delivery
.
List of Letters
Contents
September 28, 1812.
Will this do better? The metaphor is more complete.
Till slowly ebb'd the {lava of the}/{spent volcanic} wave,
And blackening ashes mark'd the Muse's grave.
If not, we will say "burning wave," and instead of "burning clime," in
the line some couplets back, have "glowing."
Is
determined to castrate all my
cavalry
lines
? I
see why t'other house should be spared; besides it is the public,
who ought to know better; and you recollect Johnson's was against
similar buffooneries of Rich's—but, certes, I am not Johnson
.
Instead of "effects," say "labours"—"degenerate" will do, will it? Mr.
Betty is no longer a babe, therefore the line cannot be personal.
this do?
Till ebb'd the lava of {
the burning}/{that molten} wave
3
with "glowing dome," in case you prefer "burning" added to this "wave"
metaphorical. The word "fiery pillar" was suggested by the "pillar of
fire" in the book of
Exodus
, which went before the Israelites through
the Red Sea. I once thought of saying "like Israel's pillar," and making
it a simile, but I did not know,—the great temptation was leaving the
epithet "fiery" for the supplementary wave. I want to work up that
passage, as it is the only new ground us prologuizers can go upon:
This is the place where, if a poet
Shined in description, he might show it.
If I part with the possibility of a future conflagration, we lessen the
compliment to Shakspeare. However, we will e'en mend it thus:
Yes, it shall be—the magic of that name,
That scorns the scythe of Time, the torch of Flame,
On the same spot, etc., etc.
There—the deuce is in it, if that is not an improvement to Whitbread's
content. Recollect, it is the "name," and not the "magic," that has a
noble contempt for those same weapons. If it were the "magic," my
metaphor would be somewhat of the maddest—so the "name" is the
antecedent. But, my dear Lord, your patience is not quite so
immortal—therefore, with many and sincere thanks, I am,
Yours ever most affectionately.
P.S.—I foresee there will be charges of partiality in the papers; but
you know I sent in no
Address
; and glad both you and I must be
that I did not, for, in that case, their plea had been plausible. I
doubt the Pit will be testy; but conscious innocence (a novel and
pleasing sensation) makes me bold.
The lines which were omitted by the Committee ran thus:
"Nay, lower still, the Drama yet deplores
That late she deigned to crawl upon all-fours.
When Richard roars in Bosworth for a horse,
If you command, the steed must come in course.
If you decree, the Stage must condescend
To soothe the sickly taste we dare not mend.
Blame not our judgment should we acquiesce,
And gratify you more by showing less.
Oh, since your Fiat stamps the Drama's laws,
Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause;
That public praise be ne'er again disgraced,
From {brutes to man recall}/{babes and brutes redeem} a nation's taste;
Then pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers,
When Reason's voice is echoed back by ours."
The last couplet but one was altered in a subsequent copy, thus:
"The past reproach let present scenes refute,
Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute."
On February 18, 1811, at Covent Garden, a troop of horses were
introduced in
Bluebeard
. For the manager, Juvenal's words,
"
Lucri bonus est odor ex re Qualibet
" (
Sat
. xiv. 204) may
have been true; but, as the dressing-room of the equine comedians was
under the orchestra, the stench on the first night was to the audience
intolerable. At the same theatre, April 29, 1811, the horses were again
brought on the stage in Lewis's
Timour the Tartar
. At the same
theatre, on the following December 26, a live elephant appeared. The
novelty had, however, been anticipated in the Dublin Theatre during the
season of 1771-72 (Genest's
English Stage
, vol. viii. p. 287). At
the Haymarket, and Drury Lane, the introduction of live animals was
ridiculed.
The Quadrupeds of Quedlinburgh
was given at the
Haymarket, July 26, 1811, as a burlesque on
Timour the Tartar
and
the horses. The Prologue, by Colman the Younger, attacks the passion for
German plays and animal actors:
"Your taste, recover'd half from foreign quacks,
Takes airings, now, on English horses' backs;
While every modern bard may raise his name,
If not on lasting praise, on stable fame."
At the Lyceum, during the season 1811-12,
Quadrupeds, or the
Manager's Last Kick
, in which the tailors were mounted on asses and
mules, was given by the Drury Lane Company with success. It was this
introduction of animal performers which Byron wished to attack.
