MRS. CHAWORTH MUSTERS.

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year; and we shall have a world to say, and to see, and to hear. Let me hear from you.

P.S. Of course you will keep my secret, and don't even talk in your sleep of it. Happen what may, your dedication is ensured, being already written; and I shall copy it out fair to-night, in case business or amusement— Amant alterna Camana.

387. To the Hon. Augusta Leigh.

[Undated.]

MY DEAREST A.,-I shall write tomorrow-but did not go to Ly M.'s twelfth cake banquet.-M.2 has written again-all friendship and really very simple and pathetic -bad usage-paleness-ill health-old friendship-oncegood motive-virtue-and so forth.

You shall hear from me tomorrow.

Ever, dearest Augusta,

Yours,

B.

Twelfth

1. Probably "LY M." stands for Lady Melbourne. Night entertainments, with a cake, and characters, were every year given to a party of children by Rogers. The characters were drawn by the children; the two who drew the King and Queen being made King and Queen of Twelfth Night. Mr. Clayden (Rogers and his Contemporaries, vol. i. pp. 207, 208) gives the recollections of an octogenarian lady, who drew the Queen, sat "in state on a sofa of "crimson silk," with the King by her side, and received the homage of Rogers, Sharp, Moore, Byron, and others.

2. Probably Mrs. Chaworth Musters. An undated letter from her, preserved among the Byron letters, seems to belong to this period.

"Your kind letter, my dear Friend, relieved me much," she writes to Byron, "and came yesterday, when I was by no means "well, and was a most agreeable remedy, for I fancied a thousand "things. "come down to Newstead before we leave Annesley, see no reason I shall set great value by your seal, and, if you "why you should not call on us and bring it. . . . I have lately

...

388.-To John Murray.

Jan. 7, 1814.

DEAR SIR,-You don't like the dedication-very well-there is another; but you will send the other to Mr. Moore, that he may know I had written it. I send also mottos for the cantos. I think you will allow that an elephant may be more sagacious, but cannot be more docile.

Yours,

BN.

The name is again altered to Medora

"suffered from a pain in my side, which has alarmed me; but I "will not, in return for your charming epistle, fill mine with com"plaints. From inclination, I really believe I should never leave "my own home, for I am become very stupid, and have neither mind "nor strength to enjoy society, and it must be the presence of those "I very much esteem to afford me the least amusement. This was "not the case when I drove with you from G.(?), etc., etc. These "were indeed the happiest days of my life, and, believe me, they are "often thought of and regretted.

"I am not so sanguine as to look forward for any such in the "future, though I do think happiness depends very much upon "ourselves, and that our own follies occasion our miseries. I am

sure, for my own part, I might have acted better, but my indifferent "health, and a variety of circumstances have conspired against me, "and not improved my temper, which my connections say is "intolerable.

"I am surprised you have not seen Mr. C., as I hear of him "going about a good deal. We are now visiting very near Notting"ham, but return to A. to-morrow, I trust, where I have left all my "little dears, except the eldest, whom you saw and who is with me. "We are very anxious to see you, and yet know not how we shall "feel on the occasion-formal, I dare say, at the first; but our meet"ing must be confined to our trio, and then I think we shall be more "at our ease. Do write me, and make a sacrifice to friendship, "which I shall consider your visit. You may always address your "letters to Annesley perfectly safe.

"Your sincere friend,

1. The name of the heroine in The Corsair was at first Genevra -not Francesca, as Dallas asserts. Byron gives the name Genevra to Lady F. Wedderburn Webster, to whom the two sonnets "to "Genevra," written in December, 1813, were really addressed.

DEDICATION OF THE CORSAIR.

9

389.-To Thomas Moore.

January 8, 1814.

As it would not be fair to press you into a dedication, without previous notice, I send you two, and I will tell you why two. The first, Mr. M., who sometimes takes upon him the critic (and I bear it from astonishment), says, may do you harm-God forbid !-this alone makes me listen to him. The fact is, he is a damned Tory, and has, I dare swear, something of self, which I cannot divine, at the bottom of his objection, as it is the allusion to Ireland to which he objects. But he be damnedthough a good fellow enough (your sinner would not be worth a damn).

Take your choice ;-no one, save he and Mr. Dallas, has seen either, and D. is quite on my side, and for the first. If I can but testify to you and the world how

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1

1. Moore preferred the first; the other ran as follows :—

"January 7, 1814.

