by Thomas Moore
“As I have written to you often lately at some length, I won’t bore you further now, than by begging you to comply with my request; and I presume the ‘esprit du corps’ (is it ‘du’ or ‘de?’ for this is more than I know) will sufficiently urge you, as one of ‘ours,’ to set this affair in its real aspect. Believe me always yours ever and most affectionately,
“Byron.”
LETTER 429. TO MR. HOPPNER.
“Ravenna, May 25. 1821.
“I am very much pleased with what you say of Switzerland, and will ponder upon it. I would rather she married there than here for that matter. For fortune, I shall make all that I can spare (if I live and she is correct in her conduct); and if I die before she is settled, I have left her by will five thousand pounds, which is a fair provision out of England for a natural child. I shall increase it all I can, if circumstances permit me; but, of course (like all other human things), this is very uncertain.
“You will oblige me very much by interfering to have the FACTS of the play-acting stated, as these scoundrels appear to be organising a system of abuse against me, because I am in their ‘list.’ I care nothing for their criticism, but the matter of fact. I have written four acts of another tragedy, so you see they can’t bully me.
“You know, I suppose, that they actually keep a list of all individuals in Italy who dislike them — it must be numerous. Their suspicions and actual alarms, about my conduct and presumed intentions in the late row, were truly ludicrous — though, not to bore you, I touched upon them lightly. They believed, and still believe here, or affect to believe it, that the whole plan and project of rising was settled by me, and the means furnished, &c. &c. All this was more fomented by the barbarian agents, who are numerous here (one of them was stabbed yesterday, by the way, but not dangerously): — and although when the Commandant was shot here before my door in December, I took him into my house, where he had every assistance, till he died on Fletcher’s bed; and although not one of them dared to receive him into their houses but myself, they leaving him to perish in the night in the streets, they put up a paper about three months ago, denouncing me as the Chief of the Liberals, and stirring up persons to assassinate me. But this shall never silence nor bully my opinions. All this came from the German Barbarians.”
LETTER 430. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, May 25. 1821.
“Mr. Moray,
“Since I wrote the enclosed a week ago, and for some weeks before, I have not had a line from you: now, I should be glad to know upon what principle of common or uncommon feeling, you leave me without any information but what I derive from garbled gazettes in English, and abusive ones in Italian (the Germans hating me as a coal-heaver), while all this kick-up has been going on about the play? You SHABBY fellow!!! Were it not for two letters from Douglas Kinnaird, I should have been as ignorant as you are negligent.
“So, I hear Bowles has been abusing Hobhouse? If that’s the case, he has broken the truce, like Morillo’s successor, and I will cut him out, as Cochrane did the Esmeralda.
“Since I wrote the enclosed packet, I have completed (but not copied out) four acts of a new tragedy. When I have finished the fifth, I will copy it out. It is on the subject of ‘Sardanapalus,’ the last king of the Assyrians. The words Queen and Pavilion occur, but it is not an allusion to his Britannic Majesty, as you may tremulously imagine. This you will one day see (if I finish it), as I have made Sardanapalus brave, (though voluptuous, as history represents him,) and also as amiable as my poor powers could render him: — so that it could neither be truth nor satire on any living monarch. I have strictly preserved all the unities hitherto, and mean to continue them in the fifth, if possible; but not for the stage. Yours, in haste and hatred, you shabby correspondent! N.”
LETTER 431. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, May 28. 1821.
“Since my last of the 26th or 25th, I have dashed off my fifth act of the tragedy called ‘Sardanapalus.’ But now comes the copying over, which may prove heavy work — heavy to the writer as to the reader. I have written to you at least six times sans answer, which proves you to be a — bookseller. I pray you to send me a copy of Mr. Wrangham’s reformation of ‘Langhorne’s Plutarch.’ I have the Greek, which is somewhat small of print, and the Italian, which is too heavy in style, and as false as a Neapolitan patriot proclamation. I pray you also to send me a Life, published some years ago, of the Magician Apollonius of Tyana. It is in English, and I think edited or written by what Martin Marprelate calls ‘a bouncing priest.’ I shall trouble you no farther with this sheet than with the postage. Yours, &c. N.
“P.S. Since I wrote this, I determined to enclose it (as a half sheet) to Mr. Kinnaird, who will have the goodness to forward it. Besides, it saves sealing-wax.”
LETTER 432. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, May 30. 1821.
“Dear Moray,
“You say you have written often: I have only received yours of the eleventh, which is very short. By this post, five packets, I send you the tragedy of Sardanapalus, which is written in a rough hand: perhaps Mrs. Leigh can help you to decipher it. You will please to acknowledge it by return of post. You will remark that the unities are all strictly observed. The scene passes in the same hall always: the time, a summer’s night, about nine hours, or less, though it begins before sunset and ends after sun-rise. In the third act, when Sardanapalus calls for a mirror to look at himself in his armour, recollect to quote the Latin passage from Juvenal upon Otho (a similar character, who did the same thing): Gifford will help you to it. The trait is perhaps too familiar, but it is historical, (of Otho, at least,) and natural in an effeminate character.”