The following are the lines in Johnson's
Prologue
to
which Byron refers:
"Then crush'd by rules, and weaken'd as refined,
For years the power of Tragedy declined;
From bard to bard the frigid caution crept,
Till Declamation roared, whilst Passion slept.
Yet still did Virtue deign the stage to tread,
Philosophy remained though Nature fled.
But forced, at length, her ancient reign to quit,
She saw great Faustus lay the ghost of Wit;
Exulting Folly hailed the joyous Day,
And Pantomime and Song confirmed her sway.
But who the coming changes can presage,
And mark the future periods of the Stage?
Perhaps if skill could distant times explore,
New Behns, new Durfeys, yet remain in store;
Perhaps, where Lear has raved, and Hamlet died,
On flying cars new sorcerers may ride;
Perhaps (for who can guess th' effects of chance?)
Here Hunt may box, or Mahomet may dance."
John Rich (circ. 1682-1761) was the creator of pantomime in England,
which he introduced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in April, 1716, and in
which, under the stage name of Lun, he played the part of Harlequin. At
Lincoln's Inn Fields, January 29, 1728, he produced
The Beggar's
Opera
, which, after being refused at Drury Lane, made "Gay
rich
, and Rich
gay
." "Great Faustus" probably alludes to
the war between the two theatres, and the rival productions of
Harlequin Dr. Faustus
at Drury Lane in 1723, and of
The
Necromancer, or the History of Dr. Faustus
at Lincoln's Inn Fields
in December of the same year. On December 7, 1732, Rich opened the new
theatre at Covent Garden, of which he remained manager till his death in
1761.
The form of this couplet, as printed, is as follows:
"Till blackening ashes and lonely wall
Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall."
List of Letters
Contents
September 28.
I have altered the
middle
couplet, so as I hope partly to do away
with W.'s objection. I
think, in the present state of the stage, it
had been unpardonable to pass over the horses and Miss Mudie
, etc.
As Betty is no longer a boy, how can this be applied to him? He is now
to be judged as a man. If he acts still like a boy, the public will but
be more ashamed of their blunder. I have, you see,
now
taken it
for granted that these things are reformed. I confess, I wish that part
of the
Address
to stand; but if W. is inexorable, e'en let it go.
I have also new-cast the lines, and softened the hint of future
combustion, and sent them off this morning. Will you have the goodness
to add, or insert, the
approved
alterations as they arrive?
"come like shadows, so depart,"
occupy me, and, I fear, disturb you.
Do not let Mr. W. put his
Address
into Elliston's hands till you
have settled on these alterations. E. will think it too long:—much
depends on the speaking. I fear it will not bear much curtailing,
without
chasms
in the sense.
It is certainly too long in the reading; but if Elliston exerts himself,
such a favourite with the public will not be thought tedious.
I
should think it so, if
he
were not to speak it.
Yours ever, etc.
P.S.—On looking again, I doubt my idea of having obviated W.'s
objection. To the other House allusion is
non sequitur
—but I
wish to plead for this part, because the thing really is not to be
passed over.
afterpieces of the Lyceum by the
same company
have already attacked this "Augean
Stable
"—and Johnson, in his
prologue against "Lunn" (the harlequin manager, Rich),—
"Hunt,"—"Mahomet," etc. is surely a fair precedent
.
the horses, see p. 156,
1. Miss Mudie,
another "Phenomenon," with whom the Covent Garden manager hoped to rival
the success of Master Betty, was announced in the
Morning Post
,
July 29, 1805, as the "Young Roscia of the Dublin Stage." She appeared
at Covent Garden, November 23, 1805, in the part of "Peggy" in
The
Country Girl
, Miss Brunton being "Alithea," C. Kemble "Harcourt,"
and Moody "Murray." Being hissed by the audience, she walked with great
composure to the front of the stage, and said, as reported in the
Morning Post
(November 25, 1805)
"Ladies and gentlemen,—I know nothing I have done to offend you, and
has set (sic) those who are sent here to hiss me; I will be
very much obliged to you to turn them out."
This unfortunate speech made matters worse; the audience refused
to hear her, and her part was finished by Miss Searle.
