Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works

by Thomas Moore

  For some time he had entertained thoughts of going again abroad; and it appeared, indeed, to be a sort of relief to him, whenever he felt melancholy or harassed, to turn to the freedom and solitude of a life of travel as his resource. During the depression of spirits which he laboured under, while printing Childe Harold, “he would frequently,” says Mr. Dallas, “talk of selling Newstead, and of going to reside at Naxos, in the Grecian Archipelago, — to adopt the eastern costume and customs, and to pass his time in studying the Oriental languages and literature.” The excitement of the triumph that soon after ensued, and the success which, in other pursuits besides those of literature, attended him, again diverted his thoughts from these migratory projects. But the roving fit soon returned; and we have seen, from one of his letters to Mr. William Bankes, that he looked forward to finding himself, in the course of this spring, among the mountains of his beloved Greece once more. For a time, this plan was exchanged for the more social project of accompanying his friends, the family of Lord Oxford, to Sicily; and it was while engaged in his preparatives for this expedition that the annexed letters were written.

  LETTER 121. TO MR. MURRAY.

  “Maidenhead, June 13. 1813.

  “* * * I have read the ‘Strictures,’ which are just enough, and not grossly abusive, in very fair couplets. There is a note against Massinger near the end, and one cannot quarrel with one’s company, at any rate. The author detects some incongruous figures in a passage of English Bards, page 23., but which edition I do not know. In the sole copy in your possession — I mean the fifth edition — you may make these alterations, that I may profit (though a little too late) by his remarks: — For ‘hellish instinct,’ substitute ‘brutal instinct;’ ‘harpies’ alter to ‘felons;’ and for ‘blood-hounds’ write ‘hell-hounds.’ These be ‘very bitter words, by my troth,’ and the alterations not much sweeter; but as I shall not publish the thing, they can do no harm, but are a satisfaction to me in the way of amendment. The passage is only twelve lines.

  “You do not answer me about H.’s book; I want to write to him, and not to say any thing unpleasing. If you direct to Post Office, Portsmouth, till called for, I will send and receive your letter. You never told me of the forthcoming critique on Columbus, which is not too fair; and I do not think justice quite done to the ‘Pleasures,’ which surely entitle the author to a higher rank than that assigned him in the Quarterly. But I must not cavil at the decisions of the invisible infallibles; and the article is very well written. The general horror of ‘fragments’ makes me tremulous for ‘The Giaour;’ but you would publish it — I presume, by this time, to your repentance. But as I consented, whatever be its fate, I won’t now quarrel with you, even though I detect it in my pastry; but I shall not open a pie without apprehension for some weeks.

  “The books which may be marked G.O. I will carry out. Do you know Clarke’s Naufragia? I am told that he asserts the first volume of Robinson Crusoe was written by the first Lord Oxford, when in the Tower, and given by him to Defoe; if true, it is a curious anecdote. Have you got back Lord Brooke’s MS.? and what does Heber say of it? Write to me at Portsmouth. Ever yours, &c.

  “N.”

  TO MR. MURRAY.

  “June 18. 1813.

  “Dear Sir,

  “Will you forward the enclosed answer to the kindest letter I ever received in my life, my sense of which I can neither express to Mr. Gifford himself nor to any one else? Ever yours,

  “N.”

  LETTER 122. TO W. GIFFORD, ESQ.

  “June 18. 1813.

  “My dear Sir,

  “I feel greatly at a loss how to write to you at all — still more to thank you as I ought. If you knew the veneration with which I have ever regarded you, long before I had the most distant prospect of becoming your acquaintance, literary or personal, my embarrassment would not surprise you.

  “Any suggestion of yours, even were it conveyed in the less tender shape of the text of the Baviad, or a Monk Mason note in Massinger, would have been obeyed; I should have endeavoured to improve myself by your censure: judge then if I should be less willing to profit by your kindness. It is not for me to bandy compliments with my elders and my betters: I receive your approbation with gratitude, and will not return my brass for your gold by expressing more fully those sentiments of admiration, which, however sincere, would, I know, be unwelcome.

