176—To the Hon. Augusta Leigh1

Webster had sent Byron a letter from Naylor Hare, in which the latter criticized Hodgson's poems,

Lady Jane Grey, a Tale; and other Poems (1809)

(see

Letters

, vol. i. p. 195,

note 1

[Footnote 1 of Letter 102]).

In the volume (pp. 56-77) was printed his "Gentle Alterative prepared for the Reviewers," which Hare apparently compared to

The Pursuits of Literature (1794-97)

, by T. J. Mathias.

To this criticism Byron objected, saying that the "Alterative" might be more fairly compared to Gifford's

Baviad

(1794).

return to footnote mark

Footnote 2:

For William John Bankes, see

Letters

, vol. i. p. 120,

note

1. [Footnote 1 of Letter 67]

176—To the Hon. Augusta Leigh ¹

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 2d, 1811.

My dear Augusta,—I wrote you a vastly dutiful letter since my answer to your second epistle, and I now write you a third, for which you have to thank Silence and Solitude.

. Hanson

comes hither on the 14th, and I am going to Rochdale on business, but that need not prevent you from coming here, you will find Joe, and the house and the cellar and all therein very much at your Service.

As to Lady B., when I discover one rich enough to suit me and foolish enough to have me, I will give her leave to make me miserable if she can. Money is the magnet; as to Women, one is as well as another, the older the better, we have then a chance of getting her to Heaven. So, your Spouse does not like brats better than myself; now those who beget them have no right to find fault, but

may rail with great propriety.

My "Satire!"—I am glad it made you laugh for Somebody told me in Greece that you was angry, and I was sorry, as you were perhaps the only person whom I did

not

want to

make angry

But how you will make

me laugh

I don't know, for it is a vastly

serious

subject to me I assure you; therefore take care, or I shall hitch

you

into the next Edition to make up our family party. Nothing so fretful, so despicable as a Scribbler, see what

am, and what a parcel of Scoundrels I have brought about my ears, and what language I have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way;—all this comes of Authorship, but now I am in for it, and shall be at war with Grubstreet, till I find some better amusement.

You will write to me your Intentions and may almost depend on my being at Cambridge in October. You say you mean to be etc. in the

Autumn

; I should be glad to know what you call this present Season, it would be Winter in every other Country which I have seen. If we meet in October we will travel in my

Vis

. and can have a cage for the children and a cart for the Nurse. Or perhaps we can forward them by the Canal. Do let us know all about it, your "

bright thought

" is a little clouded, like the Moon in this preposterous climate.

Good even, Child.

Yours ever, B.

The following is Mrs. Leigh's letter, to which the above is an answer:

"6 Mile Bottom, Saturday, 31 Aug.

My dearest brother,—I hope you don't dislike receiving letters so much as writing them, for you would in that case pronounce me a great torment. But as I prepared you in my last for its being followed very soon by another, I hope you will have reconciled your mind to the impending toil. I really wrote in such a hurry that I did not say half I wished; but I did not like to delay telling you how happy you made me by writing. I have been dwelling constantly upon the idea of going to Newstead ever since I had your wish to see me there. At last a bright thought struck me.

We intend, I believe, to go to Yorkshire in the autumn. Now, if I could contrive to pay you a visit en passant, it would be delightful, and give me the greatest pleasure. But I fear you would be obliged to make up your mind to receive my Brats too. As for my husband, he prefers the outside of the Mail to the inside of a Post-Chaise, particularly when partly occupied by Nurse and Children, so that we always travel independent of each other.

So much for this, my dear B. I can only say I should much like to see you at Newstead. The former I hope I shall at all events, as you must not be shabby, but come to Cambridge as you promised. Are you staying at Newstead now for any time? I saw George Byron in Town for one day, and he promised to call or write again, but has not done either, so I begin to think he has gone back to Lisbon. I think it is impossible not to like him; he is so good-natured and natural. We talked much of you; he told me you were grown very thin; as you don't complain, I hope you are not the worse for being so, and I remember you used to wish it. Don't you think it a great shame that George B. is not promoted? I wish there was any possibility of assisting him about it; but all I know who could do any good with you present Ministers, I don't for many reasons like to ask. Perhaps there may be a change bye and bye.

Fred Howard is married to Miss Lambton. I saw them in town in their way to Castle Howard. I hope he will be happy with all my heart; his kindness and friendship to us last year, when Col. Leigh was placed in one of the most perplexing situations that I think anybody could be in, is never to be forgotten. I think he used to be a greater favourite with you than some others of his family. Mrs. F.H. is very pretty, very young (not quite 17), and appears gentle and pleasing, which is all one can expect [to discover from] a very slight acquaintance.

