Chapter 26

[Footnote 16: About two years ago a young man named Townsend was announced by Mr. Cumberland, in a review (since deceased) [the 'London Review'], as being engaged in an epic poem to be entitled "Armageddon." The plan and specimen promise much; but I hope neither to offend Mr. Townsend, nor his friends, by recommending to his attention the lines of Horace to which these rhymes allude. If Mr. Townsend succeeds in his undertaking, as there is reason to hope, how much will the world be indebted to Mr. Cumberland for bringing him before the public! But, till that eventful day arrives, it may be doubted whether the premature display of his plan (sublime as the ideas confessedly are) has not,--by raising expectation too high, or diminishing curiosity, by developing his argument,--rather incurred the hazard of injuring Mr. Townsend's future prospects. Mr. Cumberland (whose talents I shall not depreciate by the humble tribute of my praise) and Mr. Townsend must not suppose me actuated by unworthy motives in this suggestion. I wish the author all the success he can wish himself, and shall be truly happy to see epic poetry weighed up from the bathos where it lies sunken with Southey, Cottle, Cowley (Mrs. or Abraham), Ogilvy, Wilkie, Pye, and all the "dull of past and present days." Even if he is not a 'Milton', he may be better than 'Blackmore'; if not a 'Homer', an 'Antimachus'. I should deem myself presumptuous, as a young man, in offering advice, were it not addressed to one still younger. Mr. Townsend has the greatest difficulties to encounter; but in conquering them he will find employment; in having conquered them, his reward. I know too well "the scribbler's scoff, the critic's contumely;" and I am afraid time will teach Mr. Townsend to know them better. Those who succeed, and those who do not, must bear this alike, and it is hard to say which have most of it. I trust that Mr. Townsend's share will be from 'envy'; he will soon know mankind well enough not to attribute this expression to malice. [This note was written [at Athens] before the author was apprised of Mr. Cumberland's death [in May, 1811].--'MS'. (See Byron's letter to Dallas, August 27, 1811.) The Rev. George Townsend (1788-1857) published 'Poems' in 1810, and eight books of his 'Armageddon' in 1815. They met with the fate which Byron had predicted. In later life he compiled numerous works of scriptural exegesis. He was a Canon of Durham from 1825 till his death.]]

[Footnote 17: The first line of 'A Spirit of Discovery by Sea', by the Rev. W. Lisle Bowles, first published in 1805.]

[Footnote 18: Harvey, the 'circulator' of the 'circulation' of the blood, used to fling away Virgil in his ecstasy of admiration and say, "the book had a devil." Now such a character as I am copying would probably fling it away also, but rather wish that "the devil had the book;" not from dislike to the poet, but a well-founded horror of hexameters. Indeed, the public school penance of "Long and Short" is enough to beget an antipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life, and, perhaps, so far may be an advantage.]

[Footnote 19:

"'Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem'."

I dare say Mr. Tavell (to whom I mean no affront) will understand me; and it is no matter whether any one else does or no.--To the above events, "'quæque ipse miserrima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui'," all 'times' and 'terms' bear testimony. [The Rev. G.F. Tavell was a fellow and tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, during Byron's residence, and owed this notice to the "zeal with which he protested against his juvenile vagaries." During a part of his residence at Trinity, Byron kept a tame bear in his rooms in Neville's Court. (See 'English Bards', l. 973, 'note', and postscript to the Second Edition, 'ante', p. 383. See also letter to Miss Pigot, October 26, 1807.)

The following copy of a bill (no date) tells its own story:--

The Honble. Lord Byron.

To John Clarke.

To Bread & Milk for the Bear deliv'd.} £ 1 9 7 to Haladay ... ... ... }

Cambridge Reve. A Clarke.]]

[Footnote 20: "Hell," a gaming-house so called, where you risk little, and are cheated a good deal. "Club," a pleasant purgatory, where you lose more, and are not supposed to be cheated at all.]

[Footnote 21:

"Irene had to speak two lines with the bowstring round her neck; but the audience cried out ['Murder!'] 'Murder!' and she was obliged to go off the stage alive."

'Boswell's Johnson' [1876, p. 60].

[Irene (first played February 6, 1749) for the future was put to death behind the scenes. The strangling her, contrary to Horace's rule, 'coram populo', was suggested by Garrick. (See Davies' 'Life of Garrick' (1808), i. 157.)]]

