Chapter LXXXIII: Letter 142: To Mr. Moore (1)

"December 8. 1813.

"Your letter, like all the best, and even kindest things in this
world, is both painful and pleasing. But, first, to what sits
nearest. Do you know I was actually about to dedicate to you,--not
in a formal inscription, as to one's _elders_,--but through a
short prefatory letter, in which I boasted myself your intimate,
and held forth the prospect of _your_ poem; when, lo! the
recollection of your strict injunctions of secrecy as to the said
poem, more than _once_ repeated by word and letter, flashed upon
me, and marred my intents. I could have no motive for repressing my
own desire of alluding to you (and not a day passes that I do not
think and talk of you), but an idea that you might, yourself,
dislike it. You cannot doubt my sincere admiration, waving personal
friendship for the present, which, by the by, is not less sincere
and deep rooted. I have you by rote and by heart; of which 'ecce
signum!' When I was at * *, on my first visit, I have a habit, in
passing my time a good deal alone, of--I won't call it singing, for
that I never attempt except to myself--but of uttering, to what I
think tunes, your 'Oh breathe not,' 'When the last glimpse,' and
'When he who adores thee,' with others of the same minstrel;--they
are my matins and vespers. I assuredly did not intend them to be
overheard, but, one morning, in comes, not La Donna, but Il Marito,
with a very grave face, saying, 'Byron, I must request you won't
sing any more, at least of _those_ songs.' I stared, and said,
'Certainly, but why?'--'To tell you the truth,' quoth he, 'they
make my wife _cry_, and so melancholy, that I wish her to hear no
more of them.'

"Now, my dear M., the effect must have been from your words, and
certainly not my music. I merely mention this foolish story to show
you how much I am indebted to you for even your pastimes. A man
may praise and praise, but no one recollects but that which
pleases--at least, in composition. Though I think no one equal to
you in that department, or in satire,--and surely no one was ever
so popular in both,--I certainly am of opinion that you have not
yet done all _you_ can do, though more than enough for any one
else. I want, and the world expects, a longer work from you; and I
see in you what I never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence of
your own powers, which I cannot account for, and which must be
unaccountable, when a _Cossac_ like me can appal a _cuirassier_.
Your story I did not, could not, know,--I thought only of a Peri. I
wish you had confided in me, not for your sake, but mine, and to
prevent the world from losing a much better poem than my own, but
which, I yet hope, this _clashing_ will not even now deprive them
of.[87] Mine is the work of a week, written, _why_ I have partly
told you, and partly I cannot tell you by letter--some day I will.

"Go on--I shall really be very unhappy if I at all interfere with
you. The success of mine is yet problematical; though the public
will probably purchase a certain quantity, on the presumption of
their own propensity for 'The Giaour' and such 'horrid mysteries.'
The only advantage I have is being on the spot; and that merely
amounts to saving me the trouble of turning over books which I had
better read again. If _your chamber_ was furnished in the same way,
you have no need to _go there_ to describe--I mean only as to
_accuracy_--because I drew it from recollection.

"This last thing of mine _may_ have the same fate, and I assure you
I have great doubts about it. But, even if not, its little day will
be over before you are ready and willing. Come out--'screw your
courage to the sticking-place.' Except the Post Bag (and surely you
cannot complain of a want of success there), you have not been
_regularly_ out for some years. No man stands higher,--whatever you
may think on a rainy day, in your provincial retreat. 'Aucun homme,
dans aucune langue, n'a été, peut-être, plus completèment le poëte
du coeur et le poëte des femmes. Les critiques lui reprochent de
n'avoir représenté le monde ni tel qu'il est, ni tel qu'il doit
être; _mais les femmes répondent qu'il l'a représenté tel qu'elles
le désirent_.'--I should have thought Sismondi had written this for
you instead of Metastasio.

"Write to me, and tell me of _yourself_. Do you remember what
Rousseau said to some one--'Have we quarrelled? you have talked to
me often, and never once mentioned yourself.'

"P.S.--The last sentence is an indirect apology for my own
egotism,--but I believe in letters it is allowed. I wish it was
_mutual_. I have met with an odd reflection in Grimm; it shall
not--at least the bad part--be applied to you or me, though _one_
of us has certainly an indifferent name--but this it is:--'Many
people have the reputation of being wicked, with whom we should be
too happy to pass our lives.' I need not add it is a woman's
saying--a Mademoiselle de Sommery's."

