Henry IV.
, Part II. act v. sc. 5.
James Wedderburn Webster (see p. 2,
1).
Probably John Cam Hobhouse, whose expenses on the tour of
1809-10 were paid by Byron, and repaid by Sir Benjamin Hobhouse.
List of Journal Entries
Contents
November 22nd, 1813
"
Boven!"
So the bees have expelled the bear that broke open
their hive. Well,—if we are to have new De Witts and De Ruyters, God
speed the little republic! I should like to see the Hague and the
village of Brock, where they have such primitive habits.
, I don't
know,—their canals would cut a poor figure by the memory of the
Bosphorus; and the Zuyder Zee look awkwardly after "Ak-Denizi"
. No
matter,—the bluff burghers, puffing freedom out of their short
tobacco-pipes, might be worth seeing; though I prefer a cigar or a
hooka, with the rose-leaf mixed with the milder herb of the Levant. I
don't know what liberty means,—never having seen it,—but wealth is
power all over the world; and as a shilling performs the duty of a pound
(besides sun and sky and beauty for nothing) in the East,—
that
is the country.
I envy Herodes Atticus
!—more than Pomponius.
And yet a little
tumult
, now and then, is an agreeable quickener
of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an
aventure
of
any lively description. I
I rather would have been Bonneval,
Ripperda, Alberoni, Hayreddin, or Horuc Barbarossa, or even Wortley
Montague, than Mahomet himself
.
Rogers will be in town soon?—the 23d is fixed for our Middleton visit.
Shall I go? umph!—In this island, where one can't ride out without
overtaking the sea, it don't much matter where one goes.
I remember the effect of the
first Edinburgh Review
on me. I
heard of it six weeks before,—read it the day of its
denunciation,—dined and drank three bottles of claret, (with S. B.
Davies, I think,) neither ate nor slept the less, but, nevertheless, was
not easy till I had vented my wrath and my rhyme, in the same pages,
against every thing and every body.
George, in the
Vicar of
Wakefield
, -"the fate of my paradoxes"
would allow me to
perceive no merit in another. I remembered only the maxim of my
boxing-master, which, in my youth, was found useful in all general
riots,—"Whoever is not for you is against you—
mill
away right
and left," and so I did;—like Ishmael, my hand was against all men, and
all men's anent me. I
wonder, to be sure, at my own success:
"And marvels so much wit is all his own,"
6
as Hobhouse sarcastically says of somebody (not unlikely myself, as we
are old friends);—but were it to come over again, I would
not
. I
have since redde the cause of my couplets, and it is not adequate to the
effect. C—— told me that it was believed I alluded to poor Lord
Carlisle's nervous disorder in one of the lines. I thank Heaven I did
not know it—and would not, could not, if I had. I must naturally be the
last person to be pointed on defects or maladies.
Rogers is silent,—and, it is said, severe. When he does talk, he talks
well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure
as his poetry. If you enter his house—his drawing-room—his
library—you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind.
There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece,
his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance
in the possessor. But this very delicacy must be the misery of his
existence. Oh the jarrings his disposition must have encountered through
life!
, I have not seen much of. His appearance is
Epic
; and he
is the only existing entire man of letters. All the others have some
pursuit annexed to their authorship. His manners are mild, but not those
of a man of the world, and his talents of the first order. His prose is
perfect. Of his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps,
too much of it for the present generation; posterity will probably
select. He has
passages
equal to any thing. At present, he has
a party
, but no
public
—except for his prose writings. The
life of Nelson is beautiful.
Sotheby
is
Littérateur
, the Oracle of the Coteries, of the
——s
, Lydia White (Sydney Smith's "Tory Virgin")
, Mrs. Wilmot
(she, at least, is a swan, and might frequent a purer stream,) Lady
Beaumont
, and all the Blues, with Lady Charlemont
at their
head—but I say nothing of
her
—"look in her face and you forget
them all," and every thing else. Oh that face!—by
te, Diva potens
Cypri
, I would, to be beloved by that woman, build and burn another
Troy.
