150 — To Francis Hodgson
Athens, November 14, 1810.
My Dear Hodgson
, — This will arrive with an English servant whom I send homewards with some papers of consequence. I have been journeying in different parts of Greece for these last four months, and you may expect me in England somewhere about April, but this is very dubious. Hobhouse you have doubtless seen; he went home in August to arrange materials for a tour he talks of publishing. You will find him well and scribbling — that is, scribbling if well, and well if scribbling.
I suppose you have a score of new works, all of which I hope to see flourishing, with a hecatomb of reviews.
My
works are likely to have a powerful effect with a vengeance, as I hear of divers angry people, whom it is proper I should shoot at, by way of satisfaction. Be it so, the same impulse which made "Otho a warrior" will make me one also. My domestic affairs being moreover considerably deranged, my appetite for travelling pretty well satiated with my late peregrinations, my various hopes in this world almost extinct, and not very brilliant in the next, I trust I shall go through the process with a creditable
sang froid
and not disgrace a line of cut-throat ancestors.
I
regret in one of your letters to hear you talk of domestic embarrassments
, indeed I am at present very well calculated to sympathise with you on that point. I suppose I must take to dram-drinking as a
succedaneum
for philosophy, though as I am happily not married, I have very little occasion for either just yet.
Talking of marriage puts me in mind of Drury, who I suppose has a dozen children by this time, all fine fretful brats; I will never forgive Matrimony for having spoiled such an excellent Bachelor. If anybody honours my name with an inquiry tell them of "my whereabouts" and write if you like it. I am living alone in the Franciscan monastery with one "fri
ar
" (a Capuchin of course) and one "fri
er
" (a bandy-legged Turkish cook), two Albanian savages, a Tartar, and a Dragoman. My only Englishman departs with this and other letters. The day before yesterday the Waywode (or Governor of Athens) with the Mufti of Thebes (a sort of Mussulman Bishop) supped here and made themselves beastly with raw rum, and the Padré of the convent being as drunk as
we
, my
Attic
feast went off with great
éclat
. I have had a present of a stallion from the Pacha of the Morea. I caught a fever going to Olympia. I was blown ashore on the Island of Salamis, in my way to Corinth through the Gulf of Ægina. I have kicked an Athenian postmaster,
I
have a friendship with the French consul
and an Italian painter, and am on good terms with five Teutones and Cimbri, Danes and Germans
, who are travelling for an Academy. Vale!
Yours,
Greek (transliterated): Mpair_on
Footnote 1:
Hodgson's father, Rector of Barwick-in-Elmet, Yorkshire, died in October, 1810, heavily in debt. Francis Hodgson undertook to satisfy the claims of his father's creditors (
Life of the Rev. Francis Hodgson
, vol. i. pp. 147, 148).
Footnote 2:
M. Fauriel, the French Consul: Lusieri, an Italian artist employed by Lord Elgin; Nicolo Giraud, from whom Byron learned Italian, and to whose sister Lusieri proposed; Baron Haller, a Bavarian
savant
; and Dr. Bronstett, of Copenhagen, were among his friends at Athens.
Footnote 3:
The signature represents "Byron" in modern Greek, Μπ [Greek: Mp] being the correct transliteration of 'B'.
