Byron possibly quoted the actual words from
Hamlet
(act v. sc. 1), referring to Moore's attack on the Regent in
The
Two-penny Post-bag
:
"Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou."
But the letter is destroyed.
The
Morning Chronicle
for July 12 contains the
announcement that "the Prince Regent has projected a
Grand National
Fête
in honour of the battle of Vittoria. It is to be held at
Vauxhall Gardens." The
fête
was held on Tuesday, July 20,
beginning with a banquet, at which such toasts were drunk as "The
Marquis of Wellington," "Sir Thomas Graham and the other officers
engaged," "The Spanish Armies and the brave Guerillas." The
báton
of Marshal Jourdan was "disposed among the plate, so as to be obvious to
all." The proceedings ended with illuminations and dancing.
List of Letters
Contents
Sunday, July 18th, 1813.
Dear Sir
,—A Report is in general circulation (which has distressed my
friends, and is not very pleasing to me), that the Purchaser of Newstead
is a
young
man, who has been over-reached, ill-treated, and
ruined, by me in this transaction of the sale, and that I take an unfair
advantage of the
law
to enforce the contract. This must be
contradicted by a true and open statement of the circumstances
attending, and subsequent to, the sale, and that immediately and
publicly. Surely, if anyone is ill treated it is myself. He bid his own
price; he took time before he bid at all, and now, when I am actually
granting him further time as a favour, I hear from all quarters that I
have acted unfairly. Pray do not delay on this point; see him, and let a
proper and true statement be drawn up of the sale, etc., and inserted in
the papers.
Ever yours,
B.
P.S.—Mr. C. himself, if he has either honour or feeling, will be the
first to vindicate me from so unfounded an implication. It is surely not
for his credit to be supposed
ruined
or
over-reached
.
List of Letters
Contents
July 22nd, 1813.
Dear Sir,—I have great pleasure in accepting your invitation to meet
anybody or nobody as you like best.
Pray what should you suppose the book in the inclosed advertisement to
be? is it anything relating to Buonaparte or Continental Concerns? If
so, it may be worth looking after, particularly if it should turn out to
be your purchase—Lucien's
Epic
.
Believe me, very truly yours,
Byron
.
List of Letters
Contents
July 25, 1813.
I am not well versed enough in the ways of single woman to make much
matrimonial progress.
I
been dining like the dragon of Wantley
for this last week. My
head aches with the vintage of various cellars, and my brains are
muddled as their dregs. I met your friends the Daltons:—she sang one of
your best songs so well, that, but for the appearance of affectation, I
could have cried; he reminds me of Hunt, but handsomer, and more musical
in soul, perhaps. I wish to God he may conquer his horrible anomalous
complaint. The upper part of her face is beautiful, and she seems much
attached to her husband. He is right, nevertheless, in leaving this
nauseous town. The first winter would infallibly destroy her
complexion,—and the second, very probably, every thing else.
I must tell you a story. Morris
(of
memory) was dining
out the other day, and complaining of the Prince's coldness to his old
wassailers. D'Israeli (a learned Jew) bored him with questions—why
this? and why that? "Why did the Prince act thus?"—"Why, sir, on
account of Lord ——, who ought to be ashamed of himself."—"And why
ought Lord—— to be ashamed of himself?"—"Because the Prince, sir,
——"—"And why, sir, did the Prince cut
you
?"—"Because,
G—d d—mme, sir, I stuck to my principles."—"And why did you stick to
your principles?"
Is not this last question the best that was ever put, when you consider
to whom? It nearly killed Morris.
you may think it stupid, but,
as Goldsmith said about the peas
, it was a very good joke when I
heard it—as I did from an ear-witness—and is only spoilt in my
narration.
