has been lecturing against Campbell
.
Rogers was present, and from him I derive the information. We are going
to make a party to hear this Manichean of poesy. Pole
is to
Miss Long, and will be a very miserable dog for all that. The present
ministers are to continue, and his Majesty
does
continue in the
same state; so there's folly and madness for you, both in a breath.
I
heard but of one man truly fortunate, and he was Beaumarchais
, the author of
Figaro
, who buried two wives and gained three
lawsuits before he was thirty.
And now, child, what art thou doing?
Reading, I trust
. I want to
see you take a degree. Remember, this is the most important period of
your life; and don't disappoint your papa and your aunt, and all your
kin—besides myself. Don't you know that all male children are begotten
for the express purpose of being graduates?
that even I am an A.M.
, though how I became so the Public Orator only can resolve.
,
you are to be a priest; and to confute Sir William Drummond's late book
about the Bible
(printed, but not published), and all other infidels
whatever. Now leave Master H.'s gig, and Master S.'s Sapphics, and
become as immortal as Cambridge can make you.
You see,
Mio Carissimo
, what a pestilent correspondent I am
likely to become; but then you shall be as quiet at Newstead as you
please, and I won't disturb your studies as I do now. When do you fix
the day, that I may take you up according to contract? Hodgson talks of
making a third in our journey; but we can't stow him, inside at least.
Positively you shall go with me as was agreed, and don't let me have any
of your
politesse
to H. on the occasion. I shall manage to
arrange for both with a little contrivance. I wish H. was not quite so
fat, and we should pack better. You will want to know what I am
doing—chewing tobacco.
You see
of my allies, Scrope Davies and Matthews
—they don't
suit you; and how does it happen that I—who am a pipkin of the same
pottery—continue in your good graces? Good night,—I will go on in the
morning.
Dec. 9th.—In a morning I am always sullen, and to-day is as sombre as
myself. Rain and mist are worse than a sirocco, particularly in a
beef-eating and beer-drinking country. My
, Cawthorne, has
just left me, and tells me, with a most important face, that he is in
treaty for a novel of Madame D'Arblay's, for which 1000 guineas are
asked
! He
me to read the MS. (if he obtains it), which I shall
do with pleasure; but I should be very cautious in venturing an opinion
on her whose
Cecilia
Dr. Johnson superintended
.
If he lends it to me, I shall put it in the hands of Rogers and Moore,
who are truly men of taste. I have filled the sheet, and beg your
pardon; I will not do it again. I shall, perhaps, write again; but if
not, believe, silent or scribbling, that I am,
My dearest William, ever, etc.
See p. 75,
. In the application to Coleridge
of the phrase, "Manichean of poesy," Byron may allude to Cowper's
Task
(bk. v. lines 444, 445):
"As dreadful as the Manichean God,
Adored through fear, strong only to destroy."
William Wellesley Pole Tylney Long Wellesley (1788-1857),
one of the most worthless of the bloods of the Regency, son of Lord
Maryborough, and nephew of the Duke of Wellington, became in 1845 the
fourth Earl of Mornington. He married in March, 1812, Catherine,
daughter and co-heir, with her brother, of Sir James Tylney Long, Bart.,
of Draycot, Wilts. On his marriage he added his wife's double name to
his own, and so gave a point to the authors of Rejected Addresses:
"Long may Long-Tilney-Wellesley-Long-Pole live."
For Byron's allusion to him in
The Waltz
, see
Poems
, 1898,
vol. i. p. 484, note 1. Having run through his wife's large fortune by
his extravagant expenditure at Wanstead Park and elsewhere, he was
obliged, in 1822, to escape from his creditors to the Continent. There
(1823-25) he lived with Mrs. Bligh, wife of Captain Bligh, of the
Coldstream Guards. His wife died in 1825, after filing a bill for
divorce, and making her children wards of Chancery. Wellesley
subsequently (1828) married Mrs. Bligh; but the second wife was as ill
treated as the first, and he left her so destitute that she was a
frequent applicant for relief at the metropolitan police-courts. He died
of heart-disease in July, 1857, a pensioner on the charity of his
cousin, the second Duke of Wellington.