  “To your advice on religious topics, I shall equally attend. Perhaps the best way will be by avoiding them altogether. The already published objectionable passages have been much commented upon, but certainly have been rather strongly interpreted. I am no bigot to infidelity, and did not expect that, because I doubted the immortality of man, I should be charged with denying the existence of a God. It was the comparative insignificance of ourselves and our world, when placed in comparison with the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first led me to imagine that our pretensions to eternity might be over-rated.

  “This, and being early disgusted with a Calvinistic Scotch school, where I was cudgelled to church for the first ten years of my life, afflicted me with this malady; for, after all, it is, I believe, a disease of the mind as much as other kinds of hypochondria.”

  LETTER 123. TO MR. MOORE.

  “June 22. 1813.

  “Yesterday I dined in company with ‘* *, the Epicene,’ whose politics are sadly changed. She is for the Lord of Israel and the Lord of Liverpool — a vile antithesis of a Methodist and a Tory — talks of nothing but devotion and the ministry, and, I presume, expects that God and the government will help her to a pension.

  “Murray, the αναξ of publishers, the Anac of stationers, has a design upon you in the paper line. He wants you to become the staple and stipendiary editor of a periodical work. What say you? Will you be bound, like ‘Kit Smart, to write for ninety-nine years in the Universal Visiter?’ Seriously he talks of hundreds a year, and — though I hate prating of the beggarly elements — his proposal may be to your honour and profit, and, I am very sure, will be to our pleasure.

  “I don’t know what to say about ‘friendship.’ I never was in friendship but once, in my nineteenth year, and then it gave me as much trouble as love. I am afraid, as Whitbread’s sire said to the king, when he wanted to knight him, that I am ‘too old:’ but, nevertheless, no one wishes you more friends, fame, and felicity, than Yours,” &c.

  Having relinquished his design of accompanying the Oxfords to Sicily, he again thought of the East, as will be seen by the following letters, and proceeded so far in his preparations for the voyage as to purchase of Love, the jeweller, of Old Bond Street, about a dozen snuff-boxes, as presents for some of his old Turkish acquaintances.

  LETTER 124. TO MR. MOORE.

  “4. Benedictine Street, St. James’s, July 8. 1813.

  “I presume by your silence that I have blundered into something noxious in my reply to your letter, for the which I beg leave to send beforehand a sweeping apology, which you may apply to any, or all, parts of that unfortunate epistle. If I err in my conjecture, I expect the like from you, in putting our correspondence so long in quarantine. God he knows what I have said; but he also knows (if he is not as indifferent to mortals as the nonchalant deities of Lucretius), that you are the last person I want to offend. So, if I have, — why the devil don’t you say it at once, and expectorate your spleen?

  “Rogers is out of town with Madame de Staël, who hath published an Essay against Suicide, which, I presume, will make somebody shoot himself; — as a sermon by Blinkensop, in proof of Christianity, sent a hitherto most orthodox acquaintance of mine out of a chapel of ease a perfect atheist. Have you found or founded a residence yet? and have you begun or finished a poem? If you won’t tell me what I have done, pray say what you have done, or left undone, yourself. I am still in equipment for voyaging, and anxious to hear from, or of, you before I go, which anxiety you should remove more readily, as you think I sha’n’t cogitate about you afterwards. I shall give the lie to that calumny by fi
fty foreign letters, particularly from any place where the plague is rife, — without a drop of vinegar or a whiff of sulphur to save you from infection.

  “The Oxfords have sailed almost a fortnight, and my sister is in town, which is a great comfort — for, never having been much together, we are naturally more attached to each other. I presume the illuminations have conflagrated to Derby (or wherever you are) by this time. We are just recovering from tumult and train oil, and transparent fripperies, and all the noise and nonsense of victory. Drury Lane had a large M.W., which some thought was Marshal Wellington; others, that it might be translated into Manager Whitbread; while the ladies of the vicinity of the saloon conceived the last letter to be complimentary to themselves. I leave this to the commentators to illustrate. If you don’t answer this, I sha’n’t say what you deserve, but I think I deserve a reply. Do you conceive there is no Post-Bag but the Twopenny? Sunburn me, if you are not too bad.”

