DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Treasure l^gom /2 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Duke University Libraries http://archive.org/details/poemslettersoflo01byro POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRD?TS IN THE POSSESSION OF W. K. BLXBY, OF ST. LOUIS BY W. N. C. CARLTON, M.A. PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY OF THE DOFOBS CHICAGO, M CM XII Copyright, 1912, by the SOCIETY OF THE DOFOBS CONTENTS PAGE Preface IX POEMS IN FACSIMILE FACING PAGE On the Death of Thyrza : "Without a stone to mark the spot" 10 Stanzas: "Away, away, ye notes of woe!" 12 Stanzas to Thyrza: "One struggle more, and I am free" . 12 Stanzas : "And thou art dead, as young and fair" . ... 14 A Fragment: "Could I remount the river of my years" . 14 Stanzas to Augusta: "Though the days of my glory are over" 18 Epistle to Augusta: "My Sister! my sweet Sister! if a name" ' 20 LETTERS PAGE July 7, 1811, to James Cawthorn 23 July 13, [1813,] to J. W. Croker 24 March 2, 1814, to J. Wedderburn Webster 26 November 20, 1817, to R. B. Hoppner 28 November 28, 1819, to Douglas Kinnaird 29 March 31, 1820, to R. B. Hoppner 29 52J 96 2 CONTENTS PAGE April 2, 1820, to Douglas Kinnaird 32 May 5, 1821, to [? John Murray] 34 May 21, 1821, to R. B. Hoppner 34 October 3, 1821, to [? John Murray] 35 August 28, 1822, to Sir Godfrey Webster 36 September 1, 1822, to Capt. J. Hay 36 November 28, 1822, to Sir Godfrey Webster 37 January 2, 1823, to R. B. Hoppner 38 List of Lord Byron's books at Zante, July 9, 1824 .... 43 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Lord Byron IX From a drawing by George Henry Harlow "Playl" Byron as a cricketer 23 From a lithograph published by E. Knight Lord Byron 26 From a drawing by George Henry Harlow Lord Byron at the age of thirty-one 30 From an engraving in stipple by E. Scriven after a drawing by George Henry Harlow Lord Byron on his deathbed 46 From an engraving by L. Clark after a drawing by R. Seymour, published by Knight & Lacey, 1825 PREFACE i a series of pieces such as compose this \vsary nor desirable. The poems and letters rm th« chief attraction of the book and give it its notes and comment, therefore, have been mainly - raation as seemed to make for a clearer and better iece than its text alone afforded. They have also been . eader from the irritating drudgery of consulting refer- is purpose in rea^g^sdfltfjjoy. In writ i ing aph^wH^wab^Ba&i^^oijk-AftQiicsilonscious of a per- petual chai or in statement or inference. Undoubtedly a large amount o1 tnd Byron manuscripts still remain unpublished. A : V .: i ■ •. ■■ . ( < • This mater • were in c< may already he purpo* ters, and journal nd auth v probably docs contain data which would n j ntly accepted facts or views concerning the poel Vgain, even the accomplished editors of the various i vexing habit of making categorical statements with- ig their authority for them. One is thus left to sertion is merely the editor's personal belief, or for it, but was not permitted to reveal it. It lar letter of Byron's has le auth >f the letters there nes, etc., of persons who knew Byron or him, in some one of which a newly found mted. <>e, the last edition of Byron's poems, let- of Murray has been taken as a work is indeed "the most com- PREFACE A DETAILED commentary on a series of pieces such as compose this volume is neither necessary nor desirable. The poems and letters - themselves form the chief attraction of the book and give it its interest and value. The notes and comment, therefore, have been mainly restricted to such information as seemed to make for a clearer and better understanding of a piece than its text alone afforded. They have also been designed to save the reader from the irritating drudgery of consulting refer- ence books when his purpose in reading is to enjoy. In writing anything about Byron or his work one is conscious of a per- petual chance of error in statement or inference. Undoubtedly a large amount of Byroniana and Byron manuscripts still remain unpublished. This material may and very probably does contain data which would refute or modify many currently accepted facts or views concerning the poet and his life and works. Again, even the accomplished editors of the various Murray editions have a vexing habit of making categorical statements with- out adducing or mentioning their authority for them. One is thus left to guess whether such an assertion is merely the editor's personal belief, or whether he had good authority for it, but was not permitted to reveal it. It is also difficult at times to make sure that a particular letter of Byron's has never been published. Besides the authorized editions of the letters there are scores of memoirs, biographies, etc., of persons who knew Byron or who were in correspondence with him, in some one of which a newly found letter may already have been printed. For the purposes of this volume, the last edition of Byron's poems, let- ters, and journals as published by the house of Murray has been taken as a canon and authority. That monumental work is indeed "the most com- Cixn PREFACE prehensive and scholarly record of Byron's life and work" that has yet appeared. It was issued in thirteen volumes between 1898 and 1904 under the joint editorship of Ernest Hartley Coleridge and Rowland E. Prothero. Unless the contrary is indicated, all quotations in the following pages, whether from letters or poems, are made from the text of this Murray edi- tion. The poems, of course, have long been in print, but it will be found interesting to compare the lines as originally written by Byron with the verses as they appear in the printed editions of the poet's works. In his neglect of punctuation Byron was incorrigible. He left that detail to friends or proof-readers. "Do attend to the punctuation," he wrote to Murray; "I can't, for I don't know a comma — at least where to place one." The five illustrations are from prints or drawings in Mr. W. K. Bixby's collection. By far the most interesting is the magnificent sketch by Harlow which forms the frontispiece. The prints showing Byron as a cricketer and on his death-bed are fanciful sketches and have no value as portraits of the poet. The print engraved by Scriven shows Byron in his thirty-first year; the wavy hair is much longer than he usually wore it. Many of Byron's contemporaries have left on record their impressions of his striking personal appearance and the beauty of his countenance when at its best. "As for poets," said Sir Walter Scott, "I have seen all the best of my time and country, and, though Burns had the most glorious eye imagi- nable, I never thought any of them would come up to an artist's notion of the character, except Byron. His countenance is a thing to dream of." Coleridge was even more emphatic than Scott in praising Byron's looks. The Countess of Blessington gives the following description of him as she saw him in April, 1823: "His head is finely shaped, and the forehead open, high, and noble; his eyes are grey and full of expression, but one is visibly larger than the other; the nose is large and well shaped, but from being a little too thick, it looks better in profile than in front-face; his mouth is the most remarkable feature in his face, the upper lip of Grecian shortness, and the corners descending; the lips full and finely cut." The poetry of Lord Byron is one of the enduring things in English liter- ature. The first of the great modern men in English verse, his influence on PREFACE the intellectual life of Europe has been greater than that of any other Eng- lish man of letters, Shakspere alone excepted. It may, indeed, be ques- tioned whether even Shakspere's European influence has been felt in so many directions as has Byron's. The dynamic and revolutionary ideas in the poetry of Lord Byron profoundly stirred the minds and influenced the religious, political, and social views of Europe's intellectual advance-guard throughout the