Byron's statement is incorrect. Pierre-Auguste Caron de
Beaumarchais (1732-1799) married, in 1756, as his first wife,
Madeleine-Catherine Aubertin, widow of the sieur Franquet. She died in
1757. He married, in 1768, as his second wife, Geneviève-Magdaleine
Wattebled, widow of the sieur Lévêque. She died in 1770. The only
lawsuit which he won "before he was thirty," was that against Lepaute,
who claimed as his own invention the escapement for watches and clocks,
which Beaumarchais had discovered. The case was decided in favour of
Beaumarchais in 1754. Out of his second lawsuit—with Count de la
Blache, legatee of his patron Duverney, who died in 1770—sprang his
action against Goëzman, with which began the publication of his
Mémoires
. (See Loménie,
Beaumarchais and his Times
, tr. by
H. S. Edwards, 4 vols., London, 1855-6.)
Byron took his M. A. degree at Cambridge July 4, 1808.
Sir William Drummond (1770-1828), Tory M.P. for St. Mawes
(1795-96) and for Lostwithiel (1796-1801), held from 1801 to 1809
several diplomatic posts: ambassador to the Court of Naples 1801-3; to
the Ottoman Porte 1803-6; to the Court of Naples for the second time,
1806-9. From 1809, at which date his political and diplomatic career
closed, he devoted himself to literature. He had already published
Philosophical Sketches on the Principles of Society and
Government
(1793);
A Review of the Governments of Sparta and
Athens
(1795);
The Satires of Persius
, translated (1798);
Byblis, a Tragedy
, in verse (1802);
Academical Questions
(1805). In 1810 he published
Herculanensia
; and, in the following
year, printed for private circulation his
Œdipus Judaicus
, a
bold attempt to explain many parts of the Old Testament as astronomical
allegories. In 1817 appeared the first part of his
Odin
, a poem
in blank verse; in 1824-29 his
Origines, or Remarks on the Origin of
several Empires, States, and Cities
, was published. Sir William, who
died at Rome in 1828, lived much of his later life abroad.
Drummond, as a member of the Alfred Club, is described in the
Sexagenarian
(vol. ii. chap, xxiv.), where Beloe, speaking of the
(
Œdipus Judaicus
), says that
"he appeared to have employed his leisure in searching for objections
and arguments as they related to Scripture, which had been so often
refuted, that they were considered by the learned and wise as almost
exploded."
He refers to
Byblis
as evidence of his "perverted and fantastical
taste" in poetry, praises his "spirited translation" of Persius,
commends the "sound sense and very extensive reading" of his
Philosophical
Sketches
, and scoffs at the "metaphysical
labyrinth" of his
Academical Questions
.
"When you go to Naples," said Byron to Lady Blessington
(
Conversations, pp. 238, 239), "you must make acquaintance with
Sir William Drummond, for he is certainly one of the most erudite men
and admirable philosophers now living. He has all the wit of Voltaire,
with a profundity that seldom appertains to wit, and writes so
forcibly, and with such elegance and purity of style, that his works
possess a peculiar charm. Have you read his
Academical
Questions? If not, get them directly, and I think you will agree
with me, that the preface to that work alone would prove Sir William
Drummond an admirable writer. He concludes it by the following
sentence, which I think one of the best in our language:
'Prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of
time, while Reason slumbers in the citadel; but if the latter sink
into a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for
herself. Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty support each other; he who
will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who
dares not is a slave.'
Is not the passage admirable? How few could have written it! and yet
how few read Drummond's works! They are too good to be popular. His
Odin is really a fine poem, and has some passages that are
beautiful, but it is so little read that it may be said to have
dropped still-born from the press—a mortifying proof of the bad taste
of the age. His translation of Persius is not only very literal, but
preserves much of the spirit of the original;... he has escaped all
the defects of translators, and his Persius resembles the original as
nearly, in feeling and sentiment, as two languages so dissimilar in
idiom will admit."
Henry Matthews (1789-1828) of Eton and King's College,
Cambridge, younger brother of Charles Skinner Matthews, and author of
the
Diary of an Invalid
(1820).
The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties
, Madame
d'Arblay's fourth and last novel (
Evelina
, 1778;
Cecilia
,
1782;
Camilla
, 1796), was published in 1814.
"I am indescribably occupied," she writes to Dr. Burney, October 12,
1813, "in giving more and more last touches to my work, about which I
begin to grow very anxious. I am to receive merely £500 upon delivery
of the MS.; the two following £500 by instalments from nine months to
nine months, that is, in a year and a half from the day of
publication. If all goes well, the whole will be £3000, but only at
the end of the sale of eight thousand copies."