[Footnote 87: Among the stories intended to be introduced into Lalla Rookh, which I had begun, but, from various causes, never finished, there was one which I had made some progress in, at the time of the appearance of "The Bride," and which, on reading that poem, I found to contain such singular coincidences with it, not only in locality and costume, but in plot and characters, that I immediately gave up my story altogether, and began another on an entirely new subject, the Fire-worshippers. To this circumstance, which I immediately communicated to him, Lord Byron alludes in this letter. In my hero (to whom I had even given the name of "Zelim," and who was a descendant of Ali, outlawed, with all his followers, by the reigning Caliph) it was my intention to shadow out, as I did afterwards in another form, the national cause of Ireland. To quote the words of my letter to Lord Byron on the subject:--"I chose this story because one writes best about what one feels most, and I thought the parallel with Ireland would enable me to infuse some vigour into my hero's character. But to aim at vigour and strong feeling after _you_ is hopeless;--that region 'was made for Cæsar.'"]

* * * * *

At this time Lord Byron commenced a Journal, or Diary, from the pages of which I have already selected a few extracts, and of which I shall now lay as much more as is producible before the reader. Employed chiefly,--as such a record, from its nature, must be,--about persons still living, and occurrences still recent, it would be impossible, of course, to submit it to the public eye, without the omission of some portion of its contents, and unluckily, too, of that very portion which, from its reference to the secret pursuits and feelings of the writer, would the most livelily pique and gratify the curiosity of the reader. Enough, however, will, I trust, still remain, even after all this necessary winnowing, to enlarge still further the view we have here opened into the interior of the poet's life and habits, and to indulge harmlessly that taste, as general as it is natural, which leads us to contemplate with pleasure a great mind in its undress, and to rejoice in the discovery, so consoling to human pride, that even the mightiest, in their moments of ease and weakness, resemble ourselves.[88]

[Footnote 88: "C'est surtout aux hommes qui sont hors de toute comparaison par le génie qu'on aime à ressembler au moins par les foiblesses."--GINGUENE.]

"JOURNAL, BEGUN NOVEMBER 14. 1813.

"If this had been begun ten years ago, and faithfully kept!!!--heigho! there are too many things I wish never to have remembered, as it is. Well,--have had my share of what are called the pleasures of this life, and have seen more of the European and Asiatic world than I have made a good use of. They say 'Virtue is its own reward,'--it certainly should be paid well for its trouble. At five-and-twenty, when the better part of life is over, one should be _something_;--and what am I? nothing but five-and-twenty--and the odd months. What have I seen? the same man all over the world,--ay, and woman too. Give _me_ a Mussulman who never asks questions, and a she of the same race who saves one the trouble of putting them. But for this same plague--yellow fever--and Newstead delay, I should have been by this time a second time close to the Euxine. If I can overcome the last, I don't so much mind your pestilence; and, at any rate, the spring shall see me there,--provided I neither marry myself, nor unmarry any one else in the interval. I wish one was--I don't know what I wish. It is odd I never set myself seriously to wishing without attaining it--and repenting. I begin to believe with the good old Magi, that one should only pray for the nation, and not for the individual;--but, on my principle, this would not be very patriotic.

"No more reflections--Let me see--last night I finished 'Zuleika,' my second Turkish Tale. I believe the composition of it kept me alive--for it was written to drive my thoughts from the recollection of--

'Dear sacred name, rest ever unreveal'd.'

At least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it. This afternoon I have burnt the scenes of my commenced comedy. I have some idea of expectorating a romance, or rather a tale in prose;--but what romance could equal the events--

'quæque ipse ...vidi,
Et quorum pars magna fui.'

"To-day Henry Byron called on me with my little cousin Eliza. She will grow up a beauty and a plague; but, in the mean time, it is the prettiest child! dark eyes and eyelashes, black and long as the wing of a raven. I think she is prettier even than my niece, Georgina,--yet I don't like to think so neither; and though older, she is not so clever.

"Dallas called before I was up, so we did not meet. Lewis, too,--who seems out of humour with every thing. What can be the matter? he is not married--has he lost his own mistress, or any other person's wife? Hodgson, too, came. He is going to be married, and he is the kind of man who will be the happier. He has talent, cheerfulness, every thing that can make him a pleasing companion; and his intended is handsome and young, and all that. But I never see any one much improved by matrimony. All my coupled contemporaries are bald and discontented. W. and S. have both lost their hair and good humour; and the last of the two had a good deal to lose. But it don't much signify what falls _off_ a man's temples in that state.

