Jeffrey reviewed
Childe Harold
in the
Edinburgh Review
,
No. 38, art. 10; the
Giaour
, No. 42, art. 2; the
Corsair
and
Bride of Abydos
, No. 45, art. 9; Byron's
Poetry
, No.
54, art. I;
Manfred
, No. 56, art. 7;
Beppo
, No. 58, art.
2;
Marino Faliero
, No. 70, art. I; Byron's
Tragedies
, No.
72, art. 5.
Winifred Jenkins is the maid to Miss Tabitha Bramble, who
marries Captain Lismahago, in Smollett's
Humphrey Clinker
.
Lord Foley and Scrope Davies.
G. F. Cooke (1755-1812), from 1794 to 1800 was the hero of
the Dublin stage, with the exception of an interval, during which he
served in the army. On October 31, 1800, he appeared at Covent Garden as
"Richard III," and afterwards played such parts in tragedy as "Iago"
and "Shylock" with great success. In comedy he was also a favourite,
especially as "Kitely" in
Every Man in his Humour
, and "Sir
Pertinax MacSycophant" in
The Man of the World
. His last
appearance on the London stage was as "Falstaff," June 5, 1810. In that year he sailed for New York, and,
September 26, 1812, died there from his "incorrigible habits of
drinking."
Byron uses the word
scurra
, which generally means a "parasite,"
in its other sense of a "buffoon."
Memoirs of George Frederic Cooke,
late of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden
, by W. Dunlap, in 2 vols.,
was published in 1813
The original edition of
Drunken Barnaby's Journal
, a
small square volume, without date, was probably printed about 1650. The
author was supposed to be Barnaby Harrington of Queen's College, Oxford.
But Joseph Haslewood, whose edition (1818) is the best, attributed it to
Richard Brathwait (circ. 1588-1673). The title of the second edition
(1716) runs as follows:
Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys to the North
of England. In Latin and English Verse. Wittily and merrily (tho' near
one hundred years ago) composed; found among some old musty books, that
had a long time lain by in a corner; and now at last made publick. To
which is added, Bessy Bell
.
"Drunken Barnaby" was also the burden of an old ballad quoted by
Haslewood:
"Barnaby, Barnaby, thou'st been drinking,
I can tell by thy nose, and thy eyes winking;
Drunk at Richmond, drunk at Dover,
Drunk at Newcastle, drunk all over.
Hey, Barnaby! tak't for a warning,
Be no more drunk, nor dry in a morning!"
"A Persian's Heav'n is easily made—
'Tis but black eyes and lemonade."
Pope's
Imitations of Horace
, Satire I line 6.
With Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster.
The review of Madame de Staël's
Germany
was by
Mackintosh.
List of Letters
Contents
August 26, 1813.
Dear Sir,—I have looked over and corrected one proof, but not so
carefully (God knows if you can read it through, but I can't) as to
preclude your eye from discovering some
o
mission of mine or
com
mission of y'e Printer. If you have patience, look it over. Do
you know any body who can
stop
—I mean
point
-commas, and
so forth? for I am, I hear, a sad hand at your punctuation. I have, but
with some difficulty,
not
added any more to this snake of a poem,
which has been lengthening its rattles every month. It is now fearfully
long, being more than a canto and a half of
C. H
., which contains
but 882 lines per book, with all late additions inclusive.
The last lines Hodgson likes—it is not often he does —and when he
don't, he tells me with great energy, and I fret and alter. I have
thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel, and, for a dying
man, have given him a good deal to say for himself.
Do you think you shall get hold of the
female
MS. you spoke of to
day? if so, you will let me have a glimpse; but don't tell our
master
(not W's), or we shall be buffeted.
I was quite sorry to hear you say you stayed in town on my account, and
I hope sincerely you did not mean so superfluous a piece of politeness.
Our
six
critiques!—they would have made half a
Quarterly
by themselves; but this is the age of criticism.
Ever yours,
B.
List of Letters
Contents
August 28, 1813.
Ay,
dear Moore, "there
was
a time"—I have heard of your
tricks, when "you was campaigning at the "King of Bohemy."
I am much mistaken if, some fine London spring, about the year 1815,
that time does not come again. After all, we must end in marriage; and I
can conceive nothing more delightful than such a state in the country,
reading the county newspaper, etc., and kissing one's wife's maid.