  LETTER 125. TO MR. MOORE.

  “July 13. 1813.

  “Your letter set me at ease; for I really thought (as I hear of your susceptibility) that I had said — I know not what — but something I should have been very sorry for, had it, or I, offended you; — though I don’t see how a man with a beautiful wife — his own children, — quiet — fame — competency and friends, (I will vouch for a thousand, which is more than I will for a unit in my own behalf,) can be offended with any thing.

  “Do you know, Moore, I am amazingly inclined — remember I say but inclined — to be seriously enamoured with Lady A.F. — but this * * has ruined all my prospects. However, you know her; is she clever, or sensible, or good-tempered? either would do — I scratch out the will. I don’t ask as to her beauty — that I see; but my circumstances are mending, and were not my other prospects blackening, I would take a wife, and that should be the woman, had I a chance. I do not yet know her much, but better than I did.

  “I want to get away, but find difficulty in compassing a passage in a ship of war. They had better let me go; if I cannot, patriotism is the word— ‘nay, an’ they’ll mouth, I’ll rant as well as they.’ Now, what are you doing? — writing, we all hope, for our own sakes. Remember you must edite my posthumous works, with a Life of the Author, for which I will send you Confessions, dated, ‘Lazaretto,’ Smyrna, Malta, or Palermo — one can die any where.

  “There is to be a thing on Tuesday ycleped a national fête. The Regent and * * * are to be there, and every body else, who has shillings enough for what was once a guinea. Vauxhall is the scene — there are six tickets issued for the modest women, and it is supposed there will be three to spare. The passports for the lax are beyond my arithmetic.

  “P.S. — The Staël last night attacked me most furiously — said that I had ‘no right to make love — that I had used * * barbarously — that I had no feeling, and was totally insensible to la belle passion, and had been all my life.’ I am very glad to hear it, but did not know it before. Let me hear from you anon.”

  LETTER 126. TO MR. MOORE.

  “July 25. 1813.

  “I am not well versed enough in the ways of single woman to make much matrimonial progress.

  “I have been dining like the dragon of Wantley for this last week. My head aches with the vintage of various cellars, and my brains are muddled as their dregs. I met your friends the D * * s: — she sung one of your best songs so well, that, but for the appearance of affectation, I could have cried; he reminds me of Hunt, but handsomer, and more musical in soul, perhaps. I wish to God he may conquer his horrible anomalous complaint. The upper part of her face is beautiful, and she seems much attached to her husband. He is right, nevertheless, in leaving this nauseous town. The first winter would infallibly destroy her complexion, — and the second, very probably, every thing else.

  “I must tell you a story. M * * (of indifferent memory) was dining out the other day, and complaining of the P —— e’s coldness to his old wassailers. D * * (a learned Jew) bored him with questions — why this? and why that? ‘Why did the P —— e act thus?’— ‘Why, sir, on account of Lord * *, who ought to be ashamed of himself.’— ‘And why ought Lord * * to be ashamed of himself?’— ‘Because the P —— e, sir, * * * * * * * *.’— ‘And why, sir, did the P —— e cut you?’—’ Because, G —— d d —— mme, sir, I stuck to my principles.’— ‘And why did you stick to your principles?’

  “Is not this last question the best that was ever put, when you consider to whom? It nearly killed M * *. Perhaps you may think it stupid, but, as Goldsmith said about the peas, it was a very good joke when I heard it — as I did from an ear-witness — and is only spoilt in my narration.