The book failed; but rumour magnified the sum received by the writer.
Mrs. Piozzi, shortly after the publication of
The Wanderer
and of
Byron's lines, "Weep, daughter of a royal line," writes to Samuel
Lysons, February 17, 1814:
"Come now, do send me a kind letter and tell me if Madame d'Arblaye
gets £3000 for her book or no, and if Lord Byron is to be called over
about some verses he has written, as the papers hint."
(
Autobiography, Letters, and Literary Remains
, vol. ii. p. 246).
Dr. Johnson never saw
Cecilia
(1782) till it was in print.
A day or two before publication, Miss Burney sent three copies to the
three persons who had the best claim to them—her father, Mrs. Thrale,
and Dr. Johnson.
List of Letters
Contents
London, Dec. 8, 1811.
I sent you a sad
Tale of Three Friars
the other day, and now take a dose
in another style. I wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a song of
former days.
"
Away, away, ye notes of woe," etc., etc
1.
I
gotten a book by Sir W. Drummond (printed, but not published),
entitled
Œdipus Judaicus
in which he attempts to prove the
greater part of the Old Testament an allegory, particularly Genesis and
Joshua. He professes himself a theist in the preface, and handles the
literal interpretation very roughly. I wish you could see it. Mr. Ward
has lent it me, and I confess to me it is worth fifty Watsons.
You and Harness must fix on the time for your visit to Newstead; I can
command mine at your wish, unless any thing particular occurs in the
interim. Master William Harness and I have recommenced a most fiery
correspondence; I like him as Euripides liked Agatho, or Darby admired
Joan, as much for the past as the present. Bland dines with me on
Tuesday to meet Moore.
has attacked the
Pleasures of
Hope
, and all other pleasures whatsoever. Mr. Rogers was present,
and heard himself indirectly
rowed
by the lecturer. We are going
in a party to hear the new Art of Poetry by this reformed schismatic
; and were I one of these poetical luminaries, or of sufficient
consequence to be noticed by the man of lectures, I should not hear him
without an answer.
you know,
"an a man will be beaten with brains,
he shall never keep a clean doublet."
4
Campbell
will
desperately annoyed. I never saw a man (and of him
I have seen very little) so sensitive;—what a happy temperament! I am
sorry for it; what can
he
fear from criticism? I don't know if
Bland has seen Miller, who was to call on him yesterday.
To-day is the Sabbath,—a day I never pass pleasantly, but at Cambridge;
and, even there, the organ is a sad remembrancer. Things are stagnant
enough in town; as long as they don't retrograde, 'tis all very well.
Hobhouse writes and writes and writes, and is an author. I
nothing
but eschew tobacco
. I wish parliament were assembled, that I may
hear, and perhaps some day be heard;—but on this point I am not very
sanguine. I have many plans;—sometimes I think of the East again, and
dearly beloved Greece. I am well, but weakly.
Kinnaird
told me I looked very ill, and sent me home happy.
You will never give up wine. See what it is to be thirty! if you were
six years younger, you might leave off anything. You drink and repent;
you repent and drink.
Is Scrope still interesting and invalid? And how does Hinde with his
cursed chemistry? To Harness I have written, and he has written, and we
have all written, and have nothing now to do but write again, till Death
splits up the pen and the scribbler.
Alfred
has three hundred and fifty-four candidates for six
vacancies. The cook has run away and left us liable, which makes our
committee very plaintive. Master Brook, our head serving-man, has the
gout, and our new cook is none of the best. I speak from report,—for
what is cookery to a leguminous-eating Ascetic? So now you know as much
of the matter as I do. Books and quiet are still there, and they may
dress their dishes in their own way for me. Let me know your
determination as to Newstead, and believe me, Yours ever,
Greek: Mpairon.
Here follows one of the
Thyrza
poems.
The Hon. John William Ward, afterwards fourth Earl of
Dudley. Byron said of him (Lady Blessington's
Conversations with Lord
Byron
, p. 197),
"Ward is one of the best-informed men I know, and, in a
tête-à-tête, is one of the most agreeable companions. He has
great originality, and, being très distrait, it adds to the
piquancy of his observations, which are sometimes somewhat trop
naïve, though always amusing. This naïveté of his is the
more piquant from his being really a good-natured man, who
unconsciously thinks aloud. Interest Ward on a subject, and I know no
one who can talk better. His expressions are concise without being
poor, and terse and epigrammatic without being affected," etc.