The
has closed with a dandy ball
;—but I have dinners with
the Harrowbys, Rogers, and Frere and Mackintosh
, where I shall drink your health in a silent bumper, and regret your absence till "too much
canaries" wash away my memory, or render it superfluous by a vision of
you at the opposite side of the table.
has disbanded his party
by a speech from his [——]— the true throne of a Tory
.
his turning them off in a formal harangue, and bidding them
think for themselves. "I have led my ragamuffins where they are well
peppered. There are but three of the 150 left alive,"
and they are
for the
Townsend
(
query
, might not Falstaff mean the Bow
Street officer? I dare say Malone's posthumous edition will have it so)
for life.
Since I wrote last, I have been into the country. I journeyed by
night—no incident, or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on
the outside, who, in crossing Epping Forest, actually, I believe, flung
down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second
figure of number XIX—mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. I can
only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols wherewith I had armed
him; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out
to me whenever we passed any thing—no matter whether moving or
stationary. Conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong. I have
scribbled you a fearfully long letter. This
must be blank, and is
merely a wrapper, to preclude the tabellarians
of the post from
peeping. You once complained of my
not
writing;—I will "heap
coals of fire upon your head" by
not
complaining of your
not
reading. Ever, my dear Moore, your'n (isn't that the
Staffordshire termination?),
Byron
.
Under the title of "An excellent Ballad of a most dreadful
combat, fought between Moore of Moore-Hall and the Dragon of Wantley,"
this ballad forms (in the 12th edition) the Argument of
The Dragon of
Wantley, a Burlesque Opera
, performed at Covent Garden, the libretto
of which is by Sig. Carini,
i.e.
Henry Carey:
"Have you not heard of the Trojan Horse;
With Seventy Men in his Belly?
This Dragon was not quite so big,
But very near, I'll tell you;
Devoured he poor Children three,
That could not with him grapple;
And at one sup he eat them up,
As one would eat an Apple.
"All sorts of Cattle this Dragon did eat,
Some say he eat up Trees,
And that the Forest sure he would
Devour by degrees.
For Houses and Churches were to him Geese and Turkies;
He eat all, and left none behind,
But some Stones, dear Jack, which he could not crack,
Which on the Hills you'll find."
Charles Morris (1745-1838) served in the 17th Foot, the
Royal Irish Dragoons, and finally in the Second Life Guards. He was
laureate and punch-maker to the Beef-steak Club, founded in 1735 by John
Rich, patentee of Covent Garden Theatre. The Prince of Wales became a
member of the Club in 1785, and Morris was a frequent guest at Carlton
House. Another member of the Club was the Duke of Norfolk, who gave
Morris the villa at Brockham, near Betchworth, where he lived and died.
Morris, who was an admirable song-writer and singer, attached himself
politically to the Prince's party, and attacked Pitt in such popular
ballads as "Billy's too young to drive us," and "Billy Pitt and the
Farmer." He was, however, disappointed in his hope of reward from his
political patrons, and vented his spleen in his ode, "The Old Whig Poet
to his Old Buff Waistcoat"
"Farewell, thou poor rag of the Muse!
In the bag of the clothesman go lie;
A farthing thou'lt fetch from the Jews,
Which the hard-hearted Christians deny," etc.
Some of his poems deserve the censure of
The Shade of Pope
(line
225):
"There reeling Morris and his bestial songs."
But others, in their ease and vivacity, hold their own with all but the
best of Moore's songs. A collection of them was printed in two volumes
by Bentley, in 1840, under the title of
Lyra Urbanica
.
In Forster's
Life of Goldsmith
(vol. i. p. 34) it is
related that Goldsmith ran away from Trinity College, Dublin, because he
had been beaten by one of the Fellows. He started for Cork with a
shilling in his pocket, on which he lived for three days. He told
Reynolds that he thought
"a handful of grey pease, given him by a girl at a wake (after fasting
for twenty-four hours) the most comfortable repast he had ever made."
Byron may mean that any joke seems good to a man who had not heard one
for a day.