"Mem. I must get a toy to-morrow, for Eliza, and send the device for the seals of myself and * * * * * Mem. too, to call on the Staël and Lady Holland to-morrow, and on * *, who has advised me (without seeing it, by the by) not to publish 'Zuleika;' I believe he is right, but experience might have taught him that not to print is _physically_ impossible. No one has seen it but Hodgson and Mr. Gifford. I never in my life _read_ a composition, save to Hodgson, as he pays me in kind. It is a horrible thing to do too frequently;--better print, and they who like may read, and if they don't like, you have the satisfaction of knowing that they have, at least, _purchased_ the right of saying so.

"I have declined presenting the Debtors' Petition, being sick of parliamentary mummeries. I have spoken thrice; but I doubt my ever becoming an orator. My first was liked; the second and third--I don't know whether they succeeded or not. I have never yet set to it _con amore_;--one must have some excuse to one's self for laziness, or inability, or both, and this is mine. 'Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me;'--and then, I have 'drunk medicines,' not to make me love others, but certainly enough to hate myself.

"Two nights ago I saw the tigers sup at Exeter 'Change. Except Veli Pacha's lion in the Morea,--who followed the Arab keeper like a dog,--the fondness of the hyæna for her keeper amused me most. Such a conversazione!--There was a 'hippopotamus,' like Lord L----l in the face; and the 'Ursine Sloth' hath the very voice and manner of my valet--but the tiger talked too much. The elephant took and gave me my money again--took off my hat--opened a door--_trunked_ a whip--and behaved so well, that I wish he was my butler. The handsomest animal on earth is one of the panthers; but the poor antelopes were dead. I should hate to see one _here_:--the sight of the _camel_ made me pine again for Asia Minor. 'Oh quando te aspiciam?'

"November 16.

"Went last night with Lewis to see the first of Antony and Cleopatra. It was admirably got up, and well acted--a salad of Shakspeare and Dryden, Cleopatra strikes me as the epitome of her sex--fond, lively, sad, tender, teasing, humble, haughty, beautiful, the devil!--coquettish to the last, as well with the 'asp' as with Antony. After doing all she can to persuade him that--but why do they abuse him for cutting off that poltroon Cicero's head? Did not Tully tell Brutus it was a pity to have spared Antony? and did he not speak the Philippics? and are not '_words things_?' and such '_words_' very pestilent '_things_' too? If he had had a hundred heads, they deserved (from Antony) a rostrum (his was stuck up there) apiece--though, after all, he might as well have pardoned him, for the credit of the thing. But to resume--Cleopatra, after securing him, says, 'yet go--it is your interest,' &c.--how like the sex! and the questions about Octavia--it is woman all over.

"To-day received Lord Jersey's invitation to Middleton--to travel sixty miles to meet Madame * *! I once travelled three thousand to get among silent people; and this same lady writes octavos, and _talks_ folios. I have read her books--like most of them, and delight in the last; so I won't hear it, as well as read.

"Read Burns to-day. What would he have been, if a patrician? We should have had more polish--less force--just as much verse, but no immortality--a divorce and a duel or two, the which had he survived, as his potations must have been less spirituous, he might have lived as long as Sheridan, and outlived as much as poor Brinsley. What a wreck is that man! and all from bad pilotage; for no one had ever better gales, though now and then a little too squally. Poor dear Sherry! I shall never forget the day he and Rogers and Moore and I passed together; when _he_ talked, and _we_ listened, without one yawn, from six till one in the morning.

"Got my seals * * * * * * Have again forgot a plaything for _ma petite cousine_ Eliza; but I must send for it to-morrow. I hope Harry will bring her to me. I sent Lord Holland the proofs of the last 'Giaour,' and 'The Bride of Abydos.' He won't like the latter, and I don't think that I shall long. It was written in four nights to distract my dreams from * *. Were it not thus, it had never been composed; and had I not done something at that time, I must have gone mad, by eating my own heart,--bitter diet!--Hodgson likes it better than 'The Giaour,' but nobody else will,--and he never liked the Fragment. I am sure, had it not been for Murray, _that_ would never have been published, though the circumstances which are the groundwork make it * * * heigh-ho!

"To-night I saw both the sisters of * *; my God! the youngest so like! I thought I should have sprung across the house, and am so glad no one was with me in Lady H.'s box. I hate those likenesses--the mock-bird, but not the nightingale--so like as to remind, so different as to be painful.[89] One quarrels equally with the points of resemblance and of distinction.

