FOOTNOTES:

[68] [Christabel, etc., by S. T. Coleridge, 1816.]

[69] [The Missionary of the Andes, a Poem, by W. L. Bowles, 1815.]

[70] [Waterloo and other Poems, by J. Wedderburn Webster, 1816.]

[71] [The White Doe of Rylstone, or the Fate of the Nortons, a Poem, by W. Wordsworth, 1815.]

[72] [Glenarvon, a Novel [by Lady Caroline Lamb], 1816.]

QUEM DEUS VULT PERDERE PRIUS DEMENTAT.[73]

God maddens him whom't is his will to lose,
 And gives the choice of death or phrenzy—choose.

[First published, Letters, 1900, iv. 93.]

FOOTNOTES:

[73] [À propos of Maturin's tragedy, Manuel (vide post, p. 48, note 1), Byron "does into English" the Latin proverb by way of contrast to the text, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth; blessed be the Name of the Lord" (Letter to Murray, April 2, 1817).]

TO THOMAS MOORE.

1.

My boat is on the shore,
 And my bark is on the sea;
 But, before I go, Tom Moore,
 Here's a double health to thee!

2.

Here's a sigh to those who love me,
 And a smile to those who hate;
 And, whatever sky's above me,
 Here's a heart for every fate.

3.

Though the Ocean roar around me,
 Yet it still shall bear me on;
 Though a desert shall surround me,
 It hath springs that may be won.

4.

Were't the last drop in the well,
 As I gasped upon the brink,
 Ere my fainting spirit fell,
 'T is to thee that I would drink.

5.

With that water, as this wine,
 The libation I would pour
 Should be—peace with thine and mine,
 And a health to thee, Tom Moore.[74]

July, 1817.
[First published, Waltz, London, W. Benbow, 1821, p. 29.]

FOOTNOTES:

[74] ["This should have been written fifteen months ago; the first stanza was."—Letter to Moore, July 10, 1817.]

EPISTLE FROM MR. MURRAY TO DR. POLIDORI.[75]

Dear Doctor, I have read your play,
 Which is a good one in its way,—
 Purges the eyes, and moves the bowels,
 And drenches handkerchiefs like towels
 With tears, that, in a flux of grief,
 Afford hysterical relief
 To shattered nerves and quickened pulses,
 Which your catastrophe convulses.
 I like your moral and machinery;
 10Your plot, too, has such scope for Scenery!
 Your dialogue is apt and smart;
 The play's concoction full of art;
 Your hero raves, your heroine cries,
 All stab, and every body dies.
 In short, your tragedy would be
 The very thing to hear and see:
 And for a piece of publication,
 If I decline on this occasion,
 It is not that I am not sensible
 20To merits in themselves ostensible,
 But—and I grieve to speak it—plays
 Are drugs—mere drugs, Sir—now-a-days.
 I had a heavy loss by Manuel—[76]
 Too lucky if it prove not annual,—
 And Sotheby, with his Orestes,[77]
 (Which, by the way, the old Bore's best is),
 Has lain so very long on hand,
 That I despair of all demand;
 I've advertised, but see my books,
 30Or only watch my Shopman's looks;—
 Still Ivan, Ina,[78] and such lumber,
 My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber.
 There's Byron too, who once did better,
 Has sent me, folded in a letter,
 A sort of—it's no more a drama
 Than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama;
 So altered since last year his pen is,
 I think he's lost his wits at Venice.
In short, Sir, what with one and t' other,
 40I dare not venture on another.
 I write in haste; excuse each blunder;
 The Coaches through the street so thunder!
 My room's so full—we've Gifford here
 Reading MS., with Hookham Frere,
 Pronouncing on the nouns and particles,
 Of some of our forthcoming Articles.
 The Quarterly—Ah, Sir, if you
 Had but the Genius to review!—
 A smart Critique upon St. Helena,
 50Or if you only would but tell in a
 Short compass what—but to resume;
 As I was saying, Sir, the Room—
 The Room's so full of wits and bards,
 Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards
 And others, neither bards nor wits:
 My humble tenement admits
 All persons in the dress of Gent.,
 From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent.[79]
 A party dines with me to-day,
 60All clever men, who make their way:
 Crabbe, Malcolm,[80] Hamilton,[81] and Chantrey,
 Are all partakers of my pantry.
 They're at this moment in discussion
 On poor De Staël's late dissolution.
 Her book,[82] they say, was in advance—
 Pray Heaven, she tell the truth of France!
 'T is said she certainly was married
 To Rocca, and had twice miscarried,
 No—not miscarried, I opine,—
 70But brought to bed at forty-nine.
 Some say she died a Papist; some
 Are of opinion that's a Hum;
 I don't know that—the fellows Schlegel,[83]
 Are very likely to inveigle
 A dying person in compunction
 To try th' extremity of Unction.
 But peace be with her! for a woman
 Her talents surely were uncommon,
 Her Publisher (and Public too)
 80The hour of her demise may rue—
 For never more within his shop he—
 Pray—was not she interred at Coppet?
 Thus run our time and tongues away;—
 But, to return, Sir, to your play:
 Sorry, Sir, but I cannot deal,
 Unless 't were acted by O'Neill.
 My hands are full—my head so busy,
 I'm almost dead—and always dizzy;
 And so, with endless truth and hurry,
 90Dear Doctor, I am yours,
 JOHN MURRAY.