Seriously, I would incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour
to-morrow—that is, I would a month ago, but, at present, ——
Why
you "parody that Ode?"—Do you think
I should be
tetchy?
or have you done it, and won't tell me?—
are quite
right about Giamschid, and I have reduced it to a dissyllable within
this half hour
.
I am
to hear you talk of Richardson
, because it tells me what
you won't—that you are going to beat Lucien. At least tell me how far
you have proceeded. Do you think me less interested about your works, or
less sincere than our friend Ruggiero? I am not—and never was. In
thing of mine, the
English Bards
, at the time when I was angry
with all the world, I never "disparaged your parts," although I did not
know you personally;—and have always regretted that you don't give us
an
entire
work, and not sprinkle yourself in detached
pieces—beautiful, I allow, and quite
alone
in our language, but
still giving us a right to expect a
Shah Nameh
(is that the
name?) as well as gazelles. Stick to the East;—the oracle, Staël, told
me it was the only poetical policy. The North, South, and West, have all
been exhausted; but from the East, we have nothing but Southey's
unsaleables,—and these he has contrived to spoil, by adopting only
their most outrageous fictions. His personages don't interest us, and
yours will. You will have no competitor; and, if you had, you ought to
be glad of it. The little I have done in that way is merely a "voice in
the wilderness" for you; and if it has had any success, that also will
prove that the public are orientalising, and pave the path for you.
I
been thinking of a story, grafted on the amours of a Peri and a
mortal—something like, only more
philanthropical
than, Cazotte's
Diable Amoureux
.
It would require a good deal of poesy, and tenderness is not my forte.
For
, and other reasons, I have given up the idea, and merely
suggest it to you, because, in intervals of your greater work, I think
it a subject you might make much of
.
If
want any more books, there is "Castellan's
Moeurs des
Ottomans
," the best compendium of the kind I ever met with, in six
small tomes
.
I
really taking a liberty by talking in this style to my "elders and
my betters;"—pardon it, and don't
Rochefoucault
my motives.
Jerry Sneak, in Foote's
Mayor of Garratt
(act ii.),
says to Major Sturgeon, "I heard of your tricks at the King of Bohemy."
"The Ode of Horace—
'Natis in usum lætitiæ,' etc.;
some passages of which I told him might be parodied, in allusion to
some of his late adventures:
'Quanta laboras in Charybdi!
Digne puer meliore flammâ!'"
(Moore.)
"In his first edition of The Giaour he had used this word as a
trisyllable—'Bright as the gem of Giamschid'—but on my remarking to
him, upon the authority of Richardson's Persian Dictionary, that this
was incorrect, he altered it to 'Bright as the ruby of Giamschid.' On
seeing this, however, I wrote to him, 'that, as the comparison of his
heroine's eye to a "ruby" might unluckily call up the idea of its
being bloodshot, he had better change the line to "Bright as the jewel
of Giamschid;"' which he accordingly did in the following edition"
(Moore).
In the
Sháh Námeh
, Giamschid is the fourth sovereign of the
ancient Persians, and ruled seven hundred years. His jewel was a green
chrysolite, the reflection of which gives to the sky its blue-green
colour. Byron probably changed to "ruby" on the authority of
Vathek
(p. 58, ed. 1856), where Beckford writes,
"Then all the riches this place contains, as well as the carbuncle of
Giamschid, shall be hers."
Moore's reference (see
1) to John Richardson's
Dictionary of Persian, Arabic, and English
(1777), suggests to
Byron that Moore was at work on an Oriental poem, probably
Lalla
Rookh
, which would surpass the
Charlemagne
of Lucien
Buonaparte.
The
Sháh Námeh
is a rhymed history of Persia, in
which occurs the famous episode of Sohrab and Rustem. It was written in
thirty years by Abul Kásim Firdausí, the last name being given to him by
Sultan Mahmúd because he had shed over the court at Ghizni the delights
of "Paradise." Firdausí is said to have lived about 950 to 1030. (See
The
Sháh Námeh
, translated and abridged by James Atkinson.)