[Footnote 89:

"Earth holds no other like to thee,
Or, if it doth, in vain for me:
For worlds I dare not view the dame
Resembling thee, yet not the same."
THE GIAOUR.
]

"Nov. 17.

"No letter from * *; but I must not complain. The respectable Job says, 'Why should a _living man_ complain?' I really don't know, except it be that a _dead man_ can't; and he, the said patriarch, _did_ complain, nevertheless, till his friends were tired and his wife recommended that pious prologue, 'Curse--and die;' the only time, I suppose, when but little relief is to be found in swearing. I have had a most kind letter from Lord Holland on 'The Bride of Abydos,' which he likes, and so does Lady H. This is very good-natured in both, from whom I don't deserve any quarter. Yet I _did_ think, at the time, that my cause of enmity proceeded from Holland House, and am glad I was wrong, and wish I had not been in such a hurry with that confounded satire, of which I would suppress even the memory;--but people, now they can't get it, make a fuss, I verily believe, out of contradiction.

"George Ellis and Murray have been talking something about Scott and me, George pro Scoto,--and very right too. If they want to depose him, I only wish they would not set me up as a competitor. Even if I had my choice, I would rather be the Earl of Warwick than all the _kings_ he ever made! Jeffrey and Gifford I take to be the monarch-makers in poetry and prose. The British Critic, in their Rokeby Review, have presupposed a comparison, which I am sure my friends never thought of, and W. Scott's subjects are injudicious in descending to. I like the man--and admire his works to what Mr. Braham calls _Entusymusy_. All such stuff can only vex him, and do me no good. Many hate his politics--(I hate all politics); and, here, a man's politics are like the Greek _soul_--an [Greek: eidôlon], besides God knows what _other soul_; but their estimate of the two generally go together.

"Harry has not brought _ma petite cousine_. I want us to go to the play together;--she has been but once. Another short note from Jersey, inviting Rogers and me on the 23d. I must see my agent to-night. I wonder when that Newstead business will be finished. It cost me more than words to part with it--and to _have_ parted with it! What matters it what I do? or what becomes of me?--but let me remember Job's saying, and console myself with being 'a living man.'

"I wish I could settle to reading again,--my life is monotonous, and yet desultory. I take up books, and fling them down again. I began a comedy, and burnt it because the scene ran into _reality_;--a novel, for the same reason. In rhyme, I can keep more away from facts; but the thought always runs through, through ... yes, yes, through. I have had a letter from Lady Melbourne--the best friend I ever had in my life, and the cleverest of women.

"Not a word from * *. Have they set out from * *? or has my last precious epistle fallen into the lion's jaws? If so--and this silence looks suspicious, I must clap on my 'musty morion' and 'hold out my iron.' I am out of practice--but I won't begin again at Manton's now. Besides, I would not return his shot. I was once a famous wafer-splitter; but then the bullies of society made it necessary. Ever since I began to feel that I had a bad cause to support, I have left off the exercise.

"What strange tidings from that Anakim of anarchy--Buonaparte! Ever since I defended my bust of him at Harrow against the rascally time-servers, when the war broke out in 1803, he has been a 'Héros de Roman' of mine--on the Continent; I don't want him here. But I don't like those same flights--leaving of armies, &c. &c. I am sure when I fought for his bust at school, I did not think he would run away from himself. But I should not wonder if he banged them yet. To be beat by men would be something; but by three stupid, legitimate-old-dynasty boobies of regular-bred sovereigns--O-hone-a-rie!--O-hone-a-rie! It must be, as Cobbett says, his marriage with the thick-lipped and thick-headed _Autrichienne_ brood. He had better have kept to her who was kept by Barras. I never knew any good come of your young wife, and legal espousals, to any but your 'sober-blooded boy' who 'eats fish' and drinketh 'no sack.' Had he not the whole opera? all Paris? all France? But a mistress is just as perplexing--that is, _one_--two or more are manageable by division.