"I liked the Dandies," says Byron, in his Detached Thoughts;
"they were always very civil to me, though in general they
disliked literary people, and persecuted and mystified Madme. de
Staël, Lewis, Horace Twiss, and the like, damnably. They persuaded
Madme. de Staël that Alvanley had a hundred thousand a year, etc.,
etc., till she praised him to his face for his beauty!
and made a set at him for Albertine (Libertine, as Brummell
baptized her, though the poor girl was, and is, as correct as maid or
wife can be, and very amiable withal), and a hundred other fooleries
besides. The truth is, that, though I gave up the business early, I
had a tinge of Dandyism in my minority, and probably retained enough
of it to conciliate the great ones at four and twenty. I had gamed and
drunk and taken my degrees in most dissipations, and, having no
pedantry, and not being overbearing, we ran quietly together. I knew
them all more or less, and they made me a member of Watier's (a superb
club at that time), being, I take it, the only literary man (except
two others, both men of the world, M[oore] and S[pencer] in it.
Our Masquerade was a grand one; so was the Dandy Ball too—at the
Argyle,—but that (the latter) was given by the four
chiefs—B[rummel?], M[idmay?], A[lvanley?], and P[ierreoint?], if I
err not."
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832), after studying medicine,
was called to the English Bar in 1795. Originally a supporter of the
French Revolution, he answered Burke's
Reflections
with his
Vindiciæ Gallicæ
(1791). He is "Mr. Macfungus" in the
Anti-
Jacobin's
account of the "Meeting of the Friends of Freedom." But
his revolutionary sympathies rapidly cooled, and he publicly disavowed
them in his
Introductory Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature
and Nations
(1799). He remained, however, throughout his life, a
Whig. His lectures on "
The Law of Nature and Nations
," delivered
at Lincoln's Inn, in 1799, brought him into prominence, both at the Bar
and in society. In 1803 he was knighted on accepting the Recordership of
Bombay. He returned to England in 1812, entered Parliament as member for
Nairn, advocated some useful measures, became a Privy Councillor in
1828, and held office in the Whig Ministry of 1830 as Commissioner of
the Board of Control. In politics, as well as in literature, he
disappointed expectation. His principal works, besides those mentioned
above, were his
Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical
Philosophy
(1830), and his
History of the Revolution in England
in 1688
(1834).
His great intellectual powers were shown to most advantage in society.
Rogers (
Table-Talk
, pp. 197, 198) thought him one of the three
acutest men he had ever known.
"He had a prodigious memory, and could repeat by heart more of Cicero
than you could easily believe.... I never met a man with a fuller mind
than Mackintosh,—such readiness on all subjects, such a talker."
"Till subdued by age and illness," wrote Sydney Smith (Life of
Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 500), "his conversation was more brilliant
and instructive than that of any human being I ever had the good
fortune to be acquainted with."
As in political life, so in society, he was too much of the lecturer.
Ticknor (
Life
, vol. i. p. 265) thought him "a little too precise,
a little too much made up in his manners and conversation." But on all
sides there is evidence to confirm the testimony of Rogers
(
Table-Talk
, p. 207) that he was a man "who had not a particle of
envy or jealousy in his nature."
George Canning (1770-1827) had been offered the Foreign
Office in 1812 after the assassination of Perceval, on condition that
Castlereagh should lead the House of Commons. He refused the
offer. Elected M. P. for Liverpool in 1812, he had, in July, 1813,
disbanded his followers, and in 1814 left England. He supported
Lord Liverpool in carrying the repressive measures known as the
Six Acts (1817-20), and, on the death of Lord Londonderry, in
1822, entered the Government as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. It
is to the private speech to his followers, in July, 1813, that Byron
refers.
The
Morning Chronicle
for July 29, 1813, has the following
paragraph:
"Mr. Canning it seems has (to use a French phrase) reformed his
political corps. He assembled them at the close of the Session, and
with many expressions of regret for the failure of certain
negociations, which might have been favourable to them as a body,
relieved them from their oaths of allegiance, and recommended them to
pursue in future their objects separately. The Right Honourable
gentleman, perhaps, finds it more convenient for himself to act
unencumbered; and both he and one or two others may find their
interest in disbanding the squad; but some of them are turned off
without a character."