[Footnote 22: Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818). ('Vide English Bards, etc'., l. 265, n. 8.) The character of Hassan, "my misanthropic negro," as Lewis called him, was said by the critics of the day to have been borrowed from Zanga in Young's 'Revenge'. Lewis, in his "Address to the Reader," quoted by Byron (in 'note' 3), defends the originality of the conception.]

[Footnote 23: In the postscript to _The Castle Spectre_, Mr. Lewis tells us, that though blacks were unknown in England at the period of his action, yet he has made the anachronism to set off the scene: and if he could have produced the effect "by making his heroine blue,"--I quote him--"blue he would have made her!" [_The Castle Spectre_, by M.G. Lewis, Esq., M.P., London, 1798, page 102.]]

[Footnote 24: In 1706 John Dennis, the critic (1657-1734), wrote an 'Essay on the Operas after the Italian manner, which are about to be established on the English Stage'; to show that they were more immoral than the most licentious play.]

[Footnote 25: One of the gangways in the Opera House, where the young men of fashion used to assemble. (See letter to Murray, Nov. 9, 1820; _Life_, p. 62.)]

[Footnote 26: In the year 1808, happening at the opera to tread on the toes of a very well-dressed man, I turned round to apologize, when, to my utter astonishment, I recognized the face of the porter of the very hotel where I then lodged in Albemarle Street. So here was a gentleman who ran every morning forty errands for half a crown, throwing away half a guinea at night, besides the expense of his habiliments, and the hire of his "Chapeau de Bras."--[_MS. L. (a)_.]]

[Footnote 27: The first theatrical representations, entitled "Mysteries and Moralities," were generally enacted at Christmas, by monks (as the only persons who could read), and latterly by the clergy and students of the universities. The dramatis personae were usually Adam, Pater Coelestis, Faith, Vice, and sometimes an angel or two; but these were eventually superseded by 'Gammer Gurton's Needle'.--'Vide' Warton's 'History of English Poetry [passim]'.--['MSS. M., L. (b)'.]]

[Footnote 28: 'Benvolio' [Lord Grosvenor, 'MS. L'. ('b')] does not bet; but every man who maintains racehorses is a promoter of all the concomitant evils of the turf. Avoiding to bet is a little pharisaical. Is it an exculpation? I think not. I never yet heard a bawd praised for chastity, because 'she herself' did not commit fornication.

[Robert, second Earl Grosvenor (1767-1845), was created Marquis of Westminster in 1831. Like his father, Gifford's patron, the first Earl Grosvenor, he was a breeder of racehorses, and a patron of the turf. As Lord Belgrave, he brought forward a motion for the suppression of Sunday newspapers, June 11, 1799, denouncing them in a violent speech. The motion was lost; but many years after, in a speech delivered in the House of Lords, January 2, 1807, he returned to the charge. (See 'Parl. Hist'., 34. 1006, 1010; and 'Parl. Deb'., 8. 286.) (For a skit on Lord Belgrave's sabbatarian views, see Peter Pindar, 'Works' (1812), iv. 519.)]]

[Footnote 29: Samuel Foote (1720-1777), actor and playwright. His solo entertainments, in 'The Dish of Tea, An Auction of Pictures', 1747-8 (see his comedy 'Taste'), were the precursors of 'Mathews at Home', and a long line of successors. His farces and curtain-pieces were often "spiced-up" with more or less malicious character-sketches of living persons. Among his better known pieces are 'The Minor' (1760), ridiculing Whitefield and the Methodists, and 'The Mayor of Garratt' (1763), in which he played the part of Sturgeon (Byron used this piece, for an illustration in his speech on the Frame-workers Bill, February 27, 1812). 'The Lyar', first played at Covent Garden, January 12, 1762, was the latest to hold the stage. It was reproduced at the Opera Comique in 1877.]

[Footnote 30: Henry Carey, poet and musician (d. 1743), a natural son of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, was the author of _Chrononhotonthologos_, "the most tragical tragedy ever yet tragedised by any company of tragedians," which was first played at the Haymarket, February 22, 1734. The well-known lines, "Go, call a coach, and let a coach be called," etc., which Scott prefixed to the first chapter of _The Antiquary_, are from the last scene, in which Bombardinion fights with and kills the King Chrononhotonthologos. But his one achievement was _Sally in our Alley_, of which he wrote both the words and the music. The authorship of "God Save the King" has been attributed to him, probably under a misapprehension.]

[Footnote 31: Under Plato's pillow a volume of the 'Mimes' of Sophron was found the day he died.--'Vide' Barthélémi, De Pauw, or Diogenes Laërtius, [Lib. iii. p. 168--Chouet 1595] if agreeable. De Pauw calls it a jest-book. Cumberland, in his 'Observer', terms it moral, like the sayings of Publius Syrus.]