"I have begun, or had begun, a song, and flung it into the fire. It was in remembrance of Mary Duff, my first of flames, before most people begin to burn. I wonder what the devil is the matter with me! I can do nothing, and--fortunately there is nothing to do. It has lately been in my power to make two persons (and their connections) comfortable, _pro tempore_, and one happy, _ex tempore_,--I rejoice in the last particularly, as it is an excellent man[90]. I wish there had been more inconvenience and less gratification to my self-love in it, for then there had been more merit. We are all selfish--and I believe, ye gods of Epicurus! I believe in Rochefoucault about _men_, and in Lucretius (not Busby's translation) about yourselves. Your bard has made you very _nonchalant_ and blest; but as he has excused _us_ from damnation, I don't envy you your blessedness _much_--a little, to be sure. I remember, last year, * * said to me, at * *, 'Have we not passed our last month like the gods of Lucretius?' And so we had. She is an adept in the text of the original (which I like too); and when that booby Bus. sent his translating prospectus, she subscribed. But, the devil prompting him to add a specimen, she transmitted him a subsequent answer, saying, that 'after perusing it, her conscience would not permit her to allow her name to remain on the list of subscribblers.' Last night, at Lord H.'s--Mackintosh, the Ossulstones, Puységur, &c. there--I was trying to recollect a quotation (as _I_ think) of Staël's, from some Teutonic sophist about architecture. 'Architecture,' says this Macoronico Tedescho, 'reminds me of frozen music.' It is somewhere--but where?--the demon of perplexity must know and won't tell. I asked M., and he said it was not in her: but P----r said it must be _hers_, it was so _like_. H. laughed, as he does at all 'De l'Allemagne,'--in which, however, I think he goes a little too far. B., I hear, condemns it too. But there are fine passages;--and, after all, what is a work--any--or every work--but a desert with fountains, and, perhaps, a grove or two, every day's journey? To be sure, in Madame, what we often mistake, and 'pant for,' as the 'cooling stream,' turns out to be the '_mirage_' (criticè _verbiage_); but we do, at last, get to something like the temple of Jove Ammon, and then the waste we have passed is only remembered to gladden the contrast.

"Called on C * *, to explain * * *. She is very beautiful, to my taste, at least; for on coming home from abroad, I recollect being unable to look at any woman but her--they were so fair, and unmeaning, and _blonde_. The darkness and regularity of her features reminded me of my 'Jannat al Aden.' But this impression wore off; and now I can look at a fair woman, without longing for a Houri. She was very good-tempered, and every thing was explained.

"To-day, great news--'the Dutch have taken Holland,'--which, I suppose, will be succeeded by the actual explosion of the Thames. Five provinces have declared for young Stadt, and there will be inundation, conflagration, constupration, consternation, and every sort of nation and nations, fighting away, up to their knees, in the damnable quags of this will-o'-the-wisp abode of Boors. It is said Bernadotte is amongst them, too; and, as Orange will be there soon, they will have (Crown) Prince Stork and King Log in their Loggery at the same time. Two to one on the new dynasty!

"Mr. Murray has offered me one thousand guineas for 'The Giaour' and 'The Bride of Abydos.' I won't--it is too much, though I am strongly tempted, merely for the _say_ of it. No bad price for a fortnight's (a week each) what?--the gods know--it was intended to be called poetry.

"I have dined regularly to-day, for the first time since Sunday last--this being Sabbath, too. All the rest, tea and dry biscuits--six _per diem_, I wish to God I had not dined now!--It kills me with heaviness, stupor, and horrible dreams;--and yet it was but a pint of bucellas, and fish.[91] Meat I never touch,--nor much vegetable diet. I wish I were in the country, to take exercise,--instead of being obliged to cool by abstinence, in lieu of it. I should not so much mind a little accession of flesh,--my bones can well bear it. But the worst is, the devil always came with it,--till I starved him out,--and I will _not_ be the slave of _any_ appetite. If I do err, it shall be my heart, at least, that heralds the way. Oh, my head--how it aches?--the horrors of digestion! I wonder how Buonaparte's dinner agrees with him?

"Mem. I must write to-morrow to 'Master Shallow, who owes me a thousand pounds,' and seems, in his letter, afraid I should ask him for it[92];--as if I would!--I don't want it (just now, at least,) to begin with; and though I have often wanted that sum, I never asked for the repayment of 10_l._ in my life--from a friend. His bond is not due this year, and I told him when it was, I should not enforce it. How often must he make me say the same thing?

"I am wrong--I did once ask * * * [93] to repay me. But it was under circumstances that excused me _to him_, and would to any one. I took no interest, nor required security. He paid me soon,--at least, his _padre_. My head! I believe it was given me to ache with. Good even.

[Footnote 90: Evidently, Mr. Hodgson.]

[Footnote 91: He had this year so far departed from his strict plan of diet as to eat fish occasionally.]

[Footnote 92: We have here another instance, in addition to the munificent aid afforded to Mr. Hodgson, of the generous readiness of the poet, notwithstanding his own limited means, to make the resources he possessed available for the assistance of his friends.]

[Footnote 93: Left blank thus in the original.]