August 21, 1817.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 139-141.
Lines 67-82 first published, Letters, 1900, iv. 161.]

FOOTNOTES:

[75] ["By the way," writes Murray, Aug. 5, 1817 (Memoir, etc., i. 386), "Polidori has sent me his tragedy! Do me the kindness to send by return of post a delicate declension of it, which I engage faithfully to copy."

"I never," said Byron, "was much more disgusted with any human production than with the eternal nonsense, and tracasseries, and emptiness, and ill-humour, and vanity of this young person; but he has some talent, and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of amendment. Therefore use your interest for him, for he is improved and improvable;" and, in a letter to Murray, Aug. 21, 1817, "You want a 'civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedy? Take it."—For J. W. Polidori (1795-1821), see Letters, 1899, iii, 284 note I.]

[76] [Maturin's second tragedy, Manuel, produced at Drury Lane, March 8, 1817, with Kean as "Manuel Count Valdis, failed, and after five nights was withdrawn." It was published in 1817. "It is," says Byron (letter to Murray, June 14, 1817), "the absurd work of a clever man."—Letters, 1900, iv. 134, and note I.]

[77] [Sotheby published, in 1814, Five Tragedies, viz. "The Confession," "Orestes," "Ivan," "The Death of Darnley," and "Zamorin and Zama."]

[78] [Ina, A Tragedy, by Mrs. Wilmot [Barberina Ogle (1768-1854), daughter of Sir Chaloner Ogle], afterwards Lady Dacre, was produced at Drury Lane, April 22, 1815. Her "tragedy," writes Byron to Moore, April 23, 1815, "was last night damned." See Letters, 1898, ii. 332, note 3, etc.; ibid., 1899, iii. 195, note I.]

[79] [George Hammond (1763-1853) was a distinguished diplomatist, who twice (1795-1806 and 1807-1809) held the office of Under-secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He is associated with the foundation of the Anti-Jacobin and the Quarterly Review. In the drawing-room of Albemarle Street, he was Murray's "chief 4-o'clock man," until his official duties compelled him to settle at Paris.—Letters, 1900, iv. 160, note 1.

John Dent, M.P., a banker, was nicknamed "Dog Dent" because he was concerned in the introduction of the Dog-tax Bill in 1796. In 1802 he introduced a Bill to abolish bull-baiting.—Ibid]

[80] [Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833), soldier, administrator, and diplomatist, published (January, 1815) his History of Persia.—Letters, 1899, iii. 113, note 1.]

[81] [For "Dark Hamilton," W. R. Hamilton (1777-1859), see Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xiii. var. I, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 108, note 1. Lines 61, 62 were added October 12, 1817.]

[82] [Madame de Staël's Considérations sur la Révolution Française was offered to Murray in June, 1816 (Memoir, etc., 1891, i. 316), and the sum of £4000 asked for the work. During the negotiations, Madame de Staël died (July 14, 1817), and the book was eventually published by Messrs. Baldwin and Cradock.—Letters, 1900, iv. 94, note.]

[83] [Byron and the elder Schlegel met at Copet, in 1816, but they did not take to each other. Byron "would not flatter him," perhaps because he did not appreciate or flatter Byron.]

EPISTLE TO MR. MURRAY.

1.

My dear Mr. Murray,
 You're in a damned hurry
 To set up this ultimate Canto;[84]
 But (if they don't rob us)
 You'll see Mr. Hobhouse
 Will bring it safe in his portmanteau.

2.

For the Journal you hint of,[85]
 As ready to print off,
 No doubt you do right to commend it;
 But as yet I have writ off
 The devil a bit of
 Our "Beppo:"—when copied, I'll send it.

3.

In the mean time you've "Galley"[86]
 Whose verses all tally,
 Perhaps you may say he's a Ninny,
 But if you abashed are
 Because of Alashtar,
 He'll piddle another Phrosine.[87]

4.

