212—to William Harness
St. James's Street, Dec. 8, 1811.
Behold a most formidable sheet, without gilt or black edging, and consequently very vulgar and indecorous, particularly to one of your precision; but this being Sunday, I can procure no better, and will atone for its length by not filling it. Bland I have not seen since my last letter; but on Tuesday he dines with me, and will meet Moore, the epitome of all that is exquisite in poetical or personal accomplishments. How Bland has settled with Miller, I know not. I have very little interest with either, and they must arrange their concerns according to their own gusto. I have done my endeavours,
at your request
, to bring them together, and hope they may agree to their mutual advantage.
Coleridge
has been lecturing against Campbell
.
Rogers was present, and from him I derive the information. We are going to make a party to hear this Manichean of poesy. Pole
is to
marry
Miss Long, and will be a very miserable dog for all that. The present ministers are to continue, and his Majesty
does
continue in the same state; so there's folly and madness for you, both in a breath.
I
never
heard but of one man truly fortunate, and he was Beaumarchais
, the author of
Figaro
, who buried two wives and gained three lawsuits before he was thirty.
And now, child, what art thou doing?
Reading, I trust
. I want to see you take a degree. Remember, this is the most important period of your life; and don't disappoint your papa and your aunt, and all your kin—besides myself. Don't you know that all male children are begotten for the express purpose of being graduates?
and
that even I am an A.M.
, though how I became so the Public Orator only can resolve.
Besides
, you are to be a priest; and to confute Sir William Drummond's late book about the Bible
(printed, but not published), and all other infidels whatever. Now leave Master H.'s gig, and Master S.'s Sapphics, and become as immortal as Cambridge can make you.
You see,
Mio Carissimo
, what a pestilent correspondent I am likely to become; but then you shall be as quiet at Newstead as you please, and I won't disturb your studies as I do now. When do you fix the day, that I may take you up according to contract? Hodgson talks of making a third in our journey; but we can't stow him, inside at least. Positively you shall go with me as was agreed, and don't let me have any of your
politesse
to H. on the occasion. I shall manage to arrange for both with a little contrivance. I wish H. was not quite so fat, and we should pack better. You will want to know what I am doing—chewing tobacco.
You see
nothing
of my allies, Scrope Davies and Matthews
—they don't suit you; and how does it happen that I—who am a pipkin of the same pottery—continue in your good graces? Good night,—I will go on in the morning.
Dec. 9th.—In a morning I am always sullen, and to-day is as sombre as myself. Rain and mist are worse than a sirocco, particularly in a beef-eating and beer-drinking country. My
bookseller
, Cawthorne, has just left me, and tells me, with a most important face, that he is in treaty for a novel of Madame D'Arblay's, for which 1000 guineas are asked
! He
wants
me to read the MS. (if he obtains it), which I shall do with pleasure; but I should be very cautious in venturing an opinion on her whose
Cecilia
Dr. Johnson superintended
.
If he lends it to me, I shall put it in the hands of Rogers and Moore, who are truly men of taste. I have filled the sheet, and beg your pardon; I will not do it again. I shall, perhaps, write again; but if not, believe, silent or scribbling, that I am,
My dearest William, ever, etc.
Footnote 1:
See p. 75,
. In the application to Coleridge of the phrase, "Manichean of poesy," Byron may allude to Cowper's
Task
(bk. v. lines 444, 445):
"As dreadful as the Manichean God,
Adored through fear, strong only to destroy."
Footnote 2:
William Wellesley Pole Tylney Long Wellesley (1788-1857), one of the most worthless of the bloods of the Regency, son of Lord Maryborough, and nephew of the Duke of Wellington, became in 1845 the fourth Earl of Mornington. He married in March, 1812, Catherine, daughter and co-heir, with her brother, of Sir James Tylney Long, Bart., of Draycot, Wilts. On his marriage he added his wife's double name to his own, and so gave a point to the authors of Rejected Addresses:
"Long may Long-Tilney-Wellesley-Long-Pole live."
For Byron's allusion to him in
The Waltz
, see
Poems
, 1898, vol. i. p. 484, note 1. Having run through his wife's large fortune by his extravagant expenditure at Wanstead Park and elsewhere, he was obliged, in 1822, to escape from his creditors to the Continent. There (1823-25) he lived with Mrs. Bligh, wife of Captain Bligh, of the Coldstream Guards. His wife died in 1825, after filing a bill for divorce, and making her children wards of Chancery. Wellesley subsequently (1828) married Mrs. Bligh; but the second wife was as ill treated as the first, and he left her so destitute that she was a frequent applicant for relief at the metropolitan police-courts. He died of heart-disease in July, 1857, a pensioner on the charity of his cousin, the second Duke of Wellington.