"Nov. 22. 1813.

"'Orange 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. Yet, 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. How 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 think 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. Like 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 did wonder, to be sure, at my own success--

"'And marvels so much wit is all his own,'

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[94] 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!

"Southey, 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.

"* * is a _Littérateur_, the Oracle of the Coteries, of the * * s, L * W * (Sydney Smith's 'Tory Virgin'), Mrs. Wilmot, (she, at least, is a swan, and might frequent a purer stream,) Lady B * *, and all the Blues, with Lady C * * 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.

"M * * e 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 M * * e 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_.

[Footnote 94: It was thus that he, in general, spelled this word.]

"Nov. 23.

"Ward--I like Ward.[95] 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: eidôlon] 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.

[Footnote 95: The present Lord Dudley.]

"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 * *.'

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. Since 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 note 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. Jackson 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. 'Amant _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.

"Redde the Ruminator--a collection of Essays, by a strange, but able, old man (Sir E.B.), 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 had 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? _Vide_ Napoleon's last twelve-month. It has completely upset my system of fatalism. I thought, if crushed, he would have fallen, when 'fractus illabitur orbis,' and not have been pared away to gradual insignificance; that all this was not a mere _jeu_ of the gods, but a prelude to greater changes and mightier events. But men never advance beyond a certain point; and here we are, retrograding to the dull, stupid old system,--balance of Europe--poising straws upon kings' noses, instead of wringing them off! Give me a republic, or a despotism of one, rather than the mixed government of one, two, three. A republic!--look in the history of the Earth--Rome, Greece, Venice, France, Holland, America, our short (eheu!) Commonwealth, and compare it with what they did under masters. The Asiatics are not qualified to be republicans, but they have the liberty of demolishing despots, which is the next thing to it. To be the first man--not the Dictator--not the Sylla, but the Washington or the Aristides--the leader in talent and truth--is next to the Divinity! Franklin, Penn, and, next to these, either Brutus or Cassius--even Mirabeau--or St. Just. I shall never be any thing, or rather always be nothing. The most I can hope is, that some will say, 'He might, perhaps, if he would.'

"12, midnight.

"Here are two confounded proofs from the printer. I have looked at the one, but for the soul of me, I can't look over that 'Giaour' again,--at least, just now, and at this hour--and yet there is no moon.

"Ward talks of going to Holland, and we have partly discussed an ensemble expedition. It must be in ten days, if at all, if we wish to be in at the Revolution. And why not? * * is distant, and will be at * *, still more distant, till spring. No one else, except Augusta, cares for me; no ties--no trammels--_andiamo dunque--se torniamo, bene--se non, ch' importa_? Old William of Orange talked of dying in 'the last ditch' of his dingy country. It is lucky I can swim, or I suppose I should not well weather the first. But let us see. I have heard hyænas and jackalls in the ruins of Asia; and bull-frogs in the marshes; besides wolves and angry Mussulmans. Now, I should like to listen to the shout of a free Dutchman.

"Alla! Viva! For ever! Hourra! Huzza!--which is the most rational or musical of these cries? 'Orange Boven,' according to the Morning Post.

"Wednesday, 24.

"No dreams last night of the dead nor the living, so--I am 'firm as the marble, founded as the rock,' till the next earthquake.

"Ward's dinner went off well. There was not a disagreeable person there--unless _I_ offended any body, which I am sure I could not by contradiction, for I said little, and opposed nothing. Sharpe (a man of elegant mind, and who has lived much with the best--Fox, Horne Tooke, Windham, Fitzpatrick, and all the agitators of other times and tongues,) told us the particulars of his last interview with Windham, a few days before the fatal operation which sent 'that gallant spirit to aspire the skies.' Windham,--the first in one department of oratory and talent, whose only fault was his refinement beyond the intellect of half his hearers,--Windham, half his life an active participator in the events of the earth, and one of those who governed nations,--_he_ regretted, and dwelt much on that regret, that 'he had not entirely devoted himself to literature and science!!!' His mind certainly would have carried him to eminence there, as elsewhere;--but I cannot comprehend what debility of that mind could suggest such a wish. I, who have heard him, cannot regret any thing but that I shall never hear him again. What! would he have been a plodder? a metaphysician?--perhaps a rhymer? a scribbler? Such an exchange must have been suggested by illness. But he is gone, and Time 'shall not look upon his like again.'