Of somewhat the same opinion was Lady H. Leveson Gower (
Letters of
Harriet, Countess Granville
, vol. i. pp. 41, 42):
"The charm of Mr. Ward's conversation is exactly what Mr. Luttrell
wants, a sort of abandon, and being entertaining because it is
his nature and he cannot help it. I only mean Mr. Ward in his happier
hour, for what I have said of him is the very reverse of what he is
when vanity or humour seize upon him."
Crabb Robinson, in his
Diary
for January 20, 1812, has the
following entry:
"In the evening at Coleridge's lecture. Conclusion of Milton. Not one
of the happiest of Coleridge's efforts. Rogers was there, and with him
was Lord Byron. He was wrapped up, but I recognized his club foot,
and, indeed, his countenance and general appearance."
| Benedict |
No; if a man will be beaten with brains, he shall wear nothing
handsome about him. |
Much Ado about Nothing
, act v. sc. 4.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) lectured at the Royal
Institution in 1811 on poetry. The lectures were afterwards published in
the
New Monthly Magazine
, of which he was editor (1820-30).
Campbell also apparently read his lectures aloud at private houses. Miss
Berry (
Journal
, vol. ii. p. 502) mentions a dinner-party on June
26, 1812, at the Princess of Wales's, where she heard him read his
"first discourse," delivered at the Institution. Again (
ibid
., vol. iii.
p. 6), she dined with Madame de Stael, March 9, 1814:
"Nobody but Campbell the poet, Rocca, and her own daughter. After
dinner, Campbell read to us a discourse of his upon English poetry,
and upon some of the great poets. There are always signs of a poet and
critic of genius in all he does, often encumbered by too ornate a
style."
Campbell's best work was done between 1798 and 1810. Within that period
were published
The Pleasures of Hope
(1799),
Gertrude of
Wyoming
(1809), and such other shorter poems as
Hohenlinden
,
Ye
Mariners of England,
The Battle of the Baltic,
and
O'Connor's Child.
His
Ritter Bann,
a reminiscence of his sojourn abroad (1800-1), was
not published till later; both it and
The Last Man
were published in
the
New Monthly Magazine
, during the period of his editorship. An
excellent judge of verse, he collected
Specimens of the British
Poets
(1819), to which he added a valuable essay on poetry and short
biographies. His
Theodoric
(1824),
Pilgrim of Glencoe
(1842), and Lives of Mrs. Siddons, Petrarch, and Shakespeare added
nothing to his reputation.
The judgment of contemporary poets in the main agreed with Coleridge's
estimate of Campbell's work.
"There are some of Campbell's lyrics," said Rogers (Table-Talk,
etc., pp. 254, 255), which will never die. His Pleasures of
Hope is no great favourite with me. The feeling throughout
his Gertrude is very beautiful."
Wordsworth also thought the
Pleasures of Hope
"strangely over-rated; its fine words and
sounding lines please the generality of readers, who never stop to ask
themselves the meaning of a passage."
Byron, who calls Campbell "a
warm-hearted and honest man," thought that his
"'Lochiel' and
'Mariners' are spirit-stirring productions; his Gertrude of
Wyoming is beautiful; and some of the episodes in his Pleasures
of Hope pleased me so much that I know them by heart"
(Lady Blessington's
Conversations with Lord Byron
, p. 353).
George Ticknor, who met Campbell in 1815 (
Life
, vol. i. p. 63),
says,
"He is a short, small man, and has one of the roundest and most lively
faces I have seen amongst this grave people. His manners seemed as
open as his countenance, and his conversation as spirited as his
poetry. He could have kept me amused till morning."
Shortly afterwards, Ticknor went to see him at Sydenham (ibid., p. 65):
"Campbell had the same good spirits and love of merriment as when I
met him before,—the same desire to amuse everybody about him; but
still I could see, as I partly saw then, that he labours under the
burden of an extraordinary reputation, too easily acquired, and feels
too constantly that it is necessary for him to make an exertion to
satisfy expectation. The consequence is that, though he is always
amusing, he is not always quite natural."
Sir Walter Scott made a similar remark about the numbing effect of
Campbell's reputation upon his literary work; his deference to critics
ruined his individuality. It was Scott's admiration for
Hohenlinden