[Footnote 32: In 1737 the manager of Goodman's Fields Theatre having brought Sir Robert Walpole a farce called 'The Golden Rump', the minister detained the copy. He then made extracts of the most offensive passages, read them to the house, and brought in a bill to limit the number of playhouses and to subject all dramatic writings to the inspection of the Lord Chamberlain. Horace Walpole ascribed 'The Golden Rump' to Fielding, and said that he had found an imperfect copy of the play among his father's papers. But this has been questioned. (See 'A Book of the Play', by Dutton Cook (1881), p. 27.)]]

[Footnote 33: His speech on the Licensing Act [in which he opposed the Bill], is reckoned one of his most eloquent efforts.

[The following sentences have been extracted from the speech which was delivered:--

"The bill is not only an encroachment upon liberty, it is likewise an encroachment on property. Wit, my lords, is a sort of property; it is the property of those who have it, and too often the only property they have to depend on...

"Those gentlemen who have any such property are all, I hope, our friends; do not let us subject them to any unnecessary or arbitrary restraint...

"The stage and the press, my lord, are two of our out-sentries; if we remove them, if we hoodwink them, if we throw them into fetters, the enemy may surprise us. Therefore I must now look upon the bill before us as a step for introducing arbitrary power into this kingdom."

Lord Chesterfield's sentiments with regard to laughter are contained in an apophthegm, repeated more than once in his correspondence: "The vulgar laugh aloud, but never smile; on the contrary, people of fashion often smile, but seldom or never laugh aloud."--'Chesterfield's Letters to his Godson', Oxford, 1890, p. 27.]]

[Footnote 34: Archer and Squire Sullen are characters in Farquhar's play (1678-1707), 'The Beaux' Stratagem', March 8, 1707.]]

[Footnote 35: Michael Perez, the "Copper Captain," in [Fletcher's] 'Rule a Wife and Have a Wife' [licensed October 19, 1624].]

[Footnote 36: The Rev. Dr. Francis Willis died in 1807, in the 90th year of his age. He attended George III. in his first attack of madness in 1788. The power of his eye on other persons is illustrated by a story related by Frederick Reynolds ('Life and Times', ii. 23), who describes how Edmund Burke quailed under his look. His son, John Willis, was entrusted with the entire charge of the king in 1811. Compare Shelley's 'Peter Bell the Third', part vi.--

"Let him shave his head: Where's Dr. Willis?"

(See, too, 'Bland-Burges Papers' (1885), pp. 113-115, and 'Life of George IV'., by Percy Fitzgerald (1881), ii. 18.)]]

[Footnote 37: Dr. Johnson was of the like opinion.

"Highwaymen and housebreakers," he says, in his Life of Gay, "seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in any elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage."

'Lives of the Poets', by Samuel Johnson (1890), ii. 266. It was asserted, on the other hand, by Sir John Fielding, the Bow-street magistrate, that on every run of the piece, 'The Beggar's Opera', an increased number of highwaymen were brought to his office; and so strong was his conviction, that in 1772 he remonstrated against the performance with the managers of both the houses.]

[Footnote 38: Jerry Collier's controversy with Congreve, etc., on the subject of the drama, is too well known to require further comment.

[Jeremy Collier (1650-1756), non-juring bishop and divine. The occasion of his controversy with Congreve was the publication of his 'Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage' (1697-8). Congreve, who had been attacked by name, replied in a tract entitled 'Amendments upon Mr. Collier's false and imperfect citations from the' OLD BATCHELEUR, etc.]]

[Footnote 39: A few months after lines 370-381 were added to 'The Hints', in September, 1812, Byron, at the request of Lord Holland, wrote the address delivered on the opening of the theatre, which had been rebuilt after the fire of February 24, 1809. He subsequently joined the Committee of Management]

[Footnote 40: Mr. Simeon is the very bully of beliefs, and castigator of "good works." He is ably supported by John Stickles, a labourer in the same vineyard:--but I say no more, for, according to Johnny in full congregation,'"No hopes for them as laughs."'