The
Courier
for July 29, quoting
the first part of the statement, adds,
"We believe ... that Mr.
Canning is not indisposed to join the present Cabinet, and may wish
one or two of his particular friends to come in with him."
"I have led my ragamuffins where they are pepper'd: there's but three
of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's end,
to beg during life."
(
Henry IV
., Part I. act v. sc. 3).
Townshend, the Bow Street
officer, is described by Cronow (
Reminiscences
, vol. i. p. 286)
as
"a little fat man with a flaxen wig, Kersey-mere breeches, a blue
straight-cut coat, and a broad-brimmed white hat. To the most daring
courage he added great dexterity and cunning; and was said, in
propria persona, to have taken more thieves than all the other Bow
Street officers put together."
"Epistolam, quam attulerat Phileros tabellarius."
(Cic.,
Fam
.,9, 15).
List of Letters
Contents
July 27, 1813.
When you next imitate the style of "Tacitus," pray add,
de moribus
Germannorum
;—this last was a piece of barbarous silence, and could
only be taken from the
Woods
, and, as such, I attribute it
entirely to your sylvan sequestration at Mayfield Cottage. You will
find, on casting up accounts, that you are my debtor by several sheets
and one epistle. I shall bring my action;—if you don't discharge,
expect to hear from my attorney. I
forwarded your letter to
Ruggiero
; but don't make a postman of me again, for fear I should be
tempted to violate your sanctity of wax or wafer.
Believe me, ever yours
indignantly
,
BN.
i. e.
Samuel Rogers.
List of Letters
Contents
July 28, 1813.
Can't you be satisfied with the pangs of my jealousy of Rogers, without
actually making me the pander of your epistolary intrigue? This is the
second letter you have enclosed to my address, notwithstanding a
miraculous long answer, and a subsequent short one or two of your own.
If you do so again, I can't tell to what pitch my fury may soar. I shall
send you verse or arsenic, as likely as any thing,—four thousand
couplets on sheets beyond the privilege of franking; that privilege,
sir, of which you take an undue advantage over a too susceptible
senator, by forwarding your lucubrations to every one but himself. I
won't frank
from
you, or
for
you, or
to
you—may I
be curst if I do, unless you mend your manners. I disown you—I disclaim
you—and by all the powers of Eulogy, I will write a panegyric upon you
—or dedicate a quarto—if you don't make me ample amends.
P. S.—I
in training to dine with Sheridan
and Rogers this
evening. I have a
spite against R., and will shed his "Clary
wines pottle-deep."
This is nearly my ultimate or penultimate
letter; for I am quite equipped, and only wait a passage. Perhaps I may
wait a few weeks for Sligo, but not if I can help it.
In his
Detached Thoughts
Byron has noted the
following impressions of Sheridan:
"In society I have met Sheridan frequently: he was superb! He had a
sort of liking for me, and never attacked me, at least to my face, as
he did every body else—high names, and wits, and orators, some of
them poets also. I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de
Staël, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others (whose
names, as friends, I set not down) of good fame and ability. Poor
fellow! he got drunk very thoroughly and very soon. It occasionally
fell to my lot to pilot him home—no sinecure, for he was so tipsy
that I was obliged to put on his cocked hat for him. To be sure, it
tumbled off again, and I was not myself so sober as to be able to pick
it up again.
"The last time I met him was, I think, at Sir Gilbert Elliot's, where
he was as quick as ever—no, it was not the last time; the last time
was at Douglas Kinnaird's. I have met him in all places and
parties—at Whitehall with the Melbournes, at the Marquis of
Tavistock's, at Robins's the auctioneer's, at Sir Humphry Davy's, at
Sam Rogers's,—in short, in most kinds of company, and always found
him very convivial and delightful.
"I have seen Sheridan weep two or three times. It may be that he was
maudlin; but this only renders it more impressive, for who would see
'From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow,
And Swift expire a driveller and a show'?