nineteenth century. Modern liberalism does not realize the extent of its debt to Byron, and perhaps never will, but the future historian of ideas will surely devote a special chapter to the subject of this indebted- ness. "With Byron," says Georg Brandes, "romantic sentimentality comes to an end; with him the modern spirit in poetry originates; therefore it was that he influenced not only his own country, but Europe also." And this same great critic, whose range of learning in literature is probably greater than that of any other writer of our time, thus concludes one of his com- parative studies in European literature: "Then, like Achilles arising in his wrath after he has burned the body of Patroclus, Byron, after Shelley's death, arises and lifts up his mighty voice. European poetry was flowing on like a sluggish, smooth river; those who walked along its banks found little for the eye to rest on. All at once, as a continuation of the stream, appeared this poetry, under which the ground so often gave way that it precipitated itself in cataracts from one level to another — and the eyes of all inevitably turn to that part of a river where its stream becomes a waterfall. In Byron's poetry the river boiled and foamed, and the roar of its waters made music that mounted up to heaven. In its seething fury it formed whirlpools, tore itself and whatever came in its way, and in the end undermined the very rocks. But, 'in the midst of the infernal surge,' sat such an Iris as the poet himself has described in 'Childe Harold' — a glorious rainbow, the emblem of freedom and peace — invisible to many, but clearly seen by all who, with the sun above them in the sky, place themselves in the right position. It presaged better days for Europe." The poems here reproduced belong to the most moving and beautiful of all Byron's minor verse. Very real and sincere feelings were the source Cxi] PREFACE whence they sprung, and these pieces are proofs of the truth of what Byron once wrote to Moore : "I could not write upon anything without some per- sonal experience and foundation." Goethe insisted that two cardinal qual- ities were required in the true poet: intense feeling and the power to express it. None can gainsay Byron the possession of the most intense and sensitive feeling, and what English poet surpasses him in his marvelous power of expression? The facsimiles of the little group of poems included in this volume show them as they came rushing forth from the poet's heart and brain. The orig- inal manuscripts were once the property of the Hon. Mrs. Leigh, Byron's half-sister Augusta. Mr. Richard Edgcumbe says that the manuscripts of the Thyrza poems were probably given to Mrs. Leigh by Mary Chaworth; but he mentions no authority for his statement, and, in the absence of posi- tive proof, it may be considered highly improbable that Mrs. Leigh received them from any such source. Through a Mr. Goddard, Mrs. Leigh sold them in 1848 to John Dillon, Esq. From a note in the latest Murray edition it appears that they were later in the possession of Sir Theodore Martin. About 1902, they were offered for sale by Henry Sotheran & Co., of Lon- don, in a collection of Byron material described as follows: "Original manu- scripts of seven of his poems, 5 of which are addressed to Thyrza, and 2 to his sister. ... In all 27 pp. folio and 4°, also Letter of authentication by John Murray; autograph letters of the poet's father and mother, and three by his sister relative to the sale of these mss. Five portraits and five views. From the John Dillon Collection." From the Messrs. Sotheran these precious papers passed into the already valuable collection of Byron manu- scripts of Mr. W. K. Bixby. The Murray letter of authentication to Mr. Dillon is as follows : "Albemarle St. "March [? 1876] "Dear Sir: "In compliance with your wish, I have examined the autographs of Byron contained in your interesting volume and as far as my experience goes I can state my confident belief that they are genuine. They are cer- cxiin PREFACE tainly very different from the celebrated forgeries, some of which I ac- cepted as good without giving the careful examination I have done to yours." One of the letters from Mrs. Leigh to Goddard ends with words which need no comment or explanation : "I have prized these poems and admired them so very much, that only hard necessity would have induced me to part with them, or any indeed, but these least of all." OiiiH POEMS THE THYRZA POEMS The so-called "Thyrza Poems" are usually classed in the group entitled "Occasional Pieces," a group which may be described as the aggregate of the shorter poems written between the years 1809 and 1813 which the author considered worthy of a permanent place among his poetical works. The Thyrza poems were written during one of the darkest and most melancholy periods in Byron's life. Four of them are among those here reproduced. Mrs. Leigh wrote to Goddard that she never had the one entitled "Eutha- nasia" nor the last, i.e., the one beginning, "If sometimes in the haunts of men," etc. In order to appreciate something of Byron's mood during the months when these famous stanzas were composed, one has only to recall the frame of mind in which he returned to England from his two years' travel in the East and the series of blows dealt him by fate almost immediately after his arrival. Writing on June 29, 1811, to his friend Hodgson from aboard the frigate which was bearing him home, he says : "Indeed, my prospects are not very pleasant. Embarrassed in my private affairs, indifferent to public, solitary without the wish to be social, with a body a little enfeebled by a succession of fevers, but a spirit, I trust, yet unbroken, I am returning home without hope, and almost without a desire. The first thing I shall have to encounter will be a lawyer, the next a creditor, then colliers, farmers, surveyors, and all the agreeable attachments to estates out of repair, and contested coal- pits." He reached England about the middle of July and on the twenty-third wrote to his mother from London saying that he would shortly be with her £33 POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON at Newstead for a short visit. While in London, he learned of the death at Coimbra in Portugal of his old school-fellow, John Wingfield of the Cold- stream Guards. "Of all human beings, I was perhaps at one time most at- tached to poor Wingfield," wrote Byron, and later he made a mournful reference to this friend in the ninety-first stanza of the first canto of "Childe Harold." Another friend, Hargreaves Hanson, had passed away that spring; and in May, Edleston, the young Cambridge chorister, died of con- sumption. On August 1, before Byron had reached Newstead, his mother died very suddenly. "I heard one day of her illness, the next of her death," he says. That same week, Charles Skinner Matthews, whom he calls his "guide, philosopher, and friend," was drowned in the Cam. "Some curse hangs over me and mine," he wrote to Scrope Davies on August 7. "My mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. . . . Come to me, Scrope, I am almost desolate — left almost alone in the world." Davies hurried down to him and by the end of the month Byron had gathered himself together again, but the gloom of profound melancholy could not be entirely shaken off. On October 11, he writes to Dallas, "I am indeed very wretched, and you will excuse my saying so, as you know I am not apt to cant of sensibility." On the thirteenth, he said to Hodgson: "Your climate kills me; I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. My days are listless; I have very seldom any so- ciety, and when I have, I run out of it." Such were some of the events and such his mood just prior to the writing of the first of the Thyrza poems. Nearly every biographer of Byron, from Moore to Gribble, has busied himself with the identity of the person whom the poet calls Thyrza. Each has settled the question to his own