by Thomas Moore
“I crossed the Hellespont in one hour and ten minutes only. I am now ten years older in time, and twenty in constitution, than I was when I passed the Dardanelles, and yet two years ago I was capable of swimming four hours and twenty minutes; and I am sure that I could have continued two hours longer, though I had on a pair of trowsers, an accoutrement which by no means assists the performance. My two companions were also four hours in the water. Mengaldo might be about thirty years of age; Scott about six-and-twenty.
“With this experience in swimming at different periods of life, not only upon the SPOT, but elsewhere, of various persons, what is there to make me doubt that Leander’s exploit was perfectly practicable? If three individuals did more than the passage of the Hellespont, why should he have done less? But Mr. Turner failed, and, naturally seeking a plausible reason for his failure, lays the blame on the Asiatic side of the strait. He tried to swim directly across, instead of going higher up to take the vantage: he might as well have tried to fly over Mount Athos.
“That a young Greek of the heroic times, in love, and with his limbs in full vigour, might have succeeded in such an attempt is neither wonderful nor doubtful. Whether he attempted it or not is another question, because he might have had a small boat to save him the trouble.
“I am yours very truly,
“BYRON.
“P.S. Mr. Turner says that the swimming from Europe to Asia was ‘the easiest part of the task.’ I doubt whether Leander found it so, as it was the return; however, he had several hours between the intervals. The argument of Mr. Turner, ‘that higher up or lower down, the strait widens so considerably that he would save little labour by his starting,’ is only good for indifferent swimmers; a man of any practice or skill will always consider the distance less than the strength of the stream. If Ekenhead and myself had thought of crossing at the narrowest point, instead of going up to the Cape above it, we should have been swept down to Tenedos. The strait, however, is not so extremely wide, even where it broadens above and below the forts. As the frigate was stationed some time in the Dardanelles waiting for the firman, I bathed often in the strait subsequently to our traject, and generally on the Asiatic side, without perceiving the greater strength of the opposite stream by which the diplomatic traveller palliates his own failure. Our amusement in the small bay which opens immediately below the Asiatic fort was to dive for the LAND tortoises, which we flung in on purpose, as they amphibiously crawled along the bottom. This does not argue any greater violence of current than on the European shore. With regard to the modest insinuation that we chose the European side as ‘easier,’ I appeal to Mr. Hobhouse and Captain Bathurst if it be true or no (poor Ekenhead being since dead). Had we been aware of any such difference of current as is asserted, we would at least have proved it, and were not likely to have given it up in the twenty-five minutes of Mr. Turner’s own experiment. The secret of all this is, that Mr. Turner failed, and that we succeeded; and he is consequently disappointed, and seems not unwilling to overshadow whatever little merit there might be in our success. Why did he not try the European side? If he had succeeded there, after failing on the Asiatic, his plea would have been more graceful and gracious. Mr. Turner may find what fault he pleases with my poetry, or my politics; but I recommend him to leave aquatic reflections till he is able to swim ‘five-and-twenty minutes’ without being ‘exhausted,’ though I believe he is the first modern Tory who ever swam ‘against the stream for half the time.”
LETTER 414. TO MR. MOORE.
“Ravenna, February 22. 1821.
“As I wish the soul of the late Antoine Galignani to rest in peace, (you will have read his death, published by himself, in his own newspaper,) you are requested particularly to inform his children and heirs, that of their ‘Literary Gazette,’ to which I subscribed more than two months ago, I have only received one number, notwithstanding I have written to them repeatedly. If they have no regard for me, a subscriber, they ought to have some for their deceased parent, who is undoubtedly no better off in his present residence for this total want of attention. If not, let me have my francs. They were paid by Missiaglia, the Wenetian bookseller. You may also hint to them that when a gentleman writes a letter, it is usual to send an answer. If not, I shall make them ‘a speech,’ which will comprise an eulogy on the deceased.
“We are here full of war, and within two days of the seat of it, expecting intelligence momently. We shall now see if our Italian friends are good for any thing but ‘shooting round a corner,’ like the Irishman’s gun. Excuse haste, — I write with my spurs putting on. My horses are at the door, and an Italian Count waiting to accompany me in my ride.
“Yours, &c.
“P.S. Pray, amongst my letters, did you get one detailing the death of the commandant here? He was killed near my door, and died in my house.
“BOWLES AND CAMPBELL.
“To the air of ‘How now, Madame Flirt,’ in the Beggars’ Opera.
BOWLES. “Why, how now, saucy Tom, If you thus must ramble, I will publish some Remarks on Mr. Campbell.
CAMPBELL. “Why, how now, Billy Bowles, &c. &c. &c.”