LETTER 433. TO MR. HOPPNER.
“Ravenna, May 31. 1821.
“I enclose you another letter, which will only confirm what I have said to you.
“About Allegra’ — I will take some decisive step in the course of the year; at present, she is so happy where she is, that perhaps she had better have her alphabet imparted in her convent.
“What you say of the Dante is the first I have heard of it — all seeming to be merged in the row about the tragedy. Continue it! — Alas! what could Dante himself now prophesy about Italy? I am glad you like it, however, but doubt that you will be singular in your opinion. My new tragedy is completed.
“The B * * is right, — I ought to have mentioned her humour and amiability, but I thought at her sixty, beauty would be most agreeable or least likely. However, it shall be rectified in a new edition; and if any of the parties have either looks or qualities which they wish to be noticed, let me have a minute of them. I have no private nor personal dislike to Venice, rather the contrary, but I merely speak of what is the subject of all remarks and all writers upon her present state. Let me hear from you before you start.
“Believe me, ever, &c.
“P.S. Did you receive two letters of Douglas Kinnaird’s in an endorse from me? Remember me to Mengaldo, Soranzo, and all who care that I should remember them. The letter alluded to in the enclosed, ‘to the Cardinal,’ was in answer to some queries of the government, about a poor devil of a Neapolitan, arrested at Sinigaglia on suspicion, who came to beg of me here; being without breeches, and consequently without pockets for halfpence, I relieved and forwarded him to his country, and they arrested him at Pesaro on suspicion, and have since interrogated me (civilly and politely, however,) about him. I sent them the poor man’s petition, and such information as I had about him, which I trust will get him out again, that is to say, if they give him a fair hearing.
“I am content with the article. Pray, did you receive, some posts ago, Moore’s lines which I enclosed to you, written at Paris?”
LETTER 434. TO MR. MOORE.
“Ravenna, June 4. 1821.
“You have not written lately, as is the usual custom with literary gentlemen, to console their friends with their observations in cases of magnitude. I do not know whether I sent you my ‘Elegy on the recovery of Lady * *:’ �
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“Behold the blessings of a lucky lot — My play is damn’d, and Lady * * not.
“The papers (and perhaps your letters) will have put you in possession of Muster Elliston’s dramatic behaviour. It is to be presumed that the play was fitted for the stage by Mr. Dibdin, who is the tailor upon such occasions, and will have taken measure with his usual accuracy. I hear that it is still continued to be performed — a piece of obstinacy for which it is some consolation to think that the discourteous histrio will be out of pocket.
“You will be surprised to hear that I have finished another tragedy in five acts, observing all the unities strictly. It is called ‘Sardanapalus,’ and was sent by last post to England. It is not for the stage, any more than the other was intended for it — and I shall take better care this time that they don’t get hold on’t.
“I have also sent, two months ago, a further letter on Bowles, &c.; but he seems to be so taken up with my ‘respect’ (as he calls it) towards him in the former case, that I am not sure that it will be published, being somewhat too full of’ pastime and prodigality.’ I learn from some private letters of Bowles’s, that you were ‘the gentleman in asterisks.’ Who would have dreamed it? you see what mischief that clergyman has done by printing notes without names. How the deuce was I to suppose that the first four asterisks meant ‘Campbell’ and not ‘Pope,’ and that the blank signature meant Thomas Moore? You see what comes of being familiar with parsons. His answers have not yet reached me, but I understand from Hobhouse, that he (H.) is attacked in them. If that be the case, Bowles has broken the truce, (which he himself proclaimed, by the way,) and I must have at him again.
“Did you receive my letters with the two or three concluding sheets of Memoranda?
“There are no news here to interest much. A German spy (boasting himself such) was stabbed last week, but not mortally. The moment I heard that he went about bullying and boasting, it was easy for me, or any one else, to foretell what would occur to him, which I did, and it came to pass in two days after. He has got off, however, for a slight incision.
“A row the other night, about a lady of the place, between her various lovers, occasioned a midnight discharge of pistols, but nobody wounded. Great scandal, however — planted by her lover — to be thrashed by her husband, for inconstancy to her regular Servente, who is coming home post about it, and she herself retired in confusion into the country, although it is the acme of the opera season. All the women furious against her (she herself having been censorious) for being found out. She is a pretty woman — a Countess * * * * — a fine old Visigoth name, or Ostrogoth.
“The Greeks! what think you? They are my old acquaintances — but what to think I know not. Let us hope howsomever.
“Yours,
“B.”
LETTER 435. TO MR. MOORE.
“Ravenna, June 22. 1821.
“Your dwarf of a letter came yesterday. That is right; — keep to your ‘magnum opus ‘ — magnoperate away. Now, if we were but together a little to combine our ‘Journal of Trevoux!’ But it is useless to sigh, and yet very natural, — for I think you and I draw better together, in the social line, than any two other living authors.