satisfaction, but rarely to that of any other independent theorist or investigator. A collection of the chief of these "identifications" may furnish another addition to the gallery of "curiosities of literature" and supply another charming instance of wasted effort in the field of literary hermeneutics. "It was," says Thomas Moore, "about the time when he was thus bitterly feeling, and expressing, the blight which his heart had suffered from a real object of affection, that his poems on the death of an imaginary one were CO POEMS OF LORD BYRON written; — nor is it any wonder, when we consider the peculiar circum- stances under which these beautiful effusions flowed from his fancy, that of all his strains of pathos, they should be the most touching and most pure. They were, indeed, the essence, the abstract spirit, as it were, of many griefs; — a confluence of sad thoughts from many sources of sorrow, re- fined and warmed in their passage through his fancy, and forming thus one deep reservoir of mournful feeling." The editor of the 1832 edition of Byron's works rejected Moore's theory and associated Thyrza with the (unnamed) person referred to by Byron in his letter of October 11, 1811, addressed to Dallas: "I have again been shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times." But the latest editor of Byron's letters, Mr. Prothero, says this reference is to the death of Edleston, and he is probably correct, even though the event occurred some five months previous to the date under which Byron wrote. The Hon. Roden Noel, however, appears to lean toward the view that Edleston was the original of Thyrza, and offers the following extraordinary suggestion: "If Thyrza was Edleston, disguised under a female name, his [Byron's] passionate friendship may be likened to Shakespeare's 'Sonnets' and [Tennyson's] 'In Memoriam.' " It is difficult to be patient with a mind which could imagine the original of Thyrza to be other than a woman. Trelawney, in his "Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron" (1858), quotes Byron as saying: "When I first left England I was gloomy. I said so in my first canto of 'Childe Harold.' I was then really in love with a cousin [Thirza, he was very chary of her name] , and she was in a decline." This incident occurred in 1823. The words in brackets are Trelawney's, but nowhere does he give the slightest hint of his authority for connecting this cousin with Thyrza. In 1876, Professor William Minto advanced a new theory in his article on Byron in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He ex- panded it in detail in the London Athenaeum of September 2, 1876. A few words of explanation are necessary before quoting the Scotch professor's ingenious solution. During the earlier months of 1808, Byron traveled about in company C53 POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON with a fille de joie dressed in boy's clothes. "Another of the wild freaks I played during my mother's life-time," he told Medwin, "was to dress up Mrs. , and to pass her off as my brother Gordon, in order that my mother might not hear of my having such a female acquaintance." Moore is also authority for the statement, so euphemistically phrased, that this girl not only became "domesticated with him in lodgings at Brompton," but accompanied him to Brighton disguised in boy's clothes. Her identity of course has never been revealed, but she is the individual whom Professor Minto believes to have been the original of Thyrza. He says : "Nothing ever racked him with sharper anguish than the death of her whom he mourned under the name of Thyrza. To know the bitterness of his struggle with this sorrow, we have only to look at what he wrote on the day that news reached him [October 11, 1811] ; some of his wildest and most fiercely misanthropical verse, as well as some of his sweetest and saddest, belongs to that blackest of dates in his calendar. . . . Who Thyrza was can probably never be known, but, in trying to convey the impression that she was merely imaginary, probably with the intention of shielding his friend's memory, by declaring him innocent of a relationship unsanctioned by so- ciety, Moore really did Byron an injustice. The poor girl, whoever she was, and however much she was deified after her death by his imagination, would really seem to have been his grand passion. ... It is impossible to trace what became of the poor girl, but it is a fair conjecture that she is com- memorated as Thyrza. If this girl died before she could welcome him on his return from his wanderings in 1811, nothing is more likely than that he should reproach himself with her death." The good professor's theory does him credit as a man, but we fear that he has greatly misread both the poetry and the temperament of Lord Byron. John Cordy Jeaffreson, in "The Real Lord Byron" (1883), while admit- ting that the poems contain lines pointing to some other person, believes that Byron's cousin Margaret Parker was the chief inspiring force of these "unutterably tender and pathetic poems." He reasons thus in support of his contention: "Thyrza died when the poet was far away from her; so did Margaret Parker. Thyrza had been the poet's companion in those deserted C6H POEMS OF LORD BYRON towers of Newstead; Margaret Parker had also been his companion there. The mutual love of Thyrza and the poet was known only to themselves, their smiles being 'smiles none else might understand'; so it was with Byron and Margaret. Thyrza and the poet exchanged love-tokens; Byron and Margaret Parker did the same. The poet wore Thyrza's love-token; Byron wore Margaret Parker's locket next his heart. The mutual affection of Thyrza and the poet was the sentiment of young people, so innocent of de- sire, that 'even Passion blushed to plead for more.' So was the mutual devotion of Margaret and her cousin." Seizing upon Trelawney's state- ment, Jeaffreson drives home his argument by saying: "Byron's cousin Margaret Parker died of a decline, and was the only one of his cousins to die of that malady after inspiring him with love. True that she died long be- fore he left England; but to his poetic fancy she was still living and fading away when he thought of her on his travels. The mystification and his- torical inaccuracy of the poet's statement do not weaken the evidence afforded by the words that Margaret and Thyrza were the same person in his mind." Verily, verily, we believe what we wish to believe. For the plain re- corded facts with reference to Lord Byron and Margaret we need only quote the poet's own words which give succinctly the whole story and all the story there is in this connection. He says: "My first dash into poetry was as early as 1800. It was the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin, Margaret Parker (daughter and granddaughter of the two Admirals Parker), one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings. I have long for- gotten the verse; but it would be difficult for me to forget her — her dark eyes — her long eye-lashes — her completely Greek cast of face and figure! I was then about twelve — she rather older, perhaps a year. She died about a year or two afterwards, in consequence of a fall, which injured her spine, and induced consumption. ... I knew nothing of her illness being at Har- row and in the country till she was gone. Some years after, I made an attempt at an elegy — a very dull one." His tribute to Margaret is given in his poem entitled "On the Death of a Young Lady, Cousin to the Author and Very Dear to Him," the first stanza of which runs as follows : POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON "Hushed are the winds, and still the evening gloom, Not e'en a zephyr wanders through the grove, Whilst I return, to view my Margaret's tomb, And scatter flowers on the dust I love." Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge silently and perhaps justly ignores all the foregoing theories and identifications, but appends this foot-note to the first Thyrza poem : "The identity of Thyrza and the question whether the person addressed under this name really existed, or was an imaginary being, have given rise to much speculation and discussion of a more or less futile kind. This difficulty is now incapable of definite and authoritative solution, and the allusions in the verses in some respects disagree with things said by Lord Byron later. . . . There can be no doubt that Lord Byron referred to Thyrza in conversation with Lady Byron, and probably also with Mrs. Leigh, as a young girl who had existed, and the date of whose death almost coincided with Lord Byron's landing in England in 1811. On one occasion he showed Lady Byron a beautiful tress of hair, which she understood to be Thyrza's. He said he had never mentioned her name, and that now she was gone his breast was the sole depository of that secret. . . . "Thyrza is mentioned in a letter from Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire, to Augustus Foster (London, May 4, 1812) : 'Your little friend, Caro William [Lady Caroline Lamb], as usual, is doing all sorts of imprudent things for him [Lord Byron] and with him; he admires her very much, but is sup- posed to admire our Caroline [the Hon. Mrs. George Lamb] more: he says she is like Thyrza, and her singing is enchantment to him.' " Mr. Richard Edgcumbe, in his interesting book, "Byron : the Last Phase" (1909). finds in Mary Chaworth (Mrs. Musters) the original of Thyrza. "It was," he says, "through the depressing influence of solitude that the idea entered Byron's mind to depict his (possibly eternal) separation from Mary Chaworth in terms synonymous with death. With a deep feeling of desola- tion he recalled every incident of his boyish love. We have seen how the image of his lost Mary, now the wife of his rival, deepened the gloom caused C 8 3 POEMS OF LORD BYRON by the sudden death of his mother, and of some of his college friends. It was to Mary, whom he dared not name, that he cried in agony: " 'By man}' a shore and many a sea Divided, yet beloved in vain; The Past, the Future fled to thee, To bid us meet — no — ne'er again!' . . . These three pieces comprise the so-called 'Thyrza' poems, and in the absence of proof to the contrary we may reasonably suppose that their sub- ject was Mary Chaworth. This is the more likely because the original manuscripts were the property of Byron's sister, to whom they were prob- ably given by Mary Chaworth, when, in later years, she destroyed or parted with all the letters and documents which she had received from Byron since the days of their childhood." Francis Gribble, in the "Love Affairs of Lord Byron" (1910), adopting Mr. Edgcumbe's theory that Mary Chaworth was the one woman whom Byron consistently loved throughout his life, also accepts the view that she was Thyrza. He says: "The invisible force which was beginning to in- fluence Byron's life, and was presently to deflect it, was a revival of his recollections of Mary Chaworth. He nowhere tells us so, nor do his biog- raphers on his behalf, but the fact is none the less quite certain. The proofs abound, though the name is never mentioned in them; and Mr. Richard Edgcumbe has marshalled them with conclusive force. The course which Byron's life followed — the things which he willed and did, as well as the things he said — can only be explained if Mary Chaworth is once more brought into the story. . . . Though Byron spoke of Thyrza to his friends as a real person and showed a lock of her hair, no trace of any woman an- swering to her description can be discovered in any chronicle of his life. The explanation is that Thyrza was not really dead, though Byron chose so to write of her. Thyrza was Mary Chaworth who was dead to Byron in the sense that she had passed out of his life, as he had every reason to think (though he thought wrongly) for ever. . . . They [the poems] ex- POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON pressed, in fact, his despair at finding the secret orchard tenanted only by a ghost; and if we read the poems by the light of that clue, we can get a clear meaning out of every line." As a hint to future Dryasdusts, we might suggest that Byron's letter of October 28, 1811, to Mrs. Pigott offers a hint that might lead to another literary mare's nest. In that letter he speaks of Edleston's death as "making the sixth, within four months, of friends and relatives that I have lost be- tween May and the end of August." Five of these persons, as we know, were Hargreaves Hanson, Wingfield, Matthews, Edleston, and Mrs. Byron. But who was the other? Was it the unknown, unnamed original of Thyrza? No one seems to have worked that vein of inquiry. After all, is it worth while? Does the true lover of Byron's poetry care a jot or tittle who the individual was who inspired these verses? We be- lieve not, and for our part we are content to leave the question where Mrs. Leigh left it. In a letter of December 12, 1848, to Mr. Goddard about the manuscripts of Thyrza, she says explicitly: "Mr. Moore (I take the liberty to say) was mistaken as to the Person designated as Thyrza. My Brother told me no one knew who she was, and evinced so mournful and deep a feeling at that question, I never ventured to repeat it." The name Thyrza appears to be a variant of Teresa. In the preface to "Cain," Byron writes: "Gesner's 'Death of Abel' I have never read since I was eight years of age at Aberdeen. The general impression of my recol- lection is delight, but of the contents I remember only that Cain's wife was called Mahala, and Abel's Thirza." When in Athens in 1810, Byron flirted with three daughters of his landlady, Theodora Macri, but the one to whom he seems to have paid most attention was Theresa, whom he has immortal- ized in his poem, "Maid of Athens, ere we part, Give, oh, give me back my heart!" Ernest Hartley Coleridge thinks another and more immediate sugges- tion of the name may be traced to the following translation of Meleager's Epitaphium "In Heliodoram," which one of the "associate bards," Bland or ^t 4 7 <* /SV ^ fyL*¥.~4*? -f -t- /Si_~ s? ^Cr- „^ w>- -- /— ^ ^ A fn ^/- £&- ~^ - *<-'~ %<^/Z" ^ JucL Sy jZ~ ^ ^- ^— ^^" ^ /> '^U- J^cn— jtfL*^> £.-t^~ &-* t K I / #> &*~S a_^ *b* -/~ *>? - *^ <>*~- £fS~ f*r**^\- t---^~ £ ' <2-vo &u~, fo f& ^/L-c- *-#*«. ^ A ^ A y\ I POEMS OF LORD BYRON Merivale or Hodgson, contributed to their "Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology" (1806, page 4) : "Tears o'er my parted Thyrza's grave I shed, Affection's fondest tribute to the dead. • ••••• Break, break my heart, o'ercharged with bursting woe An empty offering to the shades below! Ah, plant regretted! Death's remorseless power, With dust unfruitful checked thy full-blown flower. Take, earth, the gentle inmate to thy breast, And soft-embosomed let my Thyrza rest." Later in his life, Byron loved another of this name. Before her mar- riage the Countess Guiccioli was Teresa Gamba. In his poem "Mazeppa" the name of the fair lady of the intrigue is given as Theresa, and a learned Ger- man, Dr. Englaender, has exhaustively argued in behalf of the contention that the Countess was in the poet's mind when the charms of the Theresa in the poem were being described. An equally learned Herr Doctor, Pro- fessor Kolbing, has argued with equal profundity that this could not pos- sibly be the case. There we may safely and confidently leave the question. ON THE DEATH OF THYRZA In most, if not all, editions of Byron, the title of this poem reads simply "To Thyrza," and the date October 11 is assigned it. As will be seen from the facsimile, the manuscript in the Bixby collection bears the date "October 27th, 1811" very distinctly. On the twenty-seventh, Byron was writing to Moore from Cambridge, and on the twenty-eighth he arrived in London. The poem first appeared in the first edition of "Childe Harold" (1812, 4°). In a letter to Murray, written August 26, 1815, Byron specifically directs how this