"I am tremendously in arrear with my letters,--except to * *, and to her my thoughts overpower me:--my words never compass them. To Lady Melbourne I write with most pleasure--and her answers, so sensible, so _tactique_--I never met with half her talent. If she had been a few years younger, what a fool she would have made of me, had she thought it worth her while,--and I should have lost a valuable and most agreeable friend. Mem. a mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and, when it is over, any thing but friends.

"I have not answered W. Scott's last letter,--but I will. I regret to hear from others that he has lately been unfortunate in pecuniary involvements. He is undoubtedly the Monarch of Parnassus, and the most _English_ of bards. I should place Rogers next in the living list (I value him more as the last of the best school)--Moore and Campbell both _third_--Southey and Wordsworth and Coleridge--the rest, [Greek: hoi polloi]--thus:--

W. SCOTT
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ ROGERS.\
/----------\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ MOORE.--CAMPBELL.\
/--------------------\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ SOUTHEY.--WORDSWORTH.--COLERIDGE.\
/------------------------------------\
/ \
/ THE MANY. \
/ \
/--------------------------------------------\

There is a triangular 'Gradus ad Parnassum!'--the names are too numerous for the base of the triangle. Poor Thurlow has gone wild about the poetry of Queen Bess's reign--_c'est dommage_. I have ranked the names upon my triangle more upon what I believe popular opinion, than any decided opinion of my own. For, to me, some of M * * e's last _Erin_ sparks--'As a beam o'er the face of the waters'--'When he who adores thee'--'Oh blame not'--and 'Oh breathe not his name'--are worth all the Epics that ever were composed.

"* * thinks the Quarterly will attack me next. Let them. I have been 'peppered so highly' in my time, both ways, that it must be cayenne or aloes to make me taste. I can sincerely say that I am not very much alive _now_ to criticism. But--in tracing this--I rather believe, that it proceeds from my not attaching that importance to authorship which many do, and which, when young, I did also. 'One gets tired of every thing, my angel,' says Valmont. The 'angels' are the only things of which I am not a little sick--but I do think the preference of _writers_ to _agents_--the mighty stir made about scribbling and scribes, by themselves and others--a sign of effeminacy, degeneracy, and weakness. Who would write, who had any thing better to do? 'Action--action--action'--said Demosthenes: 'Actions--actions,' I say, and not writing,--least of all, rhyme. Look at the querulous and monotonous lives of the 'genus;'--except Cervantes, Tasso, Dante, Ariosto, Kleist (who were brave and active citizens), Aeschylus, Sophocles, and some other of the antiques also--what a worthless, idle brood it is!

"12, Mezza notte.

"Just returned from dinner with Jackson (the Emperor of Pugilism) and another of the select, at Crib's the champion's. I drank more than I like, and have brought away some three bottles of very fair claret--for I have no headach. We had Tom * * up after dinner;--very facetious, though somewhat prolix. He don't like his situation--wants to fight again--pray Pollux (or Castor, if he was the _miller_) he may! Tom has been a sailor--a coal heaver--and some other genteel profession, before he took to the cestus. Tom has been in action at sea, and is now only three-and-thirty. A great man! has a wife and a mistress, and conversations well--bating some sad omissions and misapplications of the aspirate. Tom is an old friend of mine; I have seen some of his best battles in my nonage. He is now a publican, and, I fear, a sinner;--for Mrs. * * is on alimony, and * *'s daughter lives with the champion. _This_ * * told me,--Tom, having an opinion of my morals, passed her off as a legal spouse. Talking of her, he said, 'she was the truest of women'--from which I immediately inferred she could not be his wife, and so it turned out.

"These panegyrics don't belong to matrimony;--for, if 'true,' a man don't think it necessary to say so; and if not, the less he says the better. * * * * is the only man, except * * * *, I ever heard harangue upon his wife's virtue; and I listened to both with great credence and patience, and stuffed my handkerchief into my mouth, when I found yawning irresistible.--By the by, I am yawning now--so, good night to thee.--[Greek: Nôhairôn].

"Thursday, November 26.

"Awoke a little feverish, but no headach--no dreams neither, thanks to stupor! Two letters; one from * * * *'s, the other from Lady Melbourne--both excellent in their respective styles. * * * *'s contained also a very pretty lyric on 'concealed griefs;' if not her own, yet very like her. Why did she not say that the stanzas were, or were not, of her composition? I do not know whether to wish them hers or not. I have no great esteem for poetical persons, particularly women; they have so much of the 'ideal' in _practics_, as well as _ethics_.

