (Venetian, I hope, to complete the thing) by some Italian, who had sent it to you for correction, which is the reason why I take the liberty of troubling you on the subject. If you have any means of communication with the man, would you permit me to convey to him the offer of any price he may obtain or think to obtain for his project, provided he will throw his translation into the fire', and promise not to undertake any other of that or any other of my things: I will send his money immediately on this condition.

"As I did not write to the Italians, nor for the Italians, nor of the Italians, (except in a poem not yet published, where I have said all the good I know or do not know of them, and none of the harm,) I confess I wish that they would let me alone, and not drag me into their arena as one of the gladiators, in a silly contest which I neither

1 Having ascertained that the utmost this translator could expect to make by his manuscript was two hundred francs, Lord Byron offered him that sum, if he would desist from publishing. The Italian, however, held out for more; nor could he be brought to terms, till it was intimated to him pretty plainly from Lord Byron that, should the publication be persisted in, he would horsewhip him the very first time they met. Being but little inclined to suffer martyrdom in the cause, the translator accepted the two hundred francs, and delivered up his manuscript, en

PORSON.

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understand nor have ever interfered with, having kept clear of all their literary parties, both here and at Milan, and elsewhere. I came into Italy to feel the climate and be quiet, if possible. Mossi's translation I would have prevented, if I had known it, or could have done so; and I trust that I shall yet be in time to stop this new gentletime. He will only hurt himself, and do man, of whom I heard yesterday for the first no good to his party, for in party the whole thing originates. Our modes of thinking and writing are so unutterably different, that I can conceive no greater absurdity than attempting to make any approach between the English and Italian poetry of the present day. I like the people very much, and their literature very much, but I am not the least ambitious of being the subject of their discussions literary and personal (which appear to be pretty much the same thing, as is the case in most countries); and if you can add to much kindness already received from aid me in impeding this publication, you will you by yours

66

"Ever and truly, "BYRON.

P. S.-How is the son, and mamma? Well, I dare say.”

LETTER 310. TO MR. ROGERS.

"Venice, March 3. 1818.

"I have not, as you say, 'taken to wife the Adriatic.' I heard of Moore's loss from himself in a letter which was delayed upon the road three months. I was sincerely sorry for it, but in such cases what are words?

"The villa you speak of is one at Este, which Mr. Hoppner (Consul-general here) has transferred to me. I have taken it for two years as a place of villeggiatura. The situation is very beautiful, indeed, among the Euganean hills, and the house very fair. The vines are luxuriant to a great degree, and all the fruits of the earth abundant. is close to the old castle of the Estes, or Guelphs, and within a few miles of Arqua, which I have visited twice, and hope to visit often.

It

"Last summer (except an excursion to

tering at the same time into a written engagement never to translate any other of the noble poet's works.

Of the qualifications of this person as a translator of English poetry, some idea may be formed from the difficulty he found himself under respecting the meaning of a line in the Incantation in Manfred, "And the wisp on the morass," which he requested of Mr. Hoppner to expound to him, not having been able to find in the dictionaries to which he had access any other signification of the word "wisp" than "a bundle of straw."