poem should be printed : "In reading the 4th vol. of your last Edition of CI!] POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON the poems published in my name, I perceive that piece 12, page 55, is made nonsense of (that is greater nonsense than usual) by dividing it into Stanzas 1, 2, etc., etc., in which form it was not written, — and not printed in the 8vo Editions. The poem in question is one continued piece and not divided into sections, as you may easily perceive by the printing, and as such I request that in future (when opportunity occurs) it may be printed. "P. S. The poem begins 'Without a Stone,' etc. I send it as it was and ought to be." Cordy Jeaffreson calls it "a poem written in tears and not to be read with tearless eyes." AWAY, AWAY, YE NOTES OF WOE! In a letter to Hodgson written on the day this poem was composed, Decem- ber 6, 1811, Byron refers to it thus: "I sent you a sad Tale of Three Friars the other day, and now take a dose in another style. I wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days." It was first published in the quarto edition of "Childe Harold" (1812), and bore the title "Stanzas," as in the manuscript. ONE STRUGGLE MORE AND I AM FREE This, like the two preceding, appeared first in the quarto edition of "Childe Harold," among the fourteen poems appended to the two cantos of the title poem. In all editions from 1812 to 1831 it was called "To Thyrza." It is possible that the following letter, written to Hodgson from Patras in the Morea, October 3, 1810, describes the occasion referred to in the lines, "When stretched on Fever's sleepless bed, And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins" : "As I have just escaped from a physician and a fever, which confined me five days to bed, you won't expect much allegrezza in the ensuing letter. EM J& f "f^ A — '"" If . -•' /h^ isttCZ fi£>+si'~ sy^A-rO- ££**&- &y^ ■*&*:. %& <^ ^ "~^ ■if ,^^_^^^-^^^ # X*»m> /? -AS* 7 #£ *r* &1-* / V / C, « tf« » — c— C**^£^ /■ J^^^~ A <* , r j%L <^/^uJ- -~- ^~- «~~- '<~' / - ~~> J&, &:,-} 4 ^-' "*4- '^~~ . > . ^L^ ■<^" «*& af r a£- *■* — * ^_ *£ *^ 6. C~0c £*^0*£.- s^gJu., ^J*~0* ^&7 < • . \ \N \ ?»UX f ^w/»*— A ^ -U**- *£ >*»^_ — ii» / t~t^~^ r d&c %. W'/- '^-- * >* "**^£> fit y ^±ji&hi£$^& j& ^' * f \\ *£ ^t, <^*~^> .'c~-/£~*S &>*&'? _ *i ^C ^i~*v A "^ •^t- ^T? ^™y —. ^ -?**<. t £_ / <%U~. a^t_ K ? / 4 «»J &jvi^ < V /* POEMS OF LORD BYRON end and never again saw his wife, his daughter, or his sister. After a visit to Waterloo he went by way of the Rhine to Geneva, where he took the Villa Diodati, on the Belle Rive, a promontory on the south side of the lake. Here he wrote those beautiful and moving verses which immortalized his affec- tion and love for the one human being whom we know he consistently loved throughout his brief and turbulent life. The Hon. Augusta Byron (born 1783, died 1851) was the daughter of Captain John Byron by his first wife Amelia d'Arcy. She was thus Lord Byron's half-sister and senior by five years. She did not see her brother until 1802. She was brought up by her grandmother, the Countess of Holderness, and lived with other relatives until her marriage in 1807 to her first cousin Colonel George Leigh of the Tenth Dragoons. Colonel Leigh was a friend of the Prince Regent and well known in fashionable and racing circles. Mrs. Leigh was long attached to the court, moved in good society, and was greatly liked by those who knew her intimately. Byron's close and devoted friends, Hobhouse (Lord Broughton), the Rev. Francis Hodgson, and the Rev. William Harness, three men of unimpeachable character, re- spected and admired her to the last. From 1802 until Byron's death, Mrs. Leigh took in him not merely the interest of an older sister, but she was, as Frances, Lady Shelley, who knew them both well, says, "like a mother to him." From the end of 1805, with but few interruptions, they maintained a close and intimate correspon- dence, and visited or resided at various times in each other's homes. Her devotion to him and to his never wavered during his lifetime or hers, and Byron repaid it with a sincerity of feeling he never showed toward any other woman whose name we know. His letters and journals are filled with references to her, and they are invariably tender, affectionate, and fully appreciative of all she had done for him and all she had felt for him in the great crises which they passed through together. The love of this brother and sister, as revealed in his letters and poems, is one of the most beautiful elements in Byron's life and character. One of the first presentation copies of "Childe Harold" was sent to her with this inscription : "To Augusta, my dearest sister, and my best friend, CIS] POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON who has ever loved me much better than I deserved, this volume is pre- sented by her father's son, and most affectionate brother, B." Byron's animosity toward the Earl of Carlisle for a fancied slight at the time of the former's taking his seat in the House of Lords is well known. Augusta thought her brother in the wrong and did not hesitate to tell him so. An entry in his "Journal," under the date of March 28, 1814, shows something of the influence which she had over him at times: "Augusta wants me to make it up with Carlisle. I have refused every body else, I can't deny her anything; so I must e'en do it, though I had as lief 'drink up Eisel — eat a crocodile.' " Augusta watched over and tended Lady Byron during the latter's con- finement, and was godmother to the little daughter, Ada. In Byron's last letter to Lady Byron, before leaving England, he wrote: "I have just parted from Augusta, almost the last being whom you have left me to part with. ... If any accident occurs to me, be kind to Augusta; if she is then also nothing — to her children. You know that some time ago I made my will in her favour and her children, because any child of ours was provided for by other and better means. This could not be prejudice to you, for we had not then differed, and even now is useless during your life by the terms of our settlements. Therefore, — be kind to her, for never has she acted or spoken towards you but as your friend. And recollect, that, though it may be an advantage to you to have lost a husband, it is sorrow to her to have the waters now, or the earth hereafter, between her and her brother. It may occur to your memory that you formerly promised me this much. I repeat it — for deep resentments have but half recollections. Do not deem this promise cancell'd, for it was not a vow." In the same letter he requested that all news and tidings of his daughter be sent to him through Mrs. Leigh. On April 16, 1816, he sent a note to Samuel Rogers: "My sister is now with me, and leaves town tomorrow; we shall not meet again for some time, at all events — if ever; and, under these circumstances, I trust to stand ex- cused to you and Mr. Sheridan for being unable to wait upon him this evening." His last letter, written just before sailing, was addressed to Augusta. Years later, shortly before leaving Italy for Greece, he said: "To [16] POEMS OF LORD BYRON me she was, in the hour of need, as a tower of strength. Her affection was my last rallying point, and is now the only bright spot that the horizon of England offers to my view. Augusta knew all my weaknesses, but she had love enough to bear with them. She has given me much good advice, and yet, finding me incapable of following it, loved and pitied me the more, because I was erring. This is true affection, and, above all, true Christian feeling." Hodgson states that a pocket Bible, which Augusta had presented her brother, was among the books which Byron always kept near him. On his writing-table after his death there was found the unfinished letter beginning: "My Dearest Augusta: I received a few days ago yours and Lady Byron's report of Ada's health." His last articulate words were: "My sister — my child." STANZAS TO