Now, my dearest Byron, pray let me hear from you. I shall be daily expecting to hear of a Lady Byron, since you have confided to me your determination of marrying, in which I really hope you are serious, being convinced such an event would contribute greatly to your happiness, provided her Ladyship was the sort of person that would suit you; and you won't be angry with me for saying that it is not every one who would; therefore don't be too precipitate. You will wish me hanged, I fear, for boring you so unmercifully, so God bless you, my dearest Bro.; and, when you have time, do write. Are you going to amuse us with any more Satires? Oh, English Bards! I shall make you laugh (when we meet) about it.

Ever your most affectionate Sis. and Friend,

A.L.

return to footnote mark

Footnote 2:

For John Hanson, see Letters, vol. i. p. 8, note 2. [Footnote 1 of Letter 3]

177—To To Francis Hodgson

Newstead Abbey, Sept. 3, 1811.

My Dear Hodgson

,—I

will

have nothing to do with your immortality

; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another. If men are to live, why die at all? and if they die, why disturb the sweet and sound sleep that "knows no waking"?

"Post Mortem nihil est, ipsaque Mors nihil ... quæris quo jaceas post obitum loco? Quo non Nata jacent."²

As to revealed religion, Christ came to save men; but a good Pagan will go to heaven, and a bad Nazarene to hell; "Argal" (I argue like the gravedigger) why are not all men Christians? or why are any? If mankind may be saved who never heard or dreamt, at Timbuctoo, Otaheite, Terra Incognita, etc., of Galilee and its Prophet, Christianity is of no avail: if they cannot be saved without, why are not all orthodox? It is a little hard to send a man preaching to Judæa, and leave the rest of the world—Negers and what not—

dark

as their complexions, without a ray of light for so many years to lead them on high; and who will believe that God will damn men for not knowing what they were never taught? I hope I am sincere; I was so at least on a bed of sickness in a far-distant country, when I had neither friend, nor comforter, nor hope, to sustain me. I looked to death as a relief from pain, without a wish for an after-life, but a confidence that the God who punishes in this existence had left that last asylum for the

weary

Greek: Hon ho theòs agapáei apothnáeskei néos.

I am no Platonist, I am nothing at all; but I would sooner be a Paulician, Manichean, Spinozist, Gentile, Pyrrhonian, Zoroastrian, than one of the seventy-two villainous sects who are tearing each other to pieces for the love of the Lord and hatred of each other. Talk of Galileeism? Show me the effects—are you better, wiser, kinder by your precepts? I will bring you ten Mussulmans shall shame you in all goodwill towards men, prayer to God, and duty to their neighbours.

And

is there a Talapoin

⁴

, or a Bonze, who is not superior to a fox-hunting curate? But I will say no more on this endless theme; let me live, well if possible, and die without pain. The rest is with God, who assuredly, had He

come

sent

, would have made Himself manifest to nations, and intelligible to all.

I shall rejoice to see you. My present intention is to accept Scrope Davies's invitation; and then, if you accept mine, we shall meet

here

and

there

. Did you know poor Matthews? I shall miss him much at Cambridge.

cross-reference: return to Preface

The religious discussion arose out of the opening stanzas of

Childe Harold

, Canto II., which Hodgson was helping to correct for the press.

Byron's opinions were not newly formed, as is shown by the following letter to Ensign Long (see

Letters

, vol. i. p. 73,

note 2

[Footnote 2 of Letter 31]), which reached the Editor too late for insertion in its proper place:

Southwell, Ap: 16th, 1807.

"Your Epistle, my dear Standard Bearer, augurs not much in favour of your new life, particularly the latter part, where you say your happiest Days are over. I most sincerely hope not. The past has certainly in some parts been pleasant, but I trust will be equalled, if not exceeded by the future. You hope it is not so with me.

"To be plain with Regard to myself. Nature stampt me in the Die of Indifference. I consider myself as destined never to be happy, although in some instances fortunate. I am an isolated Being on the Earth, without a Tie to attach me to life, except a few School-fellows, and a score of females. Let me but 'hear my fame on the winds' and the song of the Bards in my Norman house, I ask no more and don't expect so much. Of Religion I know nothing, at least in its favour. We have fools in all sects and Impostors in most; why should I believe mysteries no one understands, because written by men who chose to mistake madness for Inspiration, and style themselves Evangelicals? However enough on this subject. Your piety will be aghast, and I wish for no proselytes. This much I will venture to affirm, that all the virtues and pious Deeds performed on Earth can never entitle a man to Everlasting happiness in a future State; nor on the other hand can such a Scene as a Seat of eternal punishment exist, it is incompatible with the benign attributes of a Deity to suppose so.