Miss Mudie was said to be only eight years old. But J. Kemble, being
asked if she were really such a child, answered,
"Child! Why,
sir, when I was a very young actor in the York Company, that little
creature kept an inn at Tadcaster, and had a large family"
(Clark
Russell's
Representative Actors
, p. 363,
note
2). The
Morning Post
(April 5, 1806) says that Miss Mudie afterwards
joined a children's troupe in Leicester Place, where,
"though deservedly
discountenanced at a great theatre, she will, no doubt, prove an
acquisition to the infant establishment"
(Ashton's
Dawn of the XIXth
Century in England
, pp. 333-336).
Macbeth
, act iv. sc. 1.
Lun, or Rich, see p. 157, end of
1 [Footnote 2]. Hunt,
in the notes to Johnson's
Prologue
(Gilfillan's edition of
Johnson's
Poestical Works
, p. 38), is said to be "a famous
stage-boxer, Mahomet, a rope-dancer."
List of Letters
Contents
256—to William Bankes
Cheltenham, September 28, 1812.
My Dear Bankes
,—When you point out to one how people can be intimate at
the distance of some seventy leagues, I will plead guilty to your
charge, and accept your farewell, but not
wittingly
, till you
give me some better reason than my silence, which merely proceeded from
a notion founded on your own declaration of
old
, that you hated
writing and receiving letters. Besides, how was I to find out a man of
many residences? If I had addressed you
now
, it had been to your
borough, where I must have conjectured you were amongst your
constituents. So now, in despite of Mr. N. and Lady W., you shall be as
"much better" as the Hexham post-office will allow me to make you. I do
assure you I am much indebted to you for thinking of me at all, and
can't spare you even from amongst the superabundance of friends with
whom you suppose me surrounded.
heard that Newstead
is sold—the sum £140,000; sixty to remain
in mortgage on the estate for three years, paying interest, of course.
Rochdale is also likely to do well—so my worldly matters are mending. I
have been here some time drinking the waters, simply because there are
waters to drink, and they are very medicinal, and sufficiently
disgusting.
a few days I set out for Lord Jersey's
, but return
here, where I am quite alone, go out very little, and enjoy in its
fullest extent the
dolce far niente
. What you are about I cannot
guess, even from your date;—not dauncing to the sound of the gitourney
in the Halls of the Lowthers? one of whom is here, ill, poor thing, with
a phthisic. I heard that you passed through here (at the sordid inn
where I first alighted) the very day before I arrived in these parts.
had a very pleasant set here; at first the Jerseys, Melbournes
,
Cowpers
, and Hollands, but all gone; and the only persons I know are
the Rawdons
and Oxfords
, with some later acquaintances of less brilliant descent.
But I do not trouble them much; and as for your rooms and your
assemblies "they are not dreamed of in our philosophy!!"—
you read
of a sad accident in the Wye t'other day
? A dozen drowned; and Mr.
Rossoe, a corpulent gentleman, preserved by a boat-hook or an eel-spear,
begged, when he heard his wife was saved —no—
lost
—to be thrown
in again!!—as if he could not have thrown himself in, had he wished it;
but this passes for a trait of sensibility. What strange beings men are,
in and out of the Wye!
I have to ask you a thousand pardons for not fulfilling some orders
before I left town; but if you knew all the cursed entanglements I
had
to wade through, it would be unnecessary to beg your
forgiveness.—
will Parliament (the new one) meet
?—in sixty
days, on account of Ireland, I presume: the Irish election will demand a
longer period for completion than the constitutional allotment. Yours,
of course, is safe, and all your side of the question. Salamanca is the
ministerial watchword, and all will go well with you. I hope you will
speak more frequently, I am sure at least you
ought
, and it will
be expected. I see Portman means to stand again. Good night.
Ever yours most affectionately,
Greek: Mpairon
Newstead was put up at Garraway's in the autumn of 1812;
but only £90,000 were bid, and the property was therefore withdrawn.
Subsequently it was privately sold to a Mr. Claughton, who found himself
unable to complete the purchase, and forfeited £25,000 on the contract.
Newstead was eventually sold, in November, 1817, to Colonel Wildman,
Byron's Harrow schoolfellow, for £94,500.