AUGUSTA This poem, written at the Villa Diodati on July 24, 1816, appeared first in "The Prisoner of Chillon, and other Poems" (1816). Its place in that vol- ume is at page 24, where it is called, "Stanzas to ," and this title was retained in all editions until 1830. Byron wrote to Murray, October 5, 1816: "Be careful in printing the stanzas beginning, 'Though the day of my destiny,' etc., which I think well of as a composition." In the third canto of "Childe Harold," Stanza 55, Byron again refers to Augusta's loyalty when she was made to feel the rancor of his enemies: "And there was one soft breast, as hath been said, Which unto his was bound by stronger ties Than the church links withal; and, though unwed That love was pure, and, far above disguise Had stood the test of mortal enmities Still undivided, and cemented more By peril, dreaded most in female eyes; But this was firm, and from a foreign shore Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour!" C173 POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA This also was written at Diodati during the summer of 1816. It was sent to Murray, in Shelley's care, in a volume of manuscript (written out in fair copy) containing "the third canto of 'Childe Harold,' the 'Castle of Chillon,' etc., etc." In a postscript to the letter of August 28, which accompanied the manuscript, Byron said : "There is in the volume — an epistle to Mrs. Leigh — on which I should wish her to have her opinion consulted; if she objects, of course, omit it." On September 29, he again cautioned Murray not to forget to consult Mrs. Leigh on the lines to her; "they must not be published without her full consent and approbation." Mrs. Leigh was at first disposed not to allow either the "Stanzas" or the "Epistle" to be published, but finally limited her refusal to the latter, and so informed her brother. "I have re- ceived a letter, from Mrs. L.," Byron wrote Murray, October 5, "in which she tells me that she has decided on the omission of the lines 'an Epistle, etc' Upon this point her option will be followed. ... As I have no copy of the 'Epistle to Mrs. L.,' I request that you will preserve one for me in MS., for I never can remember a line of that nor any other composition of mine. . . . Recollect, do not omit a line of the MS. sent you except 'The Epistle.' It is too late for me to start at Shadows. If you like to have the originals, Mrs. L. will, I daresay, send them to you; they are all in the box." Mrs. Leigh's letters to Murray, dated November 1 and November 8, reveal her anxiety to do nothing that would offend or hurt her brother or Lady Byron. "When you were so good as to call upon me at St. James's and told me of the arrival of the canto, and some lines addressed to me, which were to be published or not as I liked, I answered, instinctively almost — 'Whatever is addressed to me do not publish.' I felt so forcibly that such things could only serve to me faire valoir aux depens de sa Femme — besides 1000 other D83 ^7^t>t^ £^*~^s /i^. -.^.S 4 >C>v^? y^ ' rVTj fo t^&k p*^ .£. 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"i-K^c- • *T^-^_ * 31 k . y>ygg i j t &Zi~ju * ■ m s ■--«-^*t-v /~t &J~ £**»-»^< __ « * X~ ^L/»/t 'P***-^-. r ) Itiv "^^^^^y, ft i Ait**.- U*£ >^ ^*^^C *7 =*y><- **6r ^^ #*-* ^' ^*^ ^^^f &~ ^ U_«-*~^ ^-4'^r- yu< 4-~ *y LETTERS ,-rl u l***"*** LETTERS So far as cau I, only one of the follov d in print, a I y a few para gra phs we re pu bl M urray edit n question is the long and ssed to R. B. Hoppner, March 31, 1820. Although these left part unrelated, each will be found to have some point of in j astifies its printing. The originals of all of them are in Mr. Bil H3T3AJIRJ a 8A kohyh --.„ frigate, off Ushant fd bsdaHdsq flq B i^odiiI u mrrt July 7 th 1811 Mr. Cawthorn : lA^mA .a I have been scold u (like almost all Scolders) without a reason, for I found parcels, one at Athens, & the other at Malta on my way down. In a few days on our arrival at Portsmouth, wl pect to make about the 10 th , I shall send this off, however aitside will apprize you of the day. I shall thence \ ' expect 3 r ou to pay nu I either at Dorant's or Reddish's H- the Satirt i s wered your purpoi nine. I have a poem in the same style, & much about same length which I intend as a kind of Sequel to the former; it is ready for publication, but as my scrawl is impenetrable to Printers, & the Manuscript is a good deal blotted with Alterations etc, you must have an Amanuensis 'o copy it out fair on my arrival. 1 suppose you have not lost by the it my only motive king is a wish that you may not; the present •kali be yours for the risk of printing, as the last was. But neither you nor pose because the first has succeeded tolerably, a second will have the sam • fate, though it. s similar. However, it will serve to make a C23: "PLAY!" BYRON AS A CRICKETER From a lithograph published by E. Knight I ■ % LETTERS So far as can be learned, only one of the following letters has appeared in print, and of that only a few paragraphs were published in the last Murray edition. The letter in question is the long and interesting one addressed to R. B. Hoppner, March 31, 1820. Although these letters are for the most part unrelated, each will be found to have some point of interest which justifies its printing. The originals of all of them are in Mr. Bixby's collection. Volage Frigate, off Ushant July 7th 18H Mr. Cawthorn : I have been scolding you (like almost all Scolders) without a reason, for I found your two parcels, one at Athens, & the other at Malta on my way down. In a few days on our arrival at Portsmouth, which we expect to make about the 10 th , I shall send this off, however the date on the outside will apprize you of the day. I shall thence proceed to town where I expect you to pay me a visit either at Dorant's or Reddish's Hotels in Albemarle or St James's Street. I hope the Satire has answered your purpose, & of course it has answered mine. I have a poem in the same style, & much about the same length which I intend as a kind of Sequel to the former; it is ready for publication, but as my scrawl is impenetrable to Printers, & the Manuscript is a good deal blotted with Alterations etc, you must have an Amanuensis ready to copy it out fair on my arrival. I suppose you have not lost by the last, but my only motive for asking is a wish that you may not; the present shall be yours for the risk of printing, as the last was. But neither you nor I must suppose because the first has succeeded tolerably, a second will have the same fate, though its style is similar. However, it will serve to make a C23H POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON tolerable volume with the other, with which it is in some degree connected. The Nature of it I will explain more fully when I see you. If you see Mr. Dallas or other of my acquaintance, you will present my Compts. I remain Y r obed* Servt. Byron. To Mr. Cawthorn Cockspur Street London. P. S. Accept my excuse for blaming you for what you did not deserve. I am sorry for it; the fault lay with my Maltese Correspondents. James Cawthorn, to whom this letter is addressed, was the publisher of "English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers. A Satire" (March, 1809). The poem which Byron mentions as having ready for publication was the "Hints from Horace," which he had recently written at the Franciscan Convent in Athens. "I have an imitation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry' ready for Cawthorn," he had informed Dallas on June 28. Dallas called at Reddish's Hotel July 15, 1811, and received the manuscript, but was not at all enthu- siastic over it. He asked Byron if that was all that he had written while away; where- upon Byron produced the first two cantos of "Childe Harold." Very much against his wishes, he was persuaded by his friends to publish the latter instead of the former, with what results we all know. But to the end of his life Byron insisted on regarding the "Hints from Horace" as one of the best things he had ever done, whereas it is by general agreement one of the very worst. It was not published until 1831, seven years after his death. 