  “The season has closed with a dandy ball; — but I have dinners with the Harrowbys, Rogers, and Frere and Mackintosh, where I shall drink your health in a silent bumper, and regret your absence till ‘too much canaries’ wash away my memory, or render it superfluous by a vision of you at the opposite side of the table. Canning has disbanded his party by a speech from his * * * * — the true throne of a Tory. Conceive his turning them off in a formal harangue, and bidding them think for themselves. ‘I have led my ragamuffins where they are well peppered. There are but three of the 150 left alive, and they are for the Towns-end (query, might not Falstaff mean the Bow Street officer? I dare say Malone’s posthumous edition will have it so) for life.’

  “Since I wrote last, I have been into the country. I journeyed by night — no incident, or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in crossing Epping Forest, actually, I believe, flung down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second figure of number XIX — mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. I can only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols wherewith I had armed him; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out to me whenever we passed any thing — no matter whether moving or stationary. Conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong. I have scribbled you a fearfully long letter. This sheet must be blank, and is merely a wrapper, to preclude the tabellarians of the post from peeping. You once complained of my not writing; — I will ‘heap coals of fire upon your head’ by not complaining of your not reading. Ever, my dear Moore, your’n (isn’t that the Staffordshire termination?)

  “BYRON.”

  LETTER 127. TO MR. MOORE.

  “July 27. 1813.

  “When you next imitate the style of ‘Tacitus,’ pray add, ‘de moribus Germanorum;’ — this last was a piece of barbarous silence, and could only be taken from the Woods, and, as such, I attribute it entirely to your sylvan sequestration at Mayfield Cottage. You will find, on casting up accounts, that you are my debtor by several sheets and one epistle. I shall bring my action; — if you don’t discharge, expect to hear from my attorney. I have forwarded your letter to Ruggiero; but don’t make a postman of me again, for fear I should be tempted to violate your sanctity of wax or wafer.

  “Believe me ever yours indignantly,

  “BN.”

  LETTER 128. TO MR. MOORE.

  “July 28. 1813.

  “Can’t you be satisfied with the pangs of my jealousy of Rogers, without actually making me the pander of your epistolary intrigue? This is the second letter you have enclosed to my address, notwithstanding a miraculous long answer, and a subsequent short one or two of your own. If you do so again, I can’t tell to what pitch my fury may soar. I shall send you verse or arsenic, as likely as any thing, — four thousand couplets on sheets beyond the privilege of franking; that privilege, sir, of which you take an undue advantage over a too susceptible senator, by forwarding your lucubrations to every one but himself. I won’t frank from you, or for you, or to you — may I be curst if I do, unless you mend your manners. I disown you — I disclaim you — and by all the powers of Eulogy, I will write a panegyric upon you — or dedicate a quarto — if you don’t make me ample amends.

  “P.S. — I am in training to dine with Sheridan and Rogers this evening. I have a little spite against R., and will
shed his ‘Clary wines pottle-deep.’ This is nearly my ultimate or penultimate letter; for I am quite equipped, and only wait a passage. Perhaps I may wait a few weeks for Sligo, but not if I can help it.”

  He had, with the intention of going to Greece, applied to Mr. Croker, the Secretary of the Admiralty, to procure him a passage on board a king’s ship to the Mediterranean; and, at the request of this gentleman, Captain Carlton, of the Boyne, who was just then ordered to reinforce Sir Edward Pellew, consented to receive Lord Byron into his cabin for the voyage. To the letter announcing this offer, the following is the reply.

  LETTER 129. TO MR. CROKER.

  “Bt. Str., August 2. 1813.

  “Dear Sir,

  “I was honoured with your unexpected and very obliging letter, when on the point of leaving London, which prevented me from acknowledging my obligation as quickly as I felt it sincerely. I am endeavouring all in my power to be ready before Saturday — and even if I should not succeed, I can only blame my own tardiness, which will not the less enhance the benefit I have lost. I have only to add my hope of forgiveness for all my trespasses on your time and patience, and with my best wishes for your public and private welfare, I have the honour to be, most truly, your obliged and most obedient servant,