Jacques Cazotte (1720-1792) wrote
La Patte du Chat
(1741);
Mille et une Fadaises
(1742);
Observations sur la
lettre de Rousseau au sujet de la Musique Française
(1754); and
other works.
Le Diable Amoureux
appeared in 1772. Cazotte escaped
the September Massacres at the Abbaye in 1792, through the heroism of
his daughter, but was executed on the twenty-fifth of the same month.
"I had already, singularly enough, anticipated this suggestion, by
making the daughter of a Peri the heroine of one of my stories, and
detailing the love adventures of her aërial parent in an episode. In
acquainting Lord Byron with this circumstance, in my answer to the
above letter, I added, 'All I ask of your friendship is—not that you
will abstain from Peris on my account, for that is too much to ask of
human (or, at least, author's) nature—but that, whenever you mean to
pay your addresses to any of these aërial ladies, you will, at once,
tell me so, frankly and instantly, and let me, at least, have my
choice whether I shall be desperate enough to go on, with such a
rival, or at once surrender the whole race into your hands, and take,
for the future, to Antediluvians with Mr. Montgomery'"
(Moore).
Brunet,
s.v.
"Breton de la Martinière," gives the
title of the work:
Moeurs, usages costumes des Othomans, et abrégé de
leur histoire
. Par A. L. Castellan, Paris, 1812.
Maxime LXXXV.:
"Nous nous persuadons souvent d'aimer les gens plus puissans que nous,
et néanmoins c'est l'interêt seul qui produit notre amitié; nous ne
nous donnons pas à eux pour le bien que nous leur voulons faire, mais
pour celui que nous en voulons recevoir."
List of Letters
Contents
August—September, I mean—1, 1813.
I
you, begging your acceptance, Castellan, and three vols. on
Turkish literature
, not yet looked into. The
last
I
thank you to read, extract what you want, and return in a week, as they
are lent to me by that brightest of Northern constellations, Mackintosh
,—amongst many other kind things into which India has warmed him;
for I am sure your
home
Scotsman is of a less genial description.
Your Peri, my dear M., is sacred and inviolable; I have no idea of
touching the hem of her petticoat. Your affectation of a dislike to
encounter me is so flattering, that I begin to think myself a very fine
fellow.
you are laughing at me—"Stap my vitals, Tam! thou art a
very impudent person;"
and, if you are not laughing at me, you
deserve to be laughed at. Seriously, what on earth can you, or have you,
to dread from any poetical flesh breathing? It really puts me out of
humour to hear you talk thus.
The Giaour
I have added to a good deal; but still in foolish
fragments. It contains about 1200 lines, or rather more—now printing.
You will allow me to send you a copy. You delight me much by telling me
that I am in your good graces, and more particularly as to temper; for,
unluckily, I have the reputation of a very bad one. But they say the
devil is amusing when pleased, and I must have been more venomous than
the old serpent, to have hissed or stung in your company. It may be, and
would appear to a third person, an incredible thing, but I know
you
will believe me when I say, that I am as anxious for your
success as one human being can be for another's,—as much as if I had
never scribbled a line. Surely the field of fame is wide enough for all;
and if it were not, I would not willingly rob my neighbour of a rood of
it. Now you have a pretty property of some thousand acres there, and
when you have passed your present Inclosure Bill, your income will be
doubled, (there's a metaphor, worthy of a Templar, namely, pert and
low,) while my wild common is too remote to incommode you, and quite
incapable of such fertility. I
you (which return per post, as the
printer would say) a curious letter from a friend of mine
, which
will let you into the origin of
The Giaour
. Write soon.
Ever, dear Moore, yours most entirely, etc.
P.S.—This letter was written to me on account of a
different
story
circulated by some gentlewomen of our acquaintance, a little
too close to the text. The part erased contained merely some Turkish
names, and circumstantial evidence of the girl's detection, not very
important or decorous.
Giovanni Battista Toderini (1728-1799) published his work
Della Letteratura Turchesca
, at Venice in 1787. Brunet says, "Cet
ouvrage curieux a été traduit en Français, par Cournand. Paris, 1789
(
De La Littérature des Turcs
)."
"Yes, his manner was cold; his shake of the hand came under
the genus 'mortmain;' but his heart was overflowing with benevolence"
(Lady Holland's