For Lady Jersey, see p. 112,
1. The following
passage, from Byron's
Detached Thoughts
, gives an account of the
party at Middleton:
"In 1812 at Middelton (Lord Jersey's), amongst a goodly company of
Lords, Ladies, and wits, etc., there was poor old Vice Leach, the
lawyer, attempting to play off the fine gentleman. His first
exhibition, an attempt on horseback, I think, to escort the women—God
knows where—in the month of November, ended in a fit of the
Lumbago—as Lord Ogleby says, 'a grievous enemy to Gallantry and
address'—and if he could have but heard Lady Jersey quizzing him (as
I did) next day for the cause of his malady, I don't think that
he would have turned a 'Squire of dames' in a hurry again. He seemed
to me the greatest fool (in that line) I ever saw. This was the last I
saw of old Vice Leach, except in town, where he was creeping into
assemblies, and trying to look young—and gentlemanly.
Erskine too!—Erskine was there—good but intolerable. He jested, he
talked, he did everything admirably, but then he would be
applauded for the same thing twice over. He would read his own verses,
his own paragraphs, and tell his own story again and again; and then
'the trial by Jury!!!'—I almost wished it abolished, for I sate next
him at dinner, and, as I had read his published speeches, there was no
occasion to repeat them to me. Chester (the fox-hunter), surnamed
'Cheek Chester,' and I sweated the Claret, being the only two who did
so. Cheek, who loves his bottle, and had no notion of meeting with a
'bonvivant' in a scribbler, in making my eulogy to somebody one
evening, summed it up in 'by G-d, he drinks like a Man!'"
Sir Peniston Lamb, created an Irish baron as Lord
Melbourne in 1770, an Irish viscount in 1780, and an English peer in
1815, married, in 1769, Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke,
of Halnaby, Yorkshire, one of the cleverest and most beautiful women of
the day. Horace Walpole, writing to Mason, May 12, 1778, mentions her
when she was at the height of her beauty.
"On Tuesday," he says, "I supped, after the opera, at Mrs. Meynel's
with a set of the most fashionable company, which, take notice, I very
seldom do now, as I certainly am not of the age to mix often with
young people. Lady Melbourne was standing before the fire, and
adjusting her feathers in the glass. Says she, 'Lord, they say the
stocks will blow up! That will be very comical.'"
Greville (
Memoirs
, ed. 1888, vol. vi. p. 248) associates her name
with that of Lord Egremont. Reynolds painted her with her eldest son in
his well-known picture
Maternal Affection
. Her second son,
William, afterwards Prime Minister, used to say,
"Ah! my mother was a most remarkable woman; not merely clever and
engaging, but the most sagacious woman I ever knew"
(
Memoirs of Viscount Melbourne
, vol. i. p. 135). Lady Melbourne,
whom Byron spoke of as
"the best, the kindest, and ablest female I have ever known, old or
young,"
died in 1818, her husband in 1828. He thus described her to Lady
Blessington (
Conversations
, p. 225):
"Lady M., who might have been my mother, excited an interest in my
feelings that few young women have been able to awaken. She was a
charming person—a sort of modern Aspasia, uniting the energy of a
man's mind with the delicacy and tenderness of a woman's. She wrote
and spoke admirably, because she felt admirably. Envy, malice, hatred,
or uncharitableness, found no place in her feelings. She had all of
philosophy, save its moroseness, and all of nature, save its defects
and general faiblesse; or if some portion of faiblesse
attached to her, it only served to render her more forbearing to the
errors of others. I have often thought, that, with a little more
youth, Lady M. might have turned my head, at all events she often
turned my heart, by bringing me back to mild feelings, when the demon
passion was strong within me. Her mind and heart were as fresh as if
only sixteen summers had flown over her, instead of four times that
number."
Peter, fifth Earl Cowper (1778-1837), married, in 1805
Emily Mary Lamb, daughter of Lord Melbourne; she married, secondly, in
1839, Lord Palmerston.
Francis Rawdon, second Earl of Moira (1754-1826), created
Lord Rawdon (1783), and Marquis of Hastings (1817), married, in 1804,
the Countess of Loudoun.
Edward Harley (1773-1848) succeeded his uncle as fifth Earl
of Oxford in 1790, and married, in 1794, Jane Elizabeth, daughter of the
Rev. James Scott, Vicar of Itchin, Hants. It is probably of Lady Oxford,
whose picture was painted by Hoppner, that Byron spoke to Lady
Blessington (
Conversations