"I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff, &c. &c. &c. &c.[96]

"Lord Holland invited me to dinner to-day; but three days' dining would destroy me. So, without eating at all since yesterday, I went to my box at Covent Garden.

"Saw * * * * looking very pretty, though quite a different style of beauty from the other two. She has the finest eyes in the world, out of which she pretends _not_ to see, and the longest eyelashes I ever saw, since Leila's and Phannio's Moslem curtains of the light. She has much beauty,--just enough,--but is, I think, _méchante_.

"I have been pondering on the miseries of separation, that--oh how seldom we see those we love! yet we live ages in moments, _when met_. The only thing that consoles me during absence is the reflection that no mental or personal estrangement, from ennui or disagreement, can take place; and when people meet hereafter, even though many changes may have taken place in the mean time, still, unless they are _tired_ of each other, they are ready to reunite, and do not blame each other for the circumstances that severed them.

[Footnote 96: This passage has been already extracted.]

"Saturday 27. (I believe--or rather am in _doubt_, which is the ne plus ultra of mortal faith.)

"I have missed a day; and, as the Irishman said, or Joe Miller says for him, 'have gained a loss,' or _by_ the loss. Every thing is settled for Holland, and nothing but a cough, or a caprice of my fellow-traveller's, can stop us. Carriage ordered, funds prepared, and, probably, a gale of wind into the bargain. _N'importe_--I believe, with Clym o' the Clow, or Robin Hood, 'By our Mary, (dear name!) that art both Mother and May, I think it never was a man's lot to die before this day.' Heigh for Helvoetsluys, and so forth!

"To-night I went with young Henry Fox to see 'Nourjahad,' a drama, which the Morning Post hath laid to my charge, but of which I cannot even guess the author. I wonder what they will next inflict upon me. They cannot well sink below a melodrama; but that is better than a Satire, (at least, a personal one,) with which I stand truly arraigned, and in atonement of which I am resolved to bear silently all criticisms, abuses, and even praises, for bad pantomimes never composed by me, without even a contradictory aspect. I suppose the root of this report is my loan to the manager of my Turkish drawings for his dresses, to which he was more welcome than to my name. I suppose the real author will soon own it, as it has succeeded; if not, Job be my model, and Lethe my beverage!

"* * * * has received the portrait safe; and, in answer, the only remark she makes upon it is, 'indeed it is like'--and again, 'indeed it is like.' With her the likeness 'covered a multitude of sins;' for I happen to know that this portrait was not a flatterer, but dark and stern,--even black as the mood in which my mind was scorching last July, when I sat for it. All the others of me, like most portraits whatsoever, are, of course, more agreeable than nature.

"Redde the Ed. Review of Rogers. He is ranked highly; but where he should be. There is a summary view of us all--_Moore_ and _me_ among the rest; and both (the _first_ justly) praised--though, by implication (justly again) placed beneath our memorable friend. Mackintosh is the writer, and also of the critique on the Staël. His grand essay on Burke, I hear, is for the next number. But I know nothing of the Edinburgh, or of any other Review, but from rumour; and I have long ceased--indeed, I could not, in justice, complain of any, even though I were to rate poetry, in general, and my rhymes in particular, more highly than I really do. To withdraw _myself_ from _myself_ (oh that cursed selfishness!) has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all; and publishing is also the continuance of the same object, by the action it affords to the mind, which else recoils upon itself. If I valued fame, I should flatter received opinions, which have gathered strength by time, and will yet wear longer than any living works to the contrary. But, for the soul of me, I cannot and will not give the lie to my own thoughts and doubts, come what may. If I am a fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

"All are inclined to believe what they covet, from a lottery-ticket up to a passport to Paradise,--in which, from the description, I see nothing very tempting. My restlessness tells me I have something within that 'passeth show.' It is for Him, who made it, to prolong that spark of celestial fire which illuminates, yet burns, this frail tenement; but I see no such horror in a 'dreamless sleep,' and I have no conception of any existence which duration would not render tiresome. How else 'fell the angels,' even according to your creed? They were immortal, heavenly, and happy as their _apostate_ _Abdiel_ is now by his treachery. Time must decide; and eternity won't be the less agreeable or more horrible because one did not expect it. In the mean time, I am grateful for some good, and tolerably patient under certain evils--grace à Dieu et mon bon tempérament.

"Sunday, 28th.

----

"Monday, 29th.

----

"Tuesday, 30th.

"Two days missed in my log-book;--hiatus _haud_ deflendus. They were as little worth recollection as the rest; and, luckily, laziness or society prevented me from _notching_ them.