Moore has a peculiarity of talent, or rather talents,—poetry, music,
voice, all his own; and an expression in each, which never was, nor will
be, possessed by another. But he is capable of still higher flights in
poetry. By the by, what humour, what—every thing, in the
"
Post-Bag!
" There is nothing Moore may not do, if he will but
seriously set about it. In society, he is gentlemanly, gentle, and,
altogether, more pleasing than any individual with whom I am acquainted.
For his honour, principle, and independence, his conduct to —— speaks
"trumpet-tongued." He has but one fault—and that one I daily regret—he
is not
here
.
Holland, constituted a kingdom for Louis Napoleon (1806),
was (1810) incorporated with the French Empire. On November 15, 1813,
the people of Amsterdam raised the cry of "Orange Boven!", donned the
Orange colours, and expelled the French from the city. Their example was
followed in other provinces, and on November 21, deputies arrived in
London, asking the Prince of Orange to place himself at the head of the
movement. He landed in Holland, November 30, and entered Amsterdam the
next day in state.
A play was announced at Drury Lane, December 8, 1813, under the title of
Orange Boven
, but it was suppressed because no licence had been
obtained for its performance. It was produced December 10, 1813, and ran
about ten nights.
The Lake of Ak-Deniz, north-east of Antioch, into and out
of which flows the Nahr-Ifrin to join the Nahr-el-Asy or Orontes.
A typically wealthy Greek, as Pomponius Atticus was a
typically wealthy Roman.
Bonneval (1675-1747) was a French soldier of fortune, who
served successively in the Austrian, Russian, and Turkish armies.
Ripperda (died 1737) a Dutch adventurer, became Prime Minister of Spain
under Philip V., and after his fall turned Mohammedan. Alberoni
(1664-1752) was an Italian adventurer, who became Prime Minister of
Spain in 1714. Hayreddin (died 1547) and Horuc Barbarossa (died 1518)
were Algerine pirates. Edward Wortley Montague (1713-1776), son of Lady
Mary, saw the inside of several prisons, served at Fontenoy, sat in the
British Parliament, was received into the Roman Catholic Church at
Jerusalem (1764), lived at Rosetta as a Mohammedan with his mistress,
Caroline Dormer, till 1772, and died at Padua, from swallowing a
fish-bone.
Vicar of Wakefield
(chap. xx.). The Vicar's eldest
son, George,
"resolved to write a book that should be wholly new. I therefore
dressed up three paradoxes with some ingenuity.... 'Well,' asks the
Vicar, 'and what did the learned world say to your paradoxes?' 'Sir,'
replied my son, 'the learned world said nothing to my paradoxes,
nothing at all.... I found that no genius in another could please me.
My unfortunate paradoxes had entirely dried up that source of comfort.
I could neither read nor write with satisfaction; for excellence in
another was my aversion, and writing was my trade.'"
From Boileau (
Imitations, etc.
, by J.C. Hobhouse):
"With what delight rhymes on the scribbling dunce.
He's ne'er perplex'd to choose, but right at once;
With rapture hails each work as soon as done,
And wonders so much wit was all his own."
At Sotheby's house, Miss Jane Porter, author of
The
Scottish Chiefs
, etc., etc., met Byron. She made the following note
of his appearance, and after his death sent it to his sister:
"I once had the gratification of Seeing Lord Byron. He was at Evening
party at the Poet Sotheby's. I was not aware of his being in the room,
or even that he had been invited, when I was arrested from listening
to the person conversing with me by the Sounds of the most melodious
Speaking Voice I had ever heard. It was gentle and beautifully
modulated. I turned round to look for the Speaker, and then saw a
Gentleman in black of an Elegant form (for nothing of his lameness
could be discovered), and with a face I never shall forget. The
features of the finest proportions. The Eye deep set, but mildly
lustrous; and the Complexion what I at the time described to my
Sister as a Sort of moonlight paleness. It was so pale, yet with all
so Softly brilliant.