4 Bennet Street July 13th [1813] Sir Prince Korlovsky informed me a few daj^s ago that he had reason to think by a proper application to you I should obtain a passage in the ship which is to convey him to the Mediterranean. I confess that I did not fore- see any impropriety or difficulty in this, as it had already been my good fortune to obtain the same favour several times during my last absence from England, by the kindness of some whose influence was much inferior to your own. But as I had not the honour of your acquaintance & certainly C24] LETTERS OF LORD RYRON not the slightest pretension to intrude upon you for the mere purpose of serving myself, I thought the application would come with a better grace from one whom you would have greater pleasure in obliging. Though he has failed, which does not make my own prospect of success very promis- ing, may I now venture to say that by obtaining for me a passage in any ship of war bound to the Mediterranean at or nearly the same time with the Boyne, you will confer upon me the last — indeed I might add — the only favour which can be rendered me in this country. If I am wrong or infor- mal in the present application you will excuse an unintentional offence. I have the honour to be, Sir, Yr most obed 1 - humble Ser*- Ryron J. W. Croker, Esq., &c, &c, &c. From Jul}' until October in 1813, Byron's letters are full of references to some plan he had of going abroad, probably to the East or to Italy. On the same date as this letter to Croker, the Secretary of the Admiralty, Byron wrote to Moore : "I want to get away, but find difficulty in compassing a passage in a ship of war." This was, however, arranged for him. At Croker's request, Captain Carlton of the Boyne, who had just been ordered to reenforce Sir Edward Pellew in the Mediterranean, had consented to take Byron in his cabin on that voyage. Byron acknowledged Croker's courtesy in a letter dated August 2, 1813. But on August 22 we find him writing to Moore : "All this time you wonder I am not gone; so do I; but the accounts of the plague are very per- plexing — not so much for the thing itself as the quarantine established in all ports, and from all places, even from England." As a matter of fact, it was a very different kind of "plague" that was hindering his lordship from sailing on the projected voyage. A passage in this same letter to Moore tells the real reason: "I have said nothing, either, of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, I am at this moment in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape than any of the last twelve months, — and that is saying a good deal. It is unlucky that we can neither live with nor without these women." Ernest Hartley Coleridge says that Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster was the lady with whom Byron was at this moment so infatu- ated. But this is scarcely credible, for less than two weeks after the date of the letter to Moore, Byron is congratulating his friend Webster on the birth of a son and prom- ising to stand as godfather to the child. 125-2 POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON In the middle of September, he asked Murray to "enquire after any ship with a convoy taking passengers and get me one if possible." Nothing came of this, however, and he remained in England. On November 8, came the well-known letter to his sister : "I have only time to say that I shall write tomorrow, and that my present and long silence has been occasioned by a thousand things (with which you are not concerned) . It is not I> C. nor O., but perhaps you may guess, and, if you do, do not tell. You do not know what mischief your being with me might have prevented. You shall hear from me tomorrow; in the mean- time, don't be alarmed. I am in no immediate peril." In his "Journal" for November 17, there is this entry : "Not a word from. . . . Have they set out from . . . ? or has my last precious epistle fallen into the lion's jaws? If so — I must clap on 'my musty morion' and 'hold out my iron.' I am out of practice — but I won't begin at Manton's now. Besides, I would not return his shot." The contemplated journey abroad did not occur, and no one has yet successfully identified the lady who prevented it, notwithstanding the labored efforts of Mr. Edg- cumbe and his echo, Mr. Gribble. March 2nd, 1814. Dear Webster: I am sorry to say that in consequence of a disappointment for the pres- ent in the amount of the remittance I expected, I am obliged to decline ad- vancing the sum which I would readily have done had it been within my power. With regard to joining you as a security I should have no objection, but on the terms & with persons to whom you have applied, I should only become instrumental in involving both, without any permanent benefit to yourself. I speak from experience, as my own difficulties have arisen from similar sources. Your own agent could surely direct you to more respect- able lenders and better terms, and as you must have security to give on your own property, I should think the business might be arranged without your having recourse to the Advertisers in papers. I regret very much that it is not in my power to advance this myself & I think you know that I would have done so had it been practicable. Very truly yrs, B. James Wedderburn Webster (1789-1840) was the author of "Waterloo, and other Poems" (1816) . He was with Byron possibly at Cambridge, and certainly at Athens in C*0 LORD BYRON From a drawing by Georpe Henrv Harlow OF LORD BYRON lurray ti nip ■with a ig pa— cngcrs and get iv say tomoi: '.sand things (with \J C. nor O., but may guess, low what mi: \our ith me might! I. You shall he mie ton. tan- . don't be alarmed I am mi n« immediate peril." In his "Jon iiber here is this entry: "Not a •■ . . Have they set out from . . . ? or has my last precious cpistl. n's jaws? Jt so— I must clap on 'my musty ou' and 'hold ot out of | t I won't begin at Man ton's now. Besides, I would p hot." The contemplated journc d did not occur, and no one has yet successfully identified the lady who pre ^withstanding the labored efforts of Mr. Edg- cuml ; AOHfH QflOJ wohsH /ni'iH 9^i»9t) yd «niweib n moii 14. Dear Webster: J am sorry to say that in consequence of a disappointment I pres- ent in the amount of the remittance I expected, I am ohliged to decline ad- vancing the sum which I would readily have done had it been within my power. With regard to joining you as a security I should hav iection, but on the terms & with persons to whom you have applied, I should only ttrumental in involving both, without any permanent benefit, to. f. I speak from experience, as my own difticui ! risen from similar sources. Your own agent could surely direct you to more respect- able lenders er terms, and as you must have security to give on your own property, 1 should think the business might be arranged without having recourse to the Advertisers in papers. I regret very much that it is not in my power to advance this myself & I think you know that I would e done so had it b icticable. Very truly yrs, B. James Wedderburn Webster (1789-1840) was the author of "Waterloo, and other ns" (1816). He was wiUi Byron possibly at Cambridge, and certainly at A kftm _ POEMS AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON 1810. In that year he married Lady Frances Caroline Annesley. In 1813, Byron lent him £1000. Moore says : "W. W. owes Lord Byron, £1000, and does not seem to have the slightest intention of paying him." Lady Frances separated from her husband, and in 1823 Byron endeavored to reconcile them. Venice, Nov. 20th, 1817. Dear Sir: I shall endeavor to keep the conditions of the lease and I had already decided to retain in my service the man whom you left in care of the place. I took the liberty of sending to request