Chapter 4

[Footnote 2: Byron was endeavouring to secure for Bland (see 'Letters, vol. i. p. 271, 'note' 1 [Footnote 2 of Letter 137]), the work of translating Lucien Buonaparte's poem of 'Charlemagne'. He did not succeed. The poem, translated by Dr. Butler, Head-master of Shrewsbury, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield, and Francis Hodgson, was published in 1815.]

[Footnote 3: Lines 149-156.]

[Footnote 4: 'An Apology for Christianity, in a Series of Letters to Edward Gibbon, Esq.', by Richard Watson, D.D. (1776). Gibbon had a great respect for Watson, at this time Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff, whom he describes as "a prelate of a large mind and liberal spirit." In a letter to Holroyd (November 4, 1776), he speaks of the 'Apology' as "feeble," but "uncommingly genteel." To his stepmother he writes, November 29, 1776, that Watson's answer is "civil" and "too dull to deserve your notice."]

* * * * *

210.--To William Harness. [1]

8, St. James's Street, Dec. 6, 1811.

My Dear Harness,--I write again, but don't suppose I mean to lay such a tax on your pen and patience as to expect regular replies. When you are inclined, write: when silent, I shall have the consolation of knowing that you are much better employed. Yesterday, Bland and I called on Mr. Miller, who, being then out, will call on Bland to-day or to-morrow. I shall certainly endeavour to bring them together.--You are censorious, child; when you are a little older, you will learn to dislike every body, but abuse nobody.

With regard to the person of whom you speak, your own good sense must direct you. I never pretend to advise, being an implicit believer in the old proverb. This present frost is detestable. It is the first I have felt for these three years, though I longed for one in the oriental summer, when no such thing is to be had, unless I had gone to the top of Hymettus for it.

I thank you most truly for the concluding part of your letter. I have been of late not much accustomed to kindness from any quarter, and am not the less pleased to meet with it again from one where I had known it earliest. I have not changed in all my ramblings,--Harrow, and, of course, yourself, never left me, and the

"_Dulces reminiscitur Argos_"

attended me to the very spot to which that sentence alludes in the mind of the fallen Argive.--Our intimacy began before we began to date at all, and it rests with you to continue it till the hour which must number it and me with the things that _were_.

Do read mathematics.--I should think _X plus Y_ at least as amusing as the 'Curse of Kehama' [2], and much more intelligible. Master Southey's poems _are_, in fact, what parallel lines might be--viz. prolonged _ad infinitum_ without meeting anything half so absurd as themselves.

"What news, what news? Queen Orraca, What news of scribblers five? S----, W----, C----, L----d, and L----e? All damn'd, though yet alive."

Coleridge is lecturing. [3]

"Many an old fool," said Hannibal to some such lecturer, "but such as this, never." [4]

Ever yours, etc.

[Footnote 1: See 'Letters', vol. i. p. 177, 'note' 1. [Footnote 1 of