Then you've Sotheby's Tour,—[88]
 No great things, to be sure,—
 You could hardly begin with a less work;
 For the pompous rascallion,
 Who don't speak Italian
 Nor French, must have scribbled by guess-work.

5.

No doubt he's a rare man
 Without knowing German
 Translating his way up Parnassus,
 And now still absurder
 He meditates Murder
 As you'll see in the trash he calls Tasso's.

6.

But you've others his betters
 The real men of letters
 Your Orators—Critics—and Wits—
 And I'll bet that your Journal
 (Pray is it diurnal?)
 Will pay with your luckiest hits.

7.

You can make any loss up
 With "Spence"[89] and his gossip,
 A work which must surely succeed;
 Then Queen Mary's Epistle-craft,[90]
 With the new "Fytte" of "Whistlecraft,"
 Must make people purchase and read.

8.

Then you've General Gordon,[91]
 Who girded his sword on,
 To serve with a Muscovite Master,
 And help him to polish
 A nation so owlish,
 They thought shaving their beards a disaster.

9.

For the man, "poor and shrewd,"[92]
 With whom you'd conclude
 A compact without more delay,
 Perhaps some such pen is
 Still extant in Venice;
 But please, Sir, to mention your pay.

10.

Now tell me some news
 Of your friends and the Muse,
 Of the Bar, or the Gown, or the House,
 From Canning, the tall wit,
 To Wilmot,[93] the small wit,
 Ward's creeping Companion and Louse,

11.

Who's so damnably bit
 With fashion and Wit,
 That he crawls on the surface like Vermin,
 But an Insect in both,—
 By his Intellect's growth,
 Of what size you may quickly determine.[94]

Venice, January 8, 1818.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 156, 157;
stanzas 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, first published, Letters, 1900, iv. 191-193.]

FOOTNOTES:

[84] [The Fourth Canto of Childe Harold.]

[85] [Murray bought a half-share in Blackwood's Edinburgh Monthly Magazine in August, 1818, and remained its joint proprietor till December, 1819, when it became the property of William Blackwood. But perhaps the reference is to Byron's Swiss Journal of September, 1816.]

[86] [Henry Gaily Knight (1786-1846), who was a contemporary of Byron at Trinity College, Cambridge, was a poetaster, and, afterwards, a writer of works on architecture. His Oriental verses supplied Byron with a subject for more than one indifferent jeu d'esprit.]

[87] [Phrosyne, a Grecian tale, and Alashtar, an Arabian tale, were published in 1817. In a letter to Murray, September 4, 1817, Byron writes, "I have received safely, though tardily, the magnesia and tooth-powder, Phrosine and Alashtar. I shall clean my teeth with one, and wipe my shoes with the other."—Letters, 1901, iv.]

[88] [Sotheby's Farewell to Italy and Occasional Poems were published in 1818, as the record of a tour which he had taken in 1816-17 with his family, Professor Elmsley, and Dr. Playfair. For Byron's unfinished skit on Sotheby's Tour, see Letters, 1900, iv. Appendix V. pp. 452, 453.]

[89] [Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, by the Rev. Joseph Spence, arranged, with notes, by the late Edmund Malone, Esq., 1 vol. 8vo, 1820.]

[90] [The Life of Mary Queen of Scots, by George Chalmers, 2 vols. 4to, 1819.]

[91] [Thomas Gordon (1788-1841) entered the Scots Greys in 1808. Two years later he visited Ali Pasha (see Letters, 1898, i. 246, note 1) in Albania, and travelled in Persia and Turkey in the East. From 1813 to 1815 he served in the Russian Army. He wrote a History of the Greek Revolution, 1832, 2 vols., but it does not appear that he was negotiating with Murray for the publication of any work at this period.]

[92] Vide your letter.

[93] [Probably Sir Robert John Wilmot (1784-1841) (afterwards Wilmot Horton), Byron's first cousin, who took a prominent part in the destruction of the "Memoirs," May 17, 1824. (For Lady Wilmot Horton, the original of "She walks in beauty," see Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 381, note 1.)]

[94] [Stanzas 12, 13, 14 cannot be published.]

ON THE BIRTH OF JOHN WILLIAM RIZZO HOPPNER.[95]

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.

February 20, 1818.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 134.]

FOOTNOTES:

[95] [Richard Belgrave Hoppner (1786-1872), second son of John Hoppner, R.A., was appointed English Consul at Venice, October, 1814. (See Letters, 1900, iv. 83, note 1.) The quatrain was translated (see the following poem) into eleven different languages—Greek, Latin, Italian (also the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan, and printed "in a small neat volume in the seminary of Padua." For nine of these translations see Works, 1832, xi. pp. 324-326, and 1891, p. 571. Rizzo was a Venetian surname. See W. Stewart Rose's verses to Byron, "Grinanis, Mocenijas, Baltis, Rizzi, Compassionate our cruel case," etc., Letters, iv. 212.]

