Chapter LXIII: Letter 456: To Mr. Murray

"Ravenna, September 24. 1821.

"I have been thinking over our late correspondence, and wish to
propose to you the following articles for our future:--

"1stly. That you shall write to me of yourself, of the health,
wealth, and welfare of all friends; but of _me_ (_quoad me_) little
or nothing.

"2dly. That you shall send me soda-powders, tooth-powder,
tooth-brushes, or any such anti-odontalgic or chemical articles, as
heretofore,'ad libitum,' upon being reimbursed for the same.

"3dly. That you shall not send me any modern, or (as they are
called) _new_ publications, in _English whatsoever_, save and
excepting any writing, prose or verse, of (or reasonably presumed
to be of) Walter Scott, Crabbe, Moore, Campbell, Rogers, Gifford,
Joanna Baillie, _Irving_ (the American), Hogg, Wilson (Isle of
Palms man), or _any_ especial _single_ work of fancy which is
thought to be of considerable merit; _Voyages_ and _Travels_,
provided that they are _neither in Greece, Spain, Asia Minor,
Albania, nor Italy_, will be welcome. Having travelled the
countries mentioned, I know that what is said of them can convey
nothing farther which I desire to know about them.--No other
English works whatsoever.

"4thly. That you send me no periodical works whatsoever--_no_
Edinburgh, Quarterly, Monthly, nor any review, magazine, or
newspaper, English or foreign, of any description.

"5thly. That you send me no opinions whatsoever, either _good_,
_bad_, or _indifferent_, of yourself, or your friends, or others,
concerning any work, or works, of mine, past, present, or to come.

"6thly. That all negotiations in matters of business between you
and me pass through the medium of the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, my
friend and trustee, or Mr. Hobhouse, as 'alter ego,' and tantamount
to myself during my absence--or presence.

"Some of these propositions may at first seem strange, but they are
founded. The quantity of trash I have received as books is
incalculable, and neither amused nor instructed. Reviews and
magazines are at the best but ephemeral and superficial reading:
who thinks of the _grand article of last year_ in any _given
Review_? In the next place, if they regard myself, they tend to
increase _egotism_. If favourable, I do not deny that the praise
_elates_, and if unfavourable, that the abuse _irritates_. The
latter may conduct me to inflict a species of satire which would
neither do good to you nor to your friends: _they_ may smile _now_,
and so may _you_; but if I took you all in hand, it would not be
difficult to cut you up like gourds. I did as much by as powerful
people at nineteen years old, and I know little as yet, in
three-and-thirty, which should prevent me from making all your ribs
gridirons for your hearts, if such were my propensity: but it is
_not_; therefore let me hear none of your provocations. If any
thing occurs so very gross as to require my notice, I shall hear of
it from my legal friends. For the rest, I merely request to be left
in ignorance.

"The same applies to opinions, _good_, _bad_, or _indifferent_, of
persons in conversation or correspondence. These do not
_interrupt_, but they _soil_ the _current_ of my _mind_. I am
sensitive enough, but _not_ till I am _troubled_; and here I am
beyond the touch of the short arms of literary England, except the
few feelers of the polypus that crawl over the channels in the way
of extract.

"All these precautions _in_ England would be useless; the libeller
or the flatterer would there reach me in spite of all; but in Italy
we know little of literary England, and think less, except what
reaches us through some garbled and brief extract in some miserable
gazette. For _two years_ (excepting two or three articles cut out
and sent to _you_ by the post) I never read a newspaper which was
not forced upon me by some accident, and know, upon the whole, as
little of England as you do of Italy, and God knows _that_ is
little enough, with all your travels, &c. &c. &c. The English
travellers _know Italy as you_ know Guernsey: how much is _that_?

"If any thing occurs so violently gross or personal as requires
notice, Mr. Douglas Kinnaird will let me _know_; but of _praise_ I
desire to hear _nothing_.

"You will say, 'to what tends all this?' I will answer THAT;--to
keep my mind _free and unbiassed_ by all paltry and personal
irritabilities of praise or censure--to let my genius take its
natural direction, while my feelings are like the dead, who know
nothing and feel nothing of all or aught that is said or done in
their regard.

"If you can observe these conditions, you will spare yourself and
others some pain: let me not be worked upon to rise up; for if I
do, it will not be for a little. If you _cannot_ observe these
conditions, we shall cease to be correspondents,--but not
_friends_, for I shall always be yours ever and truly,

"BYRON.

"P.S. I have taken these resolutions not from any irritation
against you or _yours_, but simply upon reflection that all
reading, either praise or censure, of myself has done me harm. When
I was in Switzerland and Greece, I was out of the way of hearing
either, and _how I wrote there!_--In Italy I am out of the way of
it too; but latterly, partly through my fault, and partly through
your kindness in wishing to send me the _newest_ and most
periodical publications, I have had a crowd of Reviews, &c. thrust
upon me, which have bored me with their jargon, of one kind or
another, and taken off my attention from greater objects. You have
also sent me a parcel of trash of poetry, for no reason that I can
conceive, unless to provoke me to write a new 'English Bards.' Now
_this_ I wish to avoid; for if ever I _do_, it will be a strong
production; and I desire peace as long as the fools will keep their
nonsense out of my way."[54]

[Footnote 54: It would be difficult to describe more strongly or more convincingly than Lord Byron has done in this letter the sort of petty, but thwarting obstructions and distractions which are at present thrown across the path of men of real talent by that swarm of minor critics and pretenders with whom the want of a vent in other professions has crowded all the walks of literature. Nor is it only the writers of the day that suffer from this multifarious rush into the mart;--the readers also, from having (as Lord Byron expresses it in another letter) "the superficies of too many things presented to them at once," come to lose by degrees their powers of discrimination; and, in the same manner as the palate becomes confused in trying various wines, so the public taste declines in proportion as the impressions to which it is exposed multiply.]

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