“I forgot to ask you, if you had seen your own panegyric in the correspondence of Mrs. Waterhouse and Colonel Berkeley? To be sure their moral is not quite exact; but your passion is fully effective; and all poetry of the Asiatic kind — I mean Asiatic, as the Romans called Asiatic oratory,’ and not because the scenery is Oriental — must be tried by that test only. I am not quite sure that I shall allow the Miss Byrons (legitimate or illegitimate) to read Lalla Rookh — in the first place, on account of this said passion; and, in the second, that they mayn’t discover that there was a better poet than papa.
“You say nothing of politics — but, alas! what can be said?
“The world is a bundle of hay, Mankind are the asses who pull, Each tugs it a different way, — And the greatest of all is John Bull!
“How do you call your new project? I have sent Murray a new tragedy, ycleped ‘Sardanapalus,’ writ according to Aristotle — all, save the chorus — could not reconcile me to that. I have begun another, and am in the second act; — so you see I saunter on as usual.
“Bowles’s answers have reached me; but I can’t go on disputing for ever, — particularly in a polite manner. I suppose he will take being silent for silenced. He has been so civil that I can’t find it in my liver to be facetious with him, — else I had a savage joke or two at his service. * * *
“I can’t send you the little journal, because it is in boards, and I can’t trust it per post. Don’t suppose it is any thing particular; but it will show the intentions of the natives at that time — and one or two other things, chiefly personal, like the former one.
“So, Longman don’t bite. — It was my wish to have made that work of use. Could you not raise a sum upon it (however small), reserving the power of redeeming it, on repayment?
“Are you in Paris, or a villaging? If you are in the city, you will never resist the Anglo-invasion you speak of. I do not see an Englishman in half a year, and, when I do, I turn my horse’s head the other way. The fact, which you will find in the last note to the Doge, has given me a good excuse for quite dropping the least connection with travellers.
“I do not recollect the speech you speak of, but suspect it is not the Doge’s, but one of Israel Bertuccio to Calendaro. I hope you think that Elliston behaved shamefully — it is my only consolation. I made the Milanese fellows contradict their lie, which they did with the grace of people used to it.
“Yours, &c.
“B.”
LETTER 436. TO MR. MOORE.
“Ravenna, July 5. 1821.
“How could you suppose that I ever would allow any thing that could be said on your account to weigh with me? I only regret that Bowles had not said that you were the writer of that note, until afterwards, when out he comes with it, in a private letter to Murray, which Murray sends to me. D —— n the controversy!
“D —— n Twizzle, D —— n the bell, And d —— n the fool who rung it — Well! From all such plagues I’ll quickly be deliver’d.
“I have had a friend of your Mr. Irving’s — a very pretty lad — a Mr. Coolidge, of Boston — only somewhat too full of poesy and ‘entusymusy.’ I was very civil to him during his few hours’ stay, and talked with him much of Irving, whose writings are my delight. But I suspect that he did not take quite so much to me, from his having expected to meet a misanthropical gentleman, in wolf-skin breeches, and answering in fierce monosyllables, instead of a man of this world. I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?
“I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw her), who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, &c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N.N. A. and has not a word of ‘cant’ or preachment in it upon any opinions. She merely says that she is dying, and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she thought that she might say so, begging me to burn her letter — which, by the way, I can not do, as I look upon such a letter in such circumstances as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a letter from Drontheim, in Norway (but not from a dying woman), in verse, on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at times believe one’s self a poet. But if I must believe that * * * * * and such fellows, are poets also, it is better to be out of the corps.
“I am now in the fifth act of ‘Foscari,’ being the third tragedy in twelve months, besides proses; so you perceive that I am not at all idle. And are you, too, busy? I doubt that your life at Paris draws too much upon your time, which is a pity. Can’t you divide your day, so as to combine both? I have had plen
ty of all sorts of worldly business on my hands last year, and yet it is not so difficult to give a few hours to the Muses. This sentence is so like * * * * that ——
“Ever, &c.
“If we were together, I should publish both my plays (periodically) in our joint journal. It should be our plan to publish all our best things in that way.”
In the Journal entitled “Detached Thoughts,” I find the tribute to his genius which he here mentions, as well as some others, thus interestingly dwelt upon.
“As far as fame goes (that is to say, living fame) I have had my share, perhaps — indeed, certainly — more than my deserts.
“Some odd instances have occurred to my own experience, of the wild and strange places to which a name may penetrate, and where it may impress. Two years ago (almost three, being in August or July, 1819,) I received at Ravenna a letter, in English verse, from Drontheim in Norway, written by a Norwegian, and full of the usual compliments, &c. &c. It is still somewhere amongst my papers. In the same month I received an invitation into Holstein from a Mr. Jacobsen (I think) of Hamburgh: also, by the same medium, a translation of Medora’s song in The Corsair by a Westphalian baroness (not ‘Thunderton-Tronck’), with some original verses of hers (very pretty and Klopstock-ish), and a prose translation annexed to them, on the subject of my wife: — as they concerned her more than me. I sent them to her, together with Mr. Jacobsen’s letter. It was odd enough to receive an invitation to pass the summer in Holstein while in Italy, from people I never knew. The letter was addressed to Venice. Mr. Jacobsen talked to me of the ‘wild roses growing in the Holstein summer.’ Why then did the Cimbri and Teutones emigrate?
