148 — To Francis Hodgson
Patras, Morea, October 3, 1810.
As I have just escaped from a physician and a fever, which confined me five days to bed, you won't expect much
allegrezza
in the ensuing letter. In this place there is an indigenous distemper, which when the wind blows from the Gulf of Corinth (as it does five months out of six), attacks great and small, and makes woful work with visiters. Here be also two physicians, one of whom trusts to his genius (never having studied) — the other to a campaign of eighteen months against the sick of Otranto, which he made in his youth with great effect.
When I was seized with my disorder, I protested against both these assassins; — but what can a helpless, feverish, toast-and-watered poor wretch do? In spite of my teeth and tongue, the English consul, my Tartar, Albanians, dragoman, forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph — take it:—
Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove,
To keep my lamp in strongly strove:
But Romanelli was so stout,
He beat all three — and blew it out.
But Nature and Jove, being piqued at my doubts, did, in fact, at last, beat Romanelli, and here I am, well but weakly, at your service.
Since I left Constantinople, I have made a tour of the Morea, and visited Veley Pacha, who paid me great honours, and gave me a pretty stallion. H. is doubtless in England before even the date of this letter:— he bears a despatch from me to your bardship. He writes to me from Malta, and requests my journal, if I keep one. I have none, or he should have it; but I have replied in a consolatory and exhortatory epistle, praying him to abate three and sixpence in the price of his next boke, seeing that half a guinea is a price not to be given for any thing save an opera ticket.
As for England, it is long since I have heard from it. Every one at all connected with my concerns is asleep, and you are my only correspondent, agents excepted. I have really no friends in the world; though all my old school companions are gone forth into that world, and walk about there in monstrous disguises, in the garb of guardsmen, lawyers, parsons, fine gentlemen, and such other masquerade dresses. So, I here shake hands and cut with all these busy people, none of whom write to me. Indeed I ask it not; — and here I am, a poor traveller and heathenish philosopher, who hath perambulated the greatest part of the Levant, and seen a great quantity of very improvable land and sea, and, after all, am no better than when I set out — Lord help me!
I have been out fifteen months this very day, and I believe my concerns will draw me to England soon; but of this I will apprise you regularly from Malta.
On
all points Hobhouse will inform you, if you are curious as to our adventures
. I have seen some old English papers up to the 15th of May.
I
see the
Lady of the Lake
advertised. Of course it is in his old ballad style, and pretty. After all, Scott is the best of them. The end of all scribblement is to amuse, and he certainly succeeds there. I long to read his new romance.
And how does
Sir Edgar
? and your friend Bland? I suppose you are involved in some literary squabble. The only way is to despise all brothers of the quill. I suppose you won't allow me to be an author, but I contemn you all, you dogs! — I do.
You
don't know Dallas, do you? He had a farce
ready for the stage before I left England, and asked me for a prologue, which I promised, but sailed in such a hurry I never penned a couplet. I am afraid to ask after his drama, for fear it should be damned — Lord forgive me for using such a word! but the pit, Sir, you know the pit — they will do those things in spite of merit. I remember this farce from a curious circumstance.
When
Drury Lane
was burnt to the ground, by which accident Sheridan and his son lost the few remaining shillings they were worth, what doth my friend Dallas do?
Why
, before the fire was out, he writes a note to Tom Sheridan
, the manager of this combustible concern, to inquire whether this farce was not converted into fuel with about two thousand other unactable manuscripts, which of course were in great peril, if not actually consumed. Now was not this characteristic? — the ruling passions of Pope are nothing to it.
Whilst
the poor distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only worth £300,000., together with some twenty thousand pounds of rags and tinsel in the tiring rooms, Bluebeard's elephants
, and all that — in comes a note from a scorching author, requiring at his hands two acts and odd scenes of a farce!!
Dear H., remind Drury that I am his well-wisher, and let Scrope Davies be well affected towards me. I look forward to meeting you at Newstead, and renewing our old champagne evenings with all the glee of anticipation. I have written by every opportunity, and expect responses as regular as those of the liturgy, and somewhat longer. As it is impossible for a man in his senses to hope for happy days, let us at least look forward to merry ones, which come nearest to the other in appearance, if not in reality; and in such expectations I remain, etc.
Footnote 1:
Hobhouse, writing to Byron from Malta, July 31, 1810, says,
"Mrs. Bruce picked out a pretty picture of a woman in a fashionable dress in Ackerman's Repository, and observed it was vastly like Lord Byron. I give you warning of this, for fear you should make another conquest and return to England without a curl upon your head. Surely the ladies copy Delilah when they crop their lovers after this fashion.
'Successful youth! why mourn thy ravish'd hair,
Since each lost lock bespeaks a conquer'd fair,
And young and old conspire to make thee bare?'
This makes me think of my poor Miscellany, which is quite dead, if indeed that can be said to be dead which was never alive; not a soul knows, or knowing will speak of it." Again, July 15, 1811, he writes: "The Miscellany is so damned that my friends make it a point of politeness not to mention it ever to me."
Footnote 2:
The Lady of the Lake
was published in May, 1810.
Footnote 3:
For Dallas, see page 168,
. His farce, entitled,
Not at Home
, was acted at the Lyceum, by the Drury Lane Company, in November, 1809. It was afterwards printed, with a prologue (intended to have been spoken) written by Walter Rodwell Wright, author of
Horæ Ionicæ
.
Footnote 4:
Drury Lane Theatre, burned down in 1791, and reopened in 1794, was again destroyed by fire on February 24, 1809.
Footnote 5:
Thomas Sheridan (1775-1817), originally in the army, was at this time assisting his father, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, as manager of Drury Lane Theatre. His
Bonduca
was played at Covent Garden in May, 1808. He married, in 1805, Caroline Henrietta Callender, who was "more beautiful than anybody but her daughters," afterwards Mrs. Norton, the Duchess of Somerset, and Lady Dufferin. He died at the Cape of Good Hope in 1817. "Tom Sheridan and his beautiful wife" were at Gibraltar in 1809, when Byron and Hobhouse landed on the Rock, and, as Galt states (
Life of Byron
, p. 58), brought the news to Lady Westmorland of their arrival. (See
English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers
, lines 572, 573, and
note
1.)
Footnote 6:
Bluebeard, or Female Curiosity
, by George Colman the Younger (1762-1836), was being acted at Drury Lane in January, 1809. "Bluebeard's elephants" were wicker-work constructions. It was at Covent Garden that the first live elephant was introduced two years later. Johnstone, the machinist employed at Drury Lane, famous for the construction of wooden children, wicker-work lions, and paste-board swans, was present with a friend.
"Among the attractions of this Christmas foolery, a real elephant was introduced.... The friend, who sat close to Johnstone, jogged his elbow, whispering, 'This is a bitter bad job for Drury! Why, the elephant's alive! He'll carry all before him, and beat you hollow. What do you think on't, eh?' 'Think on't?' said Johnstone, in a tone of utmost contempt, 'I should be very sorry if I couldn't make a much better elephant than that, at any time'"
(George Colman the Younger,
Random Records
, vol. i. pp. 228, 229).