[The Rev. Charles Simeon (1758-1836) was the leader of the evangelical movement in Cambridge. The reference may be to the rigour with which he repelled a charge brought against him by Dr. Edwards, the Master of Sidney Sussex, that a sermon which he had preached in November, 1809, savoured of antinomianism. It may be noted that a friend (the Rev. W. Parish), to whom he submitted the MS. of a rejoinder to Pearson's 'Cautions, etc.', advised him to print it, "especially if you should rather keep down a lash or two which might irritate." Simeon was naturally irascible, and, in reply to a friend who had mildly reproved him for some display of temper, signed himself, in humorous penitence, "Charles proud and irritable." (See 'Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Mr. Simeon', by Rev. W. Carus (1847), pp. 195, 282, etc.)]]

[Footnote 41: 'Baxter's Shove to heavy-a--d Christians', the veritable title of a book once in good repute, and likely enough to be so again.

["Baxter" is a slip of the pen. The tract or sermon, 'An Effectual Shove to the heavy-arse Christian', was, according to the title-page, written by William Bunyan, minister of the gospel in South Wales, and "printed for the author" in London in 1768.]]

[Footnote 42: Ambrose Philips (1675?-1749) published his 'Epistle to the Earl of Dorset' and his 'Pastorals' in 1709. It is said that Pope attacked him in his satires in consequence of an article in the 'Guardian', in which the 'Pastorals' were unduly extolled. His verses, addressed to the children of his patron, Lord Carteret, were parodied by Henry Carey, in 'Namby Pamby, or a Panegyric on the New Versification'.]

[Footnote 43: See letters to Murray, Sept. 15, 1817; Jan. 25, 1819; Mar. 29, 1820; Nov. 4, 1820; etc. See also the two 'Letters' against Bowles, written at Ravenna, Feb. 7 and Mar. 21, 1821, in which Byron's enthusiastic reverence for Pope is the dominant note.]

[Footnote 44: As famous a tonsor as Licinus himself, and better paid [and may be like him a senator, one day or other: no disparagement to the High Court of Parliament.--'MS.L.(b)'], and may, like him, be one day a senator, having a better qualification than one half of the heads he crops, viz.--Independence.

[According to the Scholiast, Cassar made his barber Licinus a senator, "quod odisset Pompeium." Blake (see Letter to Murray, Nov. 9, 1820) was, presumably, Benjamin Blake, a perfumer, who lived at 46, Park Street, Grosvenor Square.]]

[Footnote 45: There was some foundation for this. When Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy called on Daniel Stuart, editor of the 'Courier', at his fine new house in Harley Street, the butler would not admit them further than the hall, and was not a little taken aback when he witnessed the deference shown to these strangely-attired figures by his master.--Personal Reminiscence of the late Miss Stuart, of 106, Harley Street.]

[Footnote 46:

"'Bayes'. If I am to write familiar things, as sonnets to Armida, and the like, I make use of stewed prunes only; but when I have a grand design in hand, I ever take physic and let blood; for when you would have pure swiftness of thought, and fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive part. In fine, you must purge."

'Rehearsal', act ii. sc. 1.

This passage is instanced by Johnson as a proof that "Bayes" was a caricature of Dryden.

"Bayes, when he is to write, is blooded and purged; this, as Lamotte relates, ... was the real practice of the poet."

'Lives of the Poets' 1890), i. 388.]]

[Footnote 47: Cant term for £100,000.]

[Footnote 48: I have not the original by me, but the Italian translation runs as follows:--

"E una cosa a mio credere molto stravagante, che un Padre desideri, o permetta, che suo figliuolo coltivi e perfezioni questo talento."

A little further on:

"Si trovano di rado nel Parnaso le miniere d' oro e d' argento,"

'Educazione dei Fanciulli del Signer Locke' (Venice, 1782), ii. 87.

["If the child have a poetic vein, it is to me the strangest thing in the world, that the father should desire or suffer it to be cherished or improved."--"It is very seldom seen, that any one discovers mines of gold or silver on Parnassus."

'Some Thoughts concerning Education', by John Locke (1880), p. 152.]]

[Footnote 49: "Iro pauperior:" a proverb: this is the same beggar who boxed with Ulysses for a pound of kid's fry, which he lost and half a dozen teeth besides. (See 'Odyssey', xviii. 98.)]

[Footnote 50: The Irish gold mine in Wicklow, which yields just ore enough to swear by, or gild a bad guinea.]

[Footnote 51: As Mr. Pope took the liberty of damning Homer, to whom he was under great obligations--"'And Homer (damn him!) calls'"--it may be presumed that anybody or anything may be damned in verse by poetical licence [I shall suppose one may damn anything else in verse with impunity.--'MS. L. (b)']; and, in case of accident, I beg leave to plead so illustrious a precedent.]