LETTER 415. TO MR. MURRAY.
“March 2. 1821.
“This was the beginning of a letter which I meant for Perry, but stopped short, hoping you would be able to prevent the theatres. Of course you need not send it; but it explains to you my feelings on the subject. You say that ‘there is nothing to fear, let them do what they please;’ that is to say, that you would see me damned with great tranquillity. You are a fine fellow.”
TO MR. PERRY.
“Ravenna, January 22. 1821.
“Dear Sir,
“I have received a strange piece of news, which cannot be more disagreeable to your public than it is to me. Letters and the gazettes do me the honour to say that it is the intention of some of the London managers to bring forward on their stage the poem of ‘Marino Faliero,’ &c. which was never intended for such an exhibition, and I trust will never undergo it. It is certainly unfit for it. I have never written but for the solitary reader, and require no experiments for applause beyond his silent approbation. Since such an attempt to drag me forth as a gladiator in the theatrical arena is a violation of all the courtesies of literature, I trust that the impartial part of the press will step between me and this pollution. I say pollution, because every violation of a right is such, and I claim my right as an author to prevent what I have written from being turned into a stage-play. I have too much respect for the public to permit this of my own free will. Had I sought their favour, it would have been by a pantomime.
“I have said that I write only for the reader. Beyond this I cannot consent to any publication, or to the abuse of any publication of mine to the purposes of histrionism. The applauses of an audience would give me no pleasure; their disapprobation might, however, give me pain. The wager is therefore not equal. You may, perhaps, say, ‘How can this be? if their disapprobation gives pain, their praise might afford pleasure?’ By no means: the kick of an ass or the sting of a wasp may be painful to those who would find nothing agreeable in the braying of the one or the buzzing of the other.
“This may not seem a courteous comparison, but I have no other ready; and it occurs naturally.”
LETTER 416. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, Marzo, 1821.
“Dear Moray,
“In my packet of the 12th instant, in the last sheet (not the half sheet), last page, omit the sentence which (defining, or attempting to define, what and who are gentlemen) begins, ‘I should say at least in life that most military men have it, and few naval; that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers,’ &c. &c. I say, omit the whole of that sentence, because, like the ‘cosmogony, or creation of the world,’ in the ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ it is not much to the purpose.
“In the sentence above, too, almost at the top of the same page, after the words ‘that there ever was, or can be, an aristocracy of poets,’ add and insert these words— ‘I do n
ot mean that they should write in the style of the song by a person of quality, or parle euphuism; but there is a nobility of thought and expression to be found no less in Shakspeare, Pope, and Burns, than in Dante, Alfieri,’ &c. &c. and so on. Or, if you please, perhaps you had better omit the whole of the latter digression on the vulgar poets, and insert only as far as the end of the sentence on Pope’s Homer, where I prefer it to Cowper’s, and quote Dr. Clarke in favour of its accuracy.
“Upon all these points, take an opinion; take the sense (or nonsense) of your learned visitants, and act thereby. I am very tractable — in PROSE.
“Whether I have made out the case for Pope, I know not; but I am very sure that I have been zealous in the attempt. If it comes to the proofs we shall beat the blackguards. I will show more imagery in twenty lines of Pope than in any equal length of quotation in English poesy, and that in places where they least expect it. For instance, in his lines on Sporus, — now, do just read them over — the subject is of no consequence (whether it be satire or epic) — we are talking of poetry and imagery from nature and art. Now, mark the images separately and arithmetically: —
“‘1. The thing of silk.
2. Curd of ass’s milk.
3. The butterfly.
4. The wheel.
5. Bug with gilded wings.
6. Painted child of dirt.
7. Whose buzz.
8. Well-bred spaniels.
9. Shallow streams run dimpling.
10. Florid impotence.
11. Prompter. Puppet squeaks.
12. The ear of Eve.
13. Familiar toad.
14. Half froth, half venom, splits himself abroad.
15. Fop at the toilet.
16. Flatterer at the board.
17. Amphibious thing.
18. Now trips a lady.
19. Now struts a lord.
20. A cherub’s face.
21. A reptile all the rest.
22. The Rabbins.
23. Pride that licks the dust.
“‘Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust. Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.’
“Now, is there a line of all the passage without the most forcible imagery (for his purpose)? Look at the variety — at the poetry of the passage — at the imagination: there is hardly a line from which a painting might not be made, and is. But this is nothing in comparison with his higher passages in the Essay on Man, and many of his other poems, serious and comic. There never was such an unjust outcry in this world as that which these fellows are trying against Pope.
“Ask Mr. Gifford if, in the fifth act of ‘The Doge,’ you could not contrive (where the sentence of the Veil is passed) to insert the following lines in Marino Faliero’s answer?