Footnote 3:
Byron's statement is incorrect. Pierre-Auguste Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799) married, in 1756, as his first wife, Madeleine-Catherine Aubertin, widow of the sieur Franquet. She died in 1757. He married, in 1768, as his second wife, Geneviève-Magdaleine Wattebled, widow of the sieur Lévêque. She died in 1770. The only lawsuit which he won "before he was thirty," was that against Lepaute, who claimed as his own invention the escapement for watches and clocks, which Beaumarchais had discovered. The case was decided in favour of Beaumarchais in 1754. Out of his second lawsuit—with Count de la Blache, legatee of his patron Duverney, who died in 1770—sprang his action against Goëzman, with which began the publication of his
Mémoires
. (See Loménie,
Beaumarchais and his Times
, tr. by H. S. Edwards, 4 vols., London, 1855-6.)
Footnote 4:
Byron took his M. A. degree at Cambridge July 4, 1808.
Footnote 5:
Sir William Drummond (1770-1828), Tory M.P. for St. Mawes (1795-96) and for Lostwithiel (1796-1801), held from 1801 to 1809 several diplomatic posts: ambassador to the Court of Naples 1801-3; to the Ottoman Porte 1803-6; to the Court of Naples for the second time, 1806-9. From 1809, at which date his political and diplomatic career closed, he devoted himself to literature. He had already published
Philosophical Sketches on the Principles of Society and Government
(1793);
A Review of the Governments of Sparta and Athens
(1795);
The Satires of Persius
, translated (1798);
Byblis, a Tragedy
, in verse (1802);
Academical Questions
(1805). In 1810 he published
Herculanensia
; and, in the following year, printed for private circulation his
Œdipus Judaicus
, a bold attempt to explain many parts of the Old Testament as astronomical allegories. In 1817 appeared the first part of his
Odin
, a poem in blank verse; in 1824-29 his
Origines, or Remarks on the Origin of several Empires, States, and Cities
, was published. Sir William, who died at Rome in 1828, lived much of his later life abroad. Drummond, as a member of the Alfred Club, is described in the
Sexagenarian
(vol. ii. chap, xxiv.), where Beloe, speaking of the (
Œdipus Judaicus
), says that "he appeared to have employed his leisure in searching for objections and arguments as they related to Scripture, which had been so often refuted, that they were considered by the learned and wise as almost exploded." He refers to
Byblis
as evidence of his "perverted and fantastical taste" in poetry, praises his "spirited translation" of Persius, commends the "sound sense and very extensive reading" of his
Philosophical
Sketches
, and scoffs at the "metaphysical labyrinth" of his
Academical Questions
.
"When you go to Naples," said Byron to Lady Blessington (Conversations, pp. 238, 239), "you must make acquaintance with Sir William Drummond, for he is certainly one of the most erudite men and admirable philosophers now living. He has all the wit of Voltaire, with a profundity that seldom appertains to wit, and writes so forcibly, and with such elegance and purity of style, that his works possess a peculiar charm. Have you read his Academical Questions? If not, get them directly, and I think you will agree with me, that the preface to that work alone would prove Sir William Drummond an admirable writer. He concludes it by the following sentence, which I think one of the best in our language:
'Prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of time, while Reason slumbers in the citadel; but if the latter sink into a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for herself. Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty support each other; he who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.'
Is not the passage admirable? How few could have written it! and yet how few read Drummond's works! They are too good to be popular. His Odin is really a fine poem, and has some passages that are beautiful, but it is so little read that it may be said to have dropped still-born from the press—a mortifying proof of the bad taste of the age. His translation of Persius is not only very literal, but preserves much of the spirit of the original;... he has escaped all the defects of translators, and his Persius resembles the original as nearly, in feeling and sentiment, as two languages so dissimilar in idiom will admit."
Footnote 6:
Henry Matthews (1789-1828) of Eton and King's College, Cambridge, younger brother of Charles Skinner Matthews, and author of the
Diary of an Invalid
(1820).
Footnote 7:
The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties
, Madame d'Arblay's fourth and last novel (
Evelina
, 1778;
Cecilia
, 1782;
Camilla
, 1796), was published in 1814.
"I am indescribably occupied," she writes to Dr. Burney, October 12, 1813, "in giving more and more last touches to my work, about which I begin to grow very anxious. I am to receive merely £500 upon delivery of the MS.; the two following £500 by instalments from nine months to nine months, that is, in a year and a half from the day of publication. If all goes well, the whole will be £3000, but only at the end of the sale of eight thousand copies."
The book failed; but rumour magnified the sum received by the writer. Mrs. Piozzi, shortly after the publication of
The Wanderer
and of Byron's lines, "Weep, daughter of a royal line," writes to Samuel Lysons, February 17, 1814:
"Come now, do send me a kind letter and tell me if Madame d'Arblaye gets £3000 for her book or no, and if Lord Byron is to be called over about some verses he has written, as the papers hint."
(
Autobiography, Letters, and Literary Remains
, vol. ii. p. 246).
Footnote 8:
Dr. Johnson never saw
Cecilia
(1782) till it was in print. A day or two before publication, Miss Burney sent three copies to the three persons who had the best claim to them—her father, Mrs. Thrale, and Dr. Johnson.