[E NIHILO NIHIL;
OR
AN EPIGRAM BEWITCHED.]

Of rhymes I printed seven volumes—[96]
 The list concludes John Murray's columns:
 Of these there have been few translations[97]
 For Gallic or Italian nations;
 And one or two perhaps in German—
 But in this last I can't determine.
 But then I only sung of passions
 That do not suit with modern fashions;
 Of Incest and such like diversions
 Permitted only to the Persians,
 Or Greeks to bring upon their stages—
 But that was in the earlier ages
 Besides my style is the romantic,
 Which some call fine, and some call frantic;
 While others are or would seem as sick
 Of repetitions nicknamed Classic.
 For my part all men must allow
 Whatever I was, I'm classic now.
 I saw and left my fault in time,
 And chose a topic all sublime—
 Wondrous as antient war or hero—
 Then played and sung away like Nero,
 Who sang of Rome, and I of Rizzo:
 The subject has improved my wit so,
 The first four lines the poet sees
 Start forth in fourteen languages!
 Though of seven volumes none before
 Could ever reach the fame of four,
 Henceforth I sacrifice all Glory
 To the Rinaldo of my Story:
 I've sung his health and appetite
 (The last word's not translated right—
 He's turned it, God knows how, to vigour)[98]
 I'll sing them in a book that's bigger.
 Oh! Muse prepare for thy Ascension!
 And generous Rizzo! thou my pension.

February, 1818.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray,
now for the first time printed.]

FOOTNOTES:

[96] [Byron must have added the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold to the complete edition of the Poetical Works in six volumes. See Murray's list, dated "Albemarle Street, London, January, 1818." The seventh volume of the Collected Works was not issued till 1819.]

[97] [A French translation of the Bride of Abydos appeared in 1816, an Italian translation of the Lament of Tasso in 1817. Goethe (see Letters, 1901, v. 503-521) translated fragments of Manfred in 1817, 1818, but the earliest German translation of the entire text of Manfred was issued in 1819.]

[98] [See the last line of the Italian translation of the quatrain.]

TO MR. MURRAY.

1.

Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times,[99]
Patron and publisher of rhymes,
 For thee the bard up Pindus climbs,
 My Murray.

2.

To thee, with hope and terror dumb,
 The unfledged MS. authors come;
 Thou printest all—and sellest some—
 My Murray.

3.

Upon thy table's baize so green
 The last new Quarterly is seen,—
 But where is thy new Magazine,[100]
 My Murray?

4.

Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine
 The works thou deemest most divine—
 The Art of Cookery,[101] and mine,
 My Murray.

5.

Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist,
 And Sermons, to thy mill bring grist;
 And then thou hast the Navy List,
 My Murray.

6.

And Heaven forbid I should conclude,
 Without "the Board of Longitude,"[102]
 Although this narrow paper would,
 My Murray.

Venice, April 11, 1818.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 171.]

FOOTNOTES:

[99] [William Strahan (1715-1785) published Johnson's Dictionary, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Cook's Voyages, etc. He was great-grandfather of the mathematician William Spottiswoode (1825-1883).

Jacob Tonson (1656?-1736) published for Otway, Dryden, Addison, etc. He was secretary of the Kit-Cat Club, 1700. He was the publisher (1712, etc.) of the Spectator.

Barnaby Bernard Lintot (1675-1736) was at one time (1718) in partnership with Tonson. He published Pope's Iliad in 1715, and the Odyssey, 1725-26.]

[100] [See note 2, p. 51.]

[101] [Mrs. Rundell's Domestic Cookery, published in 1806, was one of Murray's most successful books. In 1822 he purchased the copyright from Mrs. Rundell for £2000 (see Letters, 1898, ii. 375; and Memoir of John Murray, 1891, ii. 124).]

[102] [The sixth edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1813) was "printed by T. Davison, Whitefriars, for John Murray, Bookseller to the Admiralty, and the Board of Longitude." Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 259) attributes to Byron a statement that Murray had to choose between continuing to be his publisher and printing the "Navy Lists," and "that there was no hesitation which way he should decide: the Admiralty carried the day." In his "Notes" to the Conversations (November 2, 1824) Murray characterized "the passage about the Admiralty" as "unfounded in fact, and no otherwise deserving of notice than to mark its absurdity."]