that you would accept cash for the draft immediately as I was making up some accounts, and also on account of the exchange as I wished to draw before it lowered still farther which I understand will shortly be the case. I have sent you the publications you honoured me by requesting, and also the last poem of my friend Moore and one by Coleridge — which you have perhaps not seen — and of which I beg your acceptance as I have other copies of the same works and these can be spared without the least inconvenience to myself. If you have not read "Tales of my Landlord" I have duplicates and a set is at your service — they are well worth the perusal — and I will send them whenever you like. I have the honour to be Very truly your obedient & faithful svt., Byron To R. B. Hoppner, (Esq.) Richard Belgrave Hoppner (1786-1872) was the second son of John Hoppner, R. A. He was appointed English Consul at Venice in October, 1814. The Shelleys and Byron saw much of him and his charming wife during their stays in Venice. Byron had a great respect for Hoppner. He told the Countess of Blessington that Hoppner "was a good listener, and his remarks were acute and original; he is besides a thoroughly good man; and I know he was in earnest when he gave me his opinions." [283 LETTERS OF LORD BYRON Venice, Nov. 28, 1819. Dear Sir In this remote corner of Italy where we have neither books or booksel- lers I am as ignorant of the affairs of the literary world as a Siberian bear. The only oracle that gives me some scanty hints is Galignani's Messenger, but as I do not see a review I cannot be said to know the doings of the [il- legible] . Now and then I read a stray leaf filled with the Boetian sounds of some croaking Scot prosing about the morals of the Don. The vile squeak of the Italian fiddle is music compared with the lingua Scotorum pro- nounced ore rotundo by some Edinburgh Galen. The sound is tinkling in my ears whenever I read the lucubrations of one of those modern Athen- ians. Write soon. Perhaps you had best answer to me here (Venice Poste Restante) it will come quicker thus. Believe me ever & truly yrs Byron To the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird Pall Mall London Ravenna, March 31st, 1820. Dear Hoppner, Laziness has kept me from answering your letter. It is an inveterate vice — which grows stronger, and I feel it in my pen at this moment. With regard to Mr. Gnoatto, I doubt that the Chevalier is too honest a man to make a good lawyer. Castelli is a bustling, sly, sharp [illegible] & will be more likely to make the rascal wince. But I mean to do thus, — that is to say — with your approbation. You will inform Madame Mocenigo, that till Mr. Gnoatto's money is paid, / shall deduct that sum from her rent in June till she compels her Servant to pay it. She may make a cause of it, if £293 LETTERS OF LORD BYRON she likes; so will I & carry it through all the tribunals, so as to give her as many years work of it as she pleases. At the same time I will prosecute him also. I am not even sure that I will pay her at all till she compels her Scoundrelly dependant to do me justice, which a word from her would do. All this you had better let her know as soon as can be. By the way, I should like to have my Gondola sold for what it will bring, and do you carry money to the account of expenses. If Mother Mocenigo does as she ought to do, I may perhaps give up her house and pay her rent into the bargain. If not, I '11 pay nothing and we '11 go to law — I loves a "lite." What you tell me of Mrs. Strephon is very amusing, but all private mat- ters must be superseded at present by the public plots, and so forth. I won- der what it will all end in. I should probably have gone to England for the Coronation but for my wife. I don't wish to walk in such company, under present circumstances. Ravenna continues much the same as I described it. Conversazioni all Lent, and much better ones than any at Venice. There are small games at hazard, that is, Faro, where nobody can point more than a shilling or two; other Card tables, and as much talk and Coffee as you please. Everybody does and says what they please, and I do not recollect any disagreeable events, except being three times falsely accused of flirta- tion, and once being robbed of six sixpences by a nobleman of the city, a count Bozzi. I did not suspect the illustrious delinquent; but the Countess Vitellani and the Marquess Loratelli told me of it directly, and also that it was a way he had of filching money when he saw it before him; but I did not ax him for the cash, but contented myself with telling him that if he did it again, I should anticipate the law. There is to be a theatre in April, and a fair, and an Opera, and another opera in June, besides the fine weather of Nature's giving, and the rides in the Forest of Pine! Augustine overturned the carriage a fortnight ago and smashed it and himself and me and Tita and the horses into a temporary hodge-podge. He pleaded against the horses, but it was his own bad driving. Nobody was hurt, a few slight bruises; the escape was tolerable, being between a river C303 LORD BYRON AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-ONE From an engraving in stipple by E. Scriven after a drawing by George Henrv Harlow rough as to give her as ;ecute him her . indola sold U vill bring, ! carry count of expenses. If uigo perhaps give up her house and pay her r nothing and we '11 go to law — I loves a you tell me of M Reign of PhilP. 3, Pausanias's Greece. 2 & 3 vols., Hooke's Roman Histy., Anastasius, Antiquary, Kenilworth, Ivanhoe, Tales of My Landlord. 1 st Series. 2 Series 3D° — Hist, des Republiques italiennes, Langhorne's Plutarch, Mitford's Histy- of Greece, Gil Bias, Montesquieu Sheridan's Works, given to C l Gamba, 18 Aug*- Essais de Montaigne (Sent to Mr. H. Browne, Aug 14, 1824) Gli Animali parlanti, Reflexions sur l'Evidence du X:isme, Human Nature in its II: fold state, Max s - de la Rochefoucauld, Harriet [? Newele], Jones on the Trinity, Roderick Random, C* Gamba, 18 Aug*- Peregrine Pickle, Les Montagnes, Bowring. Russian Anthology, Alfieri (Sent to Mr. Ham. Browne, Aug. 14*, 1824) Bowring. Matins & Vespers, Peregrinus Proteus, 3 vols. 2 vols. 2 — 1 vol. missing 11 vols. 2 missing 3 vols. 3 vols. 3 vols. 3 vols. 1 vol. ', 3 missing. 4 vols. 3 vols. 2 vol. missing 10 vols. 6 vols., missing 6 vols. 6 vols. (4 miss'g) 3 vols. 8 vols. 2 vols. 4 3v. 1vol. 1vol. lv. lv. lv. lv. lv. lv. 2 vols. 7 odd vols. 1 vol. 2 vols. BOOKS OF LORD BYRON 2 v. 1 v. (the 3d) 3 vols, lvol. 2 vols, lvol. Commentaire de Cesar, Dante, Turner's Tour in the Levant, Illustrations of Divine Gov 1 , [illegible] Saxon Campaigns, Beauforts Karamanie, Emmeline by Mrs. [illegible'], D r Reid on nervous affections, British Essayists, Gillie's Hist: of Ant: Greece, Le Vite di Plutarco, Memoires de Sully. Falconer's Shipwreck, Oeuvres de Florian (Don Quichotte), Ariosto, Plutarch Morals, Rime de Poeti Ravennati, Baxter. Call to the unconverted. ©otktaiaot (sent to Mr. H. Browne), Discourses & Sermons, L'Europe & L'Amerique (Pradt), Collec 1 Complete des ouvrages par B. d. Constant, The 29 th Report of the Directors of the Miss>- Socy- French Grammar. Stanley's Philosophy. Elegant Epistles. lvol. lvol. 5 vols. 2 vols, odd 6 vols, vols. 4 & 5. 1 vol. 5 v. 1 st missing. lvol. (the 4*) 4 vols. (3 d miss'g), lv. lv. lvol. lvol. 1 vol. (2) vol.2 £4511 LORD BYRON <>\ HIS DKATH-BED From an engraving by L. Clark after a drawing by R. Seymour published bv Knight & Laeev. 1825 aaa-HTAaa sih wo woflYa aaoj .Mjoni/tr'. .H /d giuws^b e t^i\n vimJD .J yd gorangiia rie movl 2S8J ./^oblI & ld;°iri/I /d b^risilduq * • •' ■ ' OF THESE POEMS AND LETTERS OF BYRON EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS IN THE POSSESSION OF W. K. BLXBY, FIFTY-TWO COPDZS ONLY HAVE BEEN PRINTED FOR MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY OF THE DOFOBS ON ITALIAN HANDMADE PAPER, AT THE DE VINNE PRESS, IN THE MONTH OF MARCH, 1912.