I instantly asked my Companion who that Gentleman was. He replied,
'Lord Byron.' I was astonished, for there was no Scorn, no disdain,
nothing in that noble Countenance then of the proud Spirit
which has since soared to Heaven, illuminating the Horizon far and
wide."
Probably the Berrys.
Miss Lydia White, the "Miss Diddle" of Byron's
Blues
, of whom Ticknor speaks (
Life
, vol. i. p. 176) as
"the fashionable blue-stocking," was a wealthy Irishwoman, well known
for her dinners and conversaziones
"in all the capitals of Europe. At one of her dinners in Park Street
(all the company except herself being Whigs), the desperate prospects
of the Whig party were discussed. Yes,' said Sydney Smith, who was
present, 'we are in a most deplorable condition; we must do something
to help ourselves. I think,' said he, looking at Lydia White, 'we had
better sacrifice a Tory Virgin'"
(Lady Morgan's
Memoirs
, vol. ii. p. 236). Miss Berry, in her
Journal
(vol. iii. p. 49, May 8, 1815), says,
"Lord and Lady Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss White. Never
have I seen a more imposing convocation of ladies arranged in a circle
than when we entered, taking William Spencer with us. Lord Byron brought
me home. He stayed to supper."
Miss White's last years were passed in bad health. Moore called upon
Rogers, May 7, 1826:
"Found him in high good humour. In talking of Miss White, he said,
'How wonderfully she does hold out! They may say what they will, but
Miss White and Missolongi are the most remarkable things going"
(
Memoirs, etc.
, vol. v. p. 62). Lydia White died in February,
1827.
Barberina Ogle (1768-1854), daughter of Sir Chaloner Ogle,
widow of Valentia Wilmot, married, in 1819, Lord Dacre. Her tragedy,
Ina
, was produced at Drury Lane, April 22, 1815. Her literary
work was, for the most part, privately printed:
Dramas, Translations,
and Occasional Poems
(1821);
Translations from the Italian
(1836). She also edited her daughter's
Recollections of a
Chaperon
(1831), and
Tales of the Peerage and Peasantry
(1835).
Margaret Willes, granddaughter of Chief Justice Willes,
married, in 1778, Sir George Beaumont, Bart. (1753-1827), the
landscape-painter, art critic, and picture-collector, who founded the
National Gallery, was a friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of Dr. Johnson,
and of Wordsworth, and is mentioned by Byron in the
Blues
:
"Sir George thinks exactly with Lady Bluebottle."
Francis William Caulfield, who succeeded his father, in
1799, as second Earl of Charlemont, married, in 1802, Anne, daughter of
William Bermingham, of Ross Hill, co. Galway. She died in 1876. Of Lady
Charlemont's beauty Byron was an enthusiastic admirer. In his
Letter
on the Rev. W.L. Bowles's Strictures on Pope
(February 7, 1821) he
says,
"The head of Lady Charlemont (when I first saw her, nine years
ago) seemed to possess all that sculpture could require for its ideal."
Moore (
Journals, etc.
, vol. iii. p. 78) has the following entry
in his Diary for November 21, 1819:
"Called upon Lady Charlemont, and
sat with her some time. Lady Mansfield told me that the effect she
produces here with her beauty is wonderful; last night, at the Comtesse
d'Albany's, the Italians were ready to fall down and worship her."
For the two quotations, see Horace,
Odes
, I. iii. 1, and
The
Rape of the Lock
, ii. 18.
List of Journal Entries
Contents
November 23rd, 1813
Ward—I like Ward. By Mahomet! I begin to think I like every body;—a
disposition not to be encouraged;— a sort of social gluttony that
swallows every thing set before it. But I like Ward. He is
piquant
; and, in my opinion, will stand very
high
in the
House, and every where else, if he applies
regularly
. By the by,
I dine with him to-morrow, which may have some influence on my opinion.
It is as well not to trust one's gratitude
after
dinner. I have
heard many a host libelled by his guests, with his burgundy yet reeking
on their rascally lips.
