79 — To Elizabeth Bridget Pigot
London, August 11, 1807.
On
Sunday next I set off for the Highlands
. A friend of mine accompanies me in my carriage to Edinburgh. There we shall leave it, and proceed in a
tandem
(a species of open carriage) though the western passes to Inverary, where we shall purchase
shelties
, to enable us to view places inaccessible to
vehicular conveyances
. On the coast we shall hire a vessel, and visit the most remarkable of the Hebrides; and, if we have time and favourable weather, mean to sail as far as Iceland, only 300 miles from the northern extremity of Caledonia, to peep at
Hecla
. This last intention you will keep a secret, as my nice
mamma
would imagine I was on a Voyage of
Discovery
, and raised the accustomed
maternal warwhoop
.
Last
week I swam in the Thames from Lambeth through the two bridges, Westminster and Blackfriars, a distance, including the different turns and tracks made on the way, of three miles
! You see I am in excellent training in case of a
squall
at sea. I mean to collect all the Erse traditions, poems, etc., etc., and translate, or expand the subject to fill a volume, which may appear next spring under the denomination of
"The Highland Harp"
or some title equally
picturesque
. Of Bosworth Field, one book is finished, another just began. It will be a work of three or four years, and most probably never
conclude
. What would you say to some stanzas on Mount Hecla? they would be written at least with
fire
. How is the immortal Bran? and the Phoenix of canine quadrupeds, Boatswain? I have lately purchased a thorough-bred bull-dog, worthy to be the coadjutor of the aforesaid celestials — his name is
Smut!
"Bear it, ye breezes, on your balmy wings."
Write to me before I set off, I conjure you, by the fifth rib of your grandfather. Ridge goes on well with the books — I thought that worthy had not done much in the country. In town they have been very successful; Carpenter (Moore's publisher) told me a few days ago they sold all their's immediately, and had several enquiries made since, which, from the books being gone, they could not supply. The Duke of York, the Marchioness of Headfort, the Duchess of Gordon, etc., etc., were among the purchasers; and Crosby says the circulation will be still more extensive in the winter, the summer season being very bad for a sale, as most people are absent from London. However, they have gone off extremely well altogether. I shall pass very near you on my journey through Newark, but cannot approach. Don't tell this to Mrs. B, who supposes I travel a different road. If you have a letter, order it to be left at Ridge's shop, where I shall call, or the post-office, Newark, about six or eight in the evening. If your brother would ride over, I should be devilish glad to see him — he can return the same night, or sup with us and go home the next morning — the Kingston Arms is my inn. Adieu.
Yours ever,
Byron
.
Footnote 1:
This projected trip to the Highlands, mentioned in his letter to Augusta Byron of August 30, 1805, seems to have become a joke among Byron's friends. Moore quotes (
Life
, p. 56) a letter written by Miss Pigot to her brother:
"How can you ask if Lord B. is going to visit the Highlands in the summer? Why, don't you know that he never knows his own mind for ten minutes together? I tell him he is as fickle as the winds, and as uncertain as the waves."
Footnote 2:
"The first time I saw Lord Byron," says Leigh Hunt (Lord Byron and his Contemporaries, p. 1), "he was rehearsing the part of Leander, under the auspices of Mr. Jackson the prize-fighter. It was in the river Thames, before he went to Greece. I had been bathing, and was standing on the floating machine adjusting my clothes, when I noticed a respectable-looking manly person who was eyeing something at a distance. This was Mr. Jackson waiting for his pupil. The latter was swimming with somebody for a wager."
On this occasion, however, Hunt only saw "his Lordship's head bob up and down in the water, like a "buoy."