[Footnote 52: For the story of Billy Havard's tragedy, see Davies's 'Life of Garrick'. I believe it is 'Regulus', or 'Charles the First' [Lincoln's Inn Fields, March 1, 1737]. The moment it was known to be his the theatre thinned, and the book-seller refused to give the customary sum for the copyright. [See 'Life of Garrick', by Thomas Davies (1808), ii. 205.]

[Footnote 53: Thomas Erskine (third son of the fifth Earl of Buchan) afterwards Lord Erskine (1750-1823), Lord Chancellor (1806-7), an eloquent orator, a supremely great advocate, was, by comparison, a failure as a judge. His power over a jury, "his little twelvers," as he would sometimes address them, was practically unlimited. (See 'Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers' (1856), p. 126.)]]

[Footnote 54: Lines 589-626 are not in the 'Murray MS'., nor in either of the 'Lovelace MSS'.]]

[Footnote 55: To the Eclectic or Christian Reviewers I have to return thanks for the fervour of that charity which, in 1809, induced them to express a hope that a thing then published by me might lead to certain consequences, which, although natural enough, surely came but rashly from reverend lips. I refer them to their own pages, where they congratulated themselves on the prospect of a tilt between Mr. Jeffrey and myself, from which some great good was to accrue, provided one or both were knocked on the head. Having survived two years and a half those "Elegies" which they were kindly preparing to review, I have no peculiar gusto to give them "so joyful a trouble," except, indeed, "upon compulsion, Hal;" but if, as David says in 'The Rivals', it should come to "bloody sword and gun fighting," we "won't run, will we, Sir Lucius?" [Byron, writing at Athens, away from his books, misquotes 'The Rivals'. The words, "Sir Lucius, we--we--we--we won't run," are spoken by Acres, not by David.] I do not know what I had done to these Eclectic gentlemen: my works are their lawful perquisite, to be hewn in pieces like Agag, if it seem meet unto them: but why they should be in such a hurry to kill off their author, I am ignorant. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong:" and now, as these Christians have "smote me on one cheek," I hold them up the other; and, in return for their good wishes, give them an opportunity of repeating them. Had any other set of men expressed such sentiments, I should have smiled, and left them to the "recording angel;" but from the pharisees of Christianity decency might be expected. I can assure these brethren, that, publican and sinner as I am, I would not have treated "mine enemy's dog thus." To show them the superiority of my brotherly love, if ever the Reverend Messrs. Simeon or Ramsden should be engaged in such a conflict as that in which they requested me to fall, I hope they may escape with being "winged" only, and that Heaviside may be at hand to extract the ball.

["If, however, the noble Lord and the learned advocate have the courage requisite to sustain their mutual insults, we shall probably soon hear the explosions of another kind of 'paper' war, after the fashion of the ever-memorable duel which the latter is said to have fought, or seemed to fight, with 'Little' Moore. We confess there is sufficient provocation, if not in the critique, at least in the satire, to urge a 'man of honour' to defy his assailant to mortal combat, and perhaps to warrant a man of law to 'declare' war in Westminster Hall. Of this we shall no doubt hear more in due time"

('Eclectic Review', May, 1809). Byron pretends to believe that the "Christian" Reviewers, actuated by stern zeal for piety, were making mischief in sober earnest. "Heaviside" (see last line of Byron's note) was the surgeon in attendance at the duel between Lord Falkland and Mr. A. Powell. (See 'English Bards', 1. 686, note 2.)]]

[Footnote 56: _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 7.]

[Footnote 57: See the critique of the 'Edinburgh Review' on 'Hours of Idleness', January, 1808.]

[Footnote 58: "Invenies alium, si te hic fastidit, Alexin."]

[Footnote 59: Here 'MS. L.' (a) recommences.]

[Footnote 60: John Jackson (1769-1845), better known as "Gentleman" Jackson, was champion of England from 1795 to 1803. His three fights were against Fewterel (1788), George Ingleston, nicknamed "the Brewer" (1789), and Mendoza (1795). In 1803 he retired from the ring. His rooms at 13, Bond Street, became the head-quarters of the Pugilistic Club. (See Pierce Egan's 'Life in London', pp. 252-254, where the rooms are described, and a drawing of them by Cruikshank is given.) Jackson's character stood high.

"From the highest to the lowest person in the Sporting World, his 'decision' is law."

He was Byron's guest at Cambridge, Newstead, and Brighton; received from him many letters; and is described by him, in a note to 'Don Juan' (xi. 19), as:

"my old friend and corporeal pastor and master."]