I have taken Lord Salisbury's box at Covent Garden for the season; and
now I must go and prepare to join Lady Holland and party, in theirs, at
Drury Lane,
questa sera
.
Holland doesn't think the man is
Junius
; but that the yet
unpublished journal throws great light on the obscurities of that part
of George the Second's reign.—What is this to George the Third's? I
don't know what to think. Why should Junius be yet dead? If suddenly
apoplexed, would he rest in his grave without sending his
Greek: eidolon
to shout in the ears of posterity, "Junius was X.Y.Z., Esq.,
buried in the parish of ——. Repair his monument, ye churchwardens!
Print a new edition of his Letters, ye booksellers!" Impossible,—the
man must be alive, and will never die without the disclosure. I like
him;— he was a good hater.
Came home unwell and went to bed,—not so sleepy as might be desirable.
Tuesday morning. I awoke from a dream!—well! and have not others
dreamed?—Such a dream!—but she did not overtake me. I wish the dead
would rest, however. Ugh! how my blood chilled,—and I could not
wake—and—and— heigho!
"
Shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,
Than could the substance of ten thousand —— s,
Arm'd all in proof, and led by shallow ——."
1
I do not like this dream,—I hate its "foregone conclusion." And am I to
be shaken by shadows? Ay, when they remind us of—no matter—but, if I
dream thus again, I will try whether
all
sleep has the like
visions.
I rose, I've been in considerable bodily pain also; but
it is gone, and now, like Lord Ogleby
, I am wound up for the day.
A
from Mountnorris
—I dine with Ward;—Canning is to be there,
Frere
and Sharpe
, perhaps Gifford. I am to be one of "the five"
(or rather six), as Lady —— said a little sneeringly yesterday. They
are all good to meet, particularly Canning, and—Ward, when he likes. I
wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals.
No letters to-day;—so much the better,—there are no answers. I must
not dream again;—it spoils even reality. I will go out of doors, and
see what the fog will do for me.
has been here: the boxing world
much as usual;—but the club increases. I shall dine at Crib's
to-morrow. I like energy—even animal energy—of all kinds; and I have
need of both mental and corporeal. I have not dined out, nor, indeed,
at all
, lately: have heard no music—have seen nobody. Now for a
plunge
—high life and low life.
alterna
Camoenæ!
.
I have burnt my
Roman
—as I did the first scenes and sketch of my
comedy—and, for aught I see, the pleasure of burning is quite as great
as that of printing. These two last would not have done. I ran into
realities
more than ever; and some would have been recognised and
others guessed at.
the
Ruminator
—a collection of Essays, by a strange, but
able, old man [Sir Egerton Brydges]
, and a half-wild young one,
author of a poem on the Highlands, called
Childe Alarique
.
The word "sensibility" (always my aversion) occurs a thousand times in
these Essays; and, it seems, is to be an excuse for all kinds of
discontent. This young man can know nothing of life; and, if he
cherishes the disposition which runs through his papers, will become
useless, and, perhaps, not even a poet, after all, which he seems
determined to be. God help him! no one should be a rhymer who could be
any thing better. And this is what annoys one, to see Scott and Moore,
and Campbell and Rogers, who might have all been agents and leaders, now
mere spectators. For, though they may have other ostensible avocations,
these last are reduced to a secondary consideration. ——, too,
frittering away his time among dowagers and unmarried girls. If it
advanced any
serious
affair, it were some excuse; but, with the
unmarried, that is a hazardous speculation, and tiresome enough, too;
and, with the veterans, it is not much worth trying, unless, perhaps,
one in a thousand.
If I
any views in this country, they would probably be parliamentary
.
But I have no ambition; at least, if any, it would be
aut Cæsar aut
nihil
. My hopes are limited to the arrangement of my affairs, and
settling either in Italy or the East (rather the last), and drinking
deep of the languages and literature of both. Past events have unnerved
me; and all I can now do is to make life an amusement, and look on while
others play. After all, even the highest game of crowns and sceptres,
what is it?