"Once I saw him cry at Robins's the auctioneer's, after a splendid
dinner, full of great names and high spirits. I had the honour of
sitting next to Sheridan. The occasion of his tears was some
observation or other upon the subject of the sturdiness of the Whigs
in resisting office and keeping to their principles: Sheridan turned
round: 'Sir, it is easy for my Lord G. or Earl G. or Marquis B. or
Lord H. with thousands upon thousands a year, some of it either
presently derived, or
inherited in sinecure or
acquisitions from the public money, to boast of their patriotism and
keep aloof from temptation; but they do not know from what temptation
those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal talents, and
not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not in the course of their
lives what it was to have a shilling of their own.' And in saying this
he wept.
"There was something odd about Sheridan. One day, at dinner, he was
slightly praising that pert pretender and impostor, Lyttelton (the
Parliamentary puppy, still alive, I believe). I took the liberty of
differing from him; he turned round upon me, and said, 'Is that your
real opinion?' I confirmed it. Then said he, 'Fortified by this
concurrence, I beg leave to say that it, in fact, is
my opinion
also, and that he is a person whom I do absolutely and utterly
despise, abhor, and detest.' He then launched out into a description
of his despicable qualities, at some length, and with his usual wit,
and evidently in earnest (for he hated Lyttelton). His former
compliment had been drawn out by some preceding one, just as its
reverse was by my hinting that it was unmerited.
"I have more than once heard him say, 'that he never had a shilling of
his own.' To be sure, he contrived to extract a good many of other
people's.
"In 1815 I had occasion to visit my lawyer in Chancery Lane; he was
with Sheridan. After mutual greetings, etc., Sheridan retired first.
Before recurring to my own business, I could not help inquiring
that of Sheridan. 'Oh,' replied the attorney, 'the usual thing!
to stave off an action from his wine-merchant, my client.'—'Well,'
said I, 'and what do you mean to do?'—'Nothing at all for the
present,' said he: 'would you have us proceed against old Sherry? what
would be the use of it?' and here he began laughing, and going over
Sheridan's good gifts of conversation.
"Now, from personal experience, I can vouch that my attorney is by no
means the tenderest of men, or particularly accessible to any kind of
impression out of the statute or record; and yet Sheridan, in half an
hour, had found the way to soften and seduce him in such a manner,
that I almost think he would have thrown his client (an honest man,
with all the laws, and some justice, on his side) out of the window,
had he come in at the moment.
"Such was Sheridan! he could soften an attorney! There has been
nothing like it since the days of Orpheus.
"One day I saw him take up his own '
Monody on Garrick.' He
lighted upon the Dedication to the Dowager Lady Spencer. On seeing it,
he flew into a rage, and exclaimed 'that it must be a forgery, that he
had never dedicated any thing of his to such a damned canting bitch,'
etc., etc.—and so went on for half an hour abusing his own
dedication, or at least the object of it. If all writers were equally
sincere, it would be ludicrous.
"He told me that, on the night of the grand success of his
School
for Scandal he was knocked down and put into the watch-house for
making a row in the street, and being found intoxicated by the
watchmen. Latterly, when found drunk one night in the kennel, and
asked his name by the watchmen, he answered, 'Wilberforce.'
"When dying he was requested to undergo 'an operation.' He replied
that he had already submitted to two, which were enough for one man's
lifetime. Being asked what they were, he answered, 'having his hair
cut, and sitting for his picture."
"I have met George Colman occasionally, and thought him extremely
pleasant and convivial. Sheridan's humour, or rather wit, was always
saturnine, and sometimes savage; he never laughed (at least that
I saw, and I watched him), but Colman did. If I had to
choose and could not have both at a time I should say, 'Let me
begin the evening with Sheridan, and finish it with Colman.' Sheridan
for dinner, Colman for supper; Sheridan for claret or port but Colman
for every thing, from the madeira and champagne at dinner the claret
with a
layer of
port between the glasses up to the punch
of the night, and down to the grog, or gin and water, of
daybreak;—all these I have threaded with both the same. Sheridan was a
grenadier company of life guards, but Colman a whole regiment—of
light infantry, to be sure, but still a regiment."