"MY DEAR MOORE, -I had written to you a long letter of "dedication, which I suppress, because, though it contained something relating to you which every one had been glad to hear, "yet there was too much about politics, and poesy, and all things "whatsoever, ending with that topic on which most men are fluent, and none very amusing-one's self. It might have been re-written "-but to what purpose? My praise could add nothing to your "well-earned and firmly established fame; and with my most hearty "admiration of your talents, and delight in your conversation, you "are already acquainted. In availing myself of your friendly per"mission to inscribe this poem to you, I can only wish the offering were as worthy your acceptance as your regard is dear to "Yours, most affectionately and faithfully,

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"BYRON."

Moore writes to Byron an undated letter, in which he says he had heard from Murray that "The Corsair was liked beyond measure, "which I could easily take for granted without his having the kind66 ness to inform me. pected of undue partiality for the child; but certainly anything I may, perhaps, as God-father, be sus་་ more fearfully interesting, more wild, touching, and negligently "grand,' I never read even from your pen. You are careless, but

66

truly I admire and esteem you, I shall be quite satisfied. As to prose, I don't know Addison's from Johnson's; but I will try to mend my cacology. Pray perpend, pronounce, and don't be offended with either.

My last epistle would probably put you in a fidget. But the devil, who ought to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my letter to the right place.

*

*

Is it not odd?—the very fate I said she had escaped from **, she has now undergone from the worthy **. Like Mr. Fitzgerald,1 shall I not lay claim to the character of "Vates?"-as he did in the Morning Herald for prophesying the fall of Buonaparte,-who, by the by, I don't think is yet fallen. I wish he would rally and rout your legitimate sovereigns, having a mortal hate to all royal entails. But I am scrawling a treatise. Good night.

Ever, etc.

"you can afford to be so, and, whenever you slumber, it is like the "albatross, high in air and on the wing." Murray was, however, right; the Dedication provoked numerous attacks upon Moore, some of which will be found in Letters, vol. ii. Appendix VII.

1. William Thomas Fitzgerald (circ. 1759-1829), the "hoarse "Fitzgerald" of English Bards, etc. (line 1; see Poems, ed. 1898, vol. i. p. 297, note 3), and Cobbett's "Small Beer Poet," owes his fame to Byron, and to Rejected Addresses. In the Morning Post, January 13, 1814, appears a Poem, "The White Cockade,' being an Address to the French nation, by William Thomas Fitzgerald." The conclusion is as follows:

"Then let the Bard his former strains repeat,
Prophetic of THE CORSICAN'S defeat ;'

Heaven for a while permits THE TYRANT'S crimes,

As awful judgments on flagitious times!

But come there will, or soon or late, the hour,
Shall hurl THE DESPOT headlong from his pow'r;
Pluck from his brow the transient plume of fame,
AND GIVE TO DEATHLESS INFAMY HIS NAME!"

"Vide Mr. Fitzgerald's Address to the Literary Fund, on their "Anniversary, last May."

1814.]

MISS EDGEWORTH'S PATRONAGE.

II

390.-To John Murray.

January 11, 1814.

Correct this proof by Mr. G.'s (and from the MSS.), particularly as to the pointing. I have added a section for Gulnare, to fill up the parting, and dismiss her more ceremoniously. If Mr. G. or you dislike, 'tis but a spunge and another midnight better employed than in yawning over Miss Edgeworth; who, by the bye, may soon return the compliment.

Ever yours,
BN.

Wednesday or Thursday.

P.S.-I have redde Patronage. It is full of praises of Lord Ellenborough !!!—from which I infer near and dear relations at the bar, and has much of her heartlessness and little of her humours (wit she has none), and she must live more than 3 weeks in London to describe good or (if you will) high society; the ton of her book is as vulgar as her father-and no more attractive than her eyes.

I do not love Madame de Stael; but, depend upon it, she beats all your Natives hollow as an Authoress, in my opinion; and I would not say this if I could help it.

P.S.-Pray report my best acknowledgments to Mr. Gd in any words that may best express how truly his kindness obliges me. I won't bore him with lip thanks

or notes.

1. Miss Edgeworth's Patronage (1814) is a wearisome book, in which she contrasts the Percys, who succeed by merit, with the Falkners, who rise by truckling to an insolent patron. The picture of the Bar, with the Lord Chief Justice as an "admirable Crichton," is unrecognizable.