"I am surrounded here by parsons and methodists, but, as you will see, not infected with the mania. I have lived a Deist, what I shall die I know not; however, come what may, ridens moriar.

"Nothing detains me here but the publication, which will not be complete till June. About 20 of the present pieces will be cut out, and a number of new things added. Amongst them a complete Episode of Nisus and Euryalus from Virgil, some Odes from Anacreon, and several original Odes, the whole will cover 170 pages. My last production has been a poem in imitation of Ossian, which I shall not publish, having enough without it. Many of the present poems are enlarged and altered, in short you will behold an 'Old friend with a new face.' Were I to publish all I have written in Rhyme, I should fill a decent Quarto; however, half is quite enough at present. You shall have all when we meet.

"I grow thin daily; since the commencement of my System I have lost 23 lbs. in my weight (i.e.) 1 st. and 9 lbs. When I began I weighed 14 st. 6 lbs., and on Tuesday I found myself reduced to 12 st. 11 lb. What sayest thou, Ned? do you not envy? I shall still proceed till I arrive at 12 st. and then stop, at least if I am not too fat, but shall always live temperately and take much exercise.

"If there is a possibility we shall meet in June. I shall be in Town, before I proceed to Granta, and if the 'mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the mountain.' I don't mean, by comparing you to the mountain, to insinuate anything on the Subject of your Size. Xerxes, it is said, formed Mount Athos into the Shape of a Woman; had he lived now, and taken a peep at Chatham, he would have spared himself the trouble and made it unnecessary by finding a Hill ready cut to his wishes.

"Adieu, dear Mont Blanc, or rather Mont Rouge; don't, for Heaven's sake, turn Volcanic, at least roll the Lava of your indignation in any other Channel, and not consume Your's ever,

Byron.

"Write Immediately."

Byron lived to modify these opinions, as is shown by the following passages from his

Detached Thoughts

"If I were to live over again, I do not know what I would change in my life, unless it were for—not to have lived at all. All history and experience, and the rest, teaches us that the good and evil are pretty equally balanced in this existence, and that what is most to be desired is an easy passage out of it. What can it give us but years? and those have little of good but their ending.

"Of the immortality of the soul it appears to me that there can be little doubt, if we attend for a moment to the action of mind; it is in perpetual activity. I used to doubt of it, but reflection has taught me better. It acts also so very independent of body—in dreams, for instance;—incoherently and madly, I grant you, but still it is mind, and much more mind than when we are awake. Now that this should not act separately, as well as jointly, who can pronounce? The stoics, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, call the present state 'a soul which drags a carcass,'—a heavy chain, to be sure; but all chains being material may be shaken off. How far our future life will be individual, or, rather, how far it will at all resemble our present existence, is another question; but that the mind is eternal seems as probable as that the body is not so. Of course I here venture upon the question without recurring to Revelation, which, however, is at least as rational a solution of it as any other. A material resurrection seems strange, and even absurd, except for purposes of punishment; and all punishment which is to revenge rather than correct must be morally wrong; and when the world is at an end, what moral or warning purpose can eternal tortures answer? Human passions have probably disfigured the divine doctrines here;—but the whole thing is inscrutable."

"It is useless to tell me not to reason, but to believe. You might as well tell a man not to wake, but sleep. And then to bully with torments, and all that! I cannot help thinking that the menace of hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains."

"Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of good in his main-spring of mind. But, God help us all! it is at present a sad jar of atoms."

return to footnote mark

Footnote 2:

The lines are quoted from Seneca's

Troades

(act ii. et seqq.):

"Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil.
........
........
Quæris, quo jaceas post obitum loco?
Quo non nata jacent."

Footnote 3:

The sentiment is found in one of the

Greek: monóstichoi

of Menander (

Menandri et Philemonis reliquiæ,

edidit Augustus Meineke, p. 48). It is thus quoted by Stobæus (

Florilegium

, cxx. 8) as an iambic:

Greek: Hon oi theoì philoûsin apothnáeskei néos.