“But let it be so. It will be in vain: The veil which blackens o’er this blighted name, And hides, or seems to hide, these lineaments, Shall draw more gazers than the thousand portraits Which glitter round it in their painted trappings, Your delegated slaves — the people’s tyrants.
“Yours, truly, &c.
“P.S. Upon public matters here I say little: you will all hear soon enough of a general row throughout Italy. There never was a more foolish step than the expedition to Naples by these fellows.
“I wish to propose to Holmes, the miniature painter, to come out to me this spring. I will pay his expenses, and any sum in reason. I wish him to take my daughter’s picture (who is in a convent) and the Countess G.’s, and the head of a peasant girl, which latter would make a study for Raphael. It is a complete peasant face, but an Italian peasant’s, and quite in the Raphael Fornarina style. Her figure is tall, but rather large, and not at all comparable to her face, which is really superb. She is not seventeen, and I am anxious to have her face while it lasts. Madame G. is also very handsome, but it is quite in a different style — completely blonde and fair — very uncommon in Italy; yet not an English fairness, but more like a Swede or a Norwegian. Her figure, too, particularly the bust, is uncommonly good. It must be Holmes; I like him because he takes such inveterate likenesses. There is a war here; but a solitary traveller, with little baggage, and nothing to do with politics, has nothing to fear. Pack him up in the Diligence. Don’t forget.”
LETTER 417. TO MR. HOPPNER.
“Ravenna, April 3. 1821;
“Thanks for the translation. I have sent you some books, which I do not know whether you have read or no — you need not return them, in any case. I enclose you also a letter from Pisa. I have neither spared trouble nor expense in the care of the child; and as she was now four years old complete, and quite above the control of the servants — and as a man living without any woman at the head of his house cannot much attend to a nursery — I had no resource but to place her for a time (at a high pension too) in the convent of Bagna-Cavalli (twelve miles off), where the air is good, and where she will, at least, have her learning advanced, and her morals and religion inculcated. I had also another reason; — things were and are in such a state here, that I had no reason to look upon my own personal safety as particularly insurable; and I thought the infant best out of harm’s way, for the present.
“It is also fit that I should add that I by no means intended, nor intend, to give a natural child an English education, because with the disadvantages of her birth, her after settlement would be doubly difficult. Abroad, with a fair foreign education and a portion of five or six thousand pounds, she might and may marry very respectably. In England such a dowry would be a pittance, while elsewhere it is a fortune. It is, besides, my wish that she should be a Roman Catholic, which I look upon as the best religion, as it is assuredly the oldest of the various branches of Christianity. I have now explained my notions as to the place where she now is — it is the best I could find for the present; but I have no prejudices in its favour.
“I do not speak of politics, because it seems a hopeless subject, as long as those scoundrels are to be permitted to bully states out of their independence. Believe me,
“Yours ever and truly.
“P.S. There is a report here of a change in France; but with what truth is not yet known.
“P.S. My respects to Mrs. H. I have the ‘best opinion’ of her countrywomen; and at my time of life, (three and thirty, 22d January, 1821,) that is to say, after the life I have led, a good opinion is the only rational one which a man should entertain of the whole sex — up to thirty, the worst possible opinion a man can have of them in general, the better for himself. Afterwards, it is a matter of no importance to them, nor to him either, what opinion he entertains — his day is over, or, at least, should be.
“You see how sober I am become.”
LETTER 418. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, April 21. 1821.
“I enclose you another letter on Bowles. But I premise that it is not like the former, and that I am not at all sure how much, if any, of it should be published. Upon this point you can consult with Mr. Gifford, and think twice before you publish it at all.
Yours truly,
B.
“P.S. You may make my subscription for Mr. Scott’s widow, &c. thirty instead of the proposed ten pounds; but do not put down my name; put down N.N. only. The reason is, that, as I have mentioned him in the enclosed pamphlet, it would look indelicate. I would give more, but my disappointments last year about Rochdale and the transfer from the funds render me more economical for the present.”
LETTER 419. TO MR. SHELLEY.
“Ravenna, April 26. 1821.
“The child continues doing well, and the accounts are regular and favourable. It is gratifying to me that you and Mrs. Shelley do not disapprove of the step which I have taken, which is merely temporary.
“I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats — is it actually true? I did not think criticism had been so killing. Though I differ from you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor all unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the highest peak of Parnassus than ha
ve perished in such a manner. Poor fellow! though with such inordinate self-love he would probably have not been very happy. I read the review of ‘Endymion’ in the Quarterly. It was severe, — but surely not so severe as many reviews in that and other journals upon others.