BALLAD.
TO THE TUNE OF "SALLEY IN OUR ALLEY."

1.

Of all the twice ten thousand bards
 That ever penned a canto,
 Whom Pudding or whom Praise rewards
 For lining a portmanteau;
 Of all the poets ever known,
 From Grub-street to Fop's Alley,[103]
The Muse may boast—the World must own
 There's none like pretty Gally![104]

2.

He writes as well as any Miss,
 Has published many a poem;
 The shame is yours, the gain is his,
 In case you should not know 'em:
 He has ten thousand pounds a year—
 I do not mean to vally—
 His songs at sixpence would be dear,
 So give them gratis, Gaily!

3.

And if this statement should seem queer,
 Or set down in a hurry,
 Go, ask (if he will be sincere)
 His bookseller—John Murray.
 Come, say, how many have been sold,
 And don't stand shilly-shally,
 Of bound and lettered, red and gold,
 Well printed works of Gally.

4.

For Astley's circus Upton[105] writes,
 And also for the Surry; (sic)
 Fitzgerald weekly still recites,
 Though grinning Critics worry:
 Miss Holford's Peg, and Sotheby's Saul,
 In fame exactly tally;
 From Stationer's Hall to Grocer's Stall
 They go—and so does Gally.

5.

He rode upon a Camel's hump[106]
 Through Araby the sandy,
 Which surely must have hurt the rump
 Of this poetic dandy.
 His rhymes are of the costive kind,
 And barren as each valley
 In deserts which he left behind
 Has been the Muse of Gally.

6.

He has a Seat in Parliament,
 Is fat and passing wealthy;
 And surely he should be content
 With these and being healthy:
 But Great Ambition will misrule
 Men at all risks to sally,—
 Now makes a poet—now a fool,
 And we know which—of Gally.

7.

Some in the playhouse like to row,
 Some with the Watch to battle,
 Exchanging many a midnight blow
 To Music of the Rattle.
 Some folks like rowing on the Thames,
 Some rowing in an Alley,
 But all the Row my fancy claims
 Is rowing—of my Gally.

April 11, 1818.[107]

FOOTNOTES:

[103] [For Fop's Alley, see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 410, note 2.]

[104] [H. Gally Knight (1786-1846) was at Cambridge with Byron.]

[105] [William Upton was the author of Poems on Several Occasions, 1788, and of the Words of the most Favourite Songs, Duets, etc., sung at the Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, etc. In the dedication to Mrs. Astley he speaks of himself as the author of the Black Cattle, Fair Rosamond, etc. He has also been credited with the words of James Hook's famous song, A Lass of Richmond Hill, but this has been disputed. (See Notes and Queries, 1878, Series V. vol. ix. p. 495.)]

[106] [Compare—

"Th' unloaded camel, pacing slow.
 Crops the rough herbage or the tamarisk spray."

Alashtar (by H. G. Knight), 1817, Canto I, stanza viii, lines 5, 6.]

[107] [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed. For stanzas 3, 4, 6, see Letters, 1900, iv. 219, 220. For stanzas 1, 2, 3 of "Another Simple Ballat. To the tune of Tally i.o. the Grinder" (probably a variant of Dibdin's song, "The Grinders, or more Grist to the Mill"), vide ibid., pp. 220, 221.]

ANOTHER SIMPLE BALLAT.

1.

Mrs. Wilmot sate scribbling a play,
 Mr. Sotheby sate sweating behind her;
 But what are all these to the Lay
 Of Gally i.o. the Grinder?
 Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

2.

I bought me some books tother day,
 And sent them down stairs to the binder;
 But the Pastry Cook carried away
 My Gally i.o. the Grinder.
 Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

3.

I wanted to kindle my taper,
 And called to the Maid to remind her;
 And what should she bring me for paper
 But Gally i.o. the Grinder.
 Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

4.

Among my researches for Ease
 I went where one's certain to find her:
 The first thing by her throne that one sees
 Is Gally i.o. the Grinder.
 Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

5.

Away with old Homer the blind—
 I'll show you a poet that's blinder:
 You may see him whene'er you've a mind
 In Gally i.o. the Grinder.
 Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

6.

Blindfold he runs groping for fame,
 And hardly knows where he will find her:
 She don't seem to take to the name
 Of Gally i.o. the Grinder.
 Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

7.

Yet the Critics have been very kind,
 And Mamma and his friends have been kinder;
 But the greatest of Glory's behind
 For Gally i.o. the Grinder.
 Gally i.o. i.o., etc.

April 11, 1818.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray,
now for the first time printed.]

EPIGRAM.
FROM THE FRENCH OF RULHIÈRES.[108]