In the

Comicorum Græcorum Sententiæ, id est

Greek: gnômai

(p. 219, ed, Henricus Stephanus, MDLXIX.) it is quoted as a leonine verse:

Greek: Hon gàr philei theòs apothnáeskei néos.

Plautus gives it thus (

Bacchides

, iv. 7):

"Quem di diligunt adolescens moritur."

Footnote 4:

The word is said to be illegible, and the conclusion of the letter to be lost (

Memoir of the Rev. Francis Hodgson

, vol. i. p. 196). Only the latter statement is correct. The word is perfectly legible. Talapoin (Yule's

Glossary of Anglo-Indian Words, sub voce

) is the name used by the Portuguese, and after them by the French writers, and by English travellers of the seventeenth century (Hakluyt, ed. 1807, vol. ii. p. 93; and Purchas, ed. 1645, vol. ii. p. 1747), to designate the Buddhist monks of Ceylon and the Indo-Chinese countries. Pallegoix (

Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam

, vol. ii. p. 23) says,

"Les Européens les ont appelés talapoins, probablement du nom de l'éventail qu'ils tiennent à la main, lequel s'appelle talapat, qui signifie feuille de palmier."

Possibly Byron knew the word through Voltaire (

Dial.

xxii.,

André des Couches à Siam

);

"A. des C.:	Combien avez-vous de soldats?
Croutef.:	Quatre-vingt mille, fort médiocrement payés.
A. des C.:	Et de talapoins?
Cr.:	Cent vingt-mille, tous fainéans et trés riches," etc.

178—to R.C. Dallas

Newstead Abbey, September 4th, 1811.

My dear Sir,—

am at present anxious, as Cawthorn seems to wish it, to have a small edition of the

Hints from Horace

published immediately, but the Latin (the most difficult poem in the language) renders it necessary to be very particular not only in correcting the proofs with Horace open, but in adapting the parallel passages of the imitation in such places to the original as may enable the reader not to lose sight of the allusion. I don't know whether I ought to ask you to do this, but I am too far off to do it for myself; and if you condescend to my school-boy erudition, you will oblige me by setting this thing going, though you will smile at the importance I attach to it.

Believe me, ever yours,

Byron

Hints from Horace

, written during Byron's second stay at Athens, March 11-14, 1811, and subsequently added to, had been placed in the hands of Cawthorn, the publisher of

English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers

, for publication. Byron afterwards changed his mind, and the poem remained unpublished till after his death.

The following letter from Cawthorn shows that considerable progress had been made with the printing of the poem, and that Byron also contemplated another edition of

English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers

. The advice of his friends led him to abandon both plans; but his letter to Cawthorn, printed below, is evidence that in September he was still at work on

Hints from Horace

"24, Cockspur Street, Aug. 22'd, 1811.

"My Lord,—Mr. Green the Amanuensis has finished the Latin of the Horace, and I shall be happy to do with it as your Lordship may direct, either to forward it to Newstead, or keep it in Town. Would it not be better to print a small edition seperate (sic), and afterwards print the two satires together? This I leave to your Lordship's consideration. Four Sheets of the Travels are already printed, and one of the plates (Albanian Solain) is executed. I sent it Capt. H[obhouse] yesterday to Cork, to see if it meets his approbation. The work is printed in quarto, for which I may be in some measure indebted to your Lordship, as I urged it so strongly. I shall be extremely sorry if Capt. H. is not pleased with it, but I think he will. Your Lordship's goodness will excuse me for saying how much the very sudden and melancholy events that have lately transpired—I regret—Capt. Hobhouse has written me since the decease of Mr. Mathews. I am told Capt. H. is very much affected at it. I have received some drawings of costumes from him, which I am to deliver to your Lordship. Is it likely we shall see your Lordship in Town soon?

"I have the honour to be your Lordship's

"Most respectful and greatly obliged Servt.,

"James Cawthorn.

"If a small edition is printed of 'Horace' for the first" [words erased] "that, and I think in all probability the 'E. Bards' will want reprinting about March next, when both could be done together. Do not think me too sanguine."

A few days later, Byron writes to Cawthom as follows:

"Newstead Abbey, September 4th, 1811.

"More notes for the 'Hints'! You mistake me much by thinking me inattentive to this publication. If I had a friend willing and able to correct the press, it should be out with my good will immediately. Pray attend to annexing additional notes in their proper places, and let them be added immediately.

"Yours, etc.,

"Byron."

cross-reference: return to Footnote 1 of Letter 231