264—to John Murray
Cheltenham, Oct. 18, 1812,
Dear Sir,—
Will
you have the goodness to get this Parody of a peculiar kind
(for all the first lines are
Busby's
entire), inserted in several of the papers (
correctly
—and copied
correctly; my hand
is difficult)—particularly the
Morning Chronicle
? Tell Mr. Perry I forgive him all he has said, and may say against
my address
, but he will allow me to deal with the Doctor—(
audi alteram partem
)—and not
betray
me. I cannot think what has befallen Mr. Perry, for of yore we were very good friends;—but no matter, only get this inserted.
I have a poem on Waltzing for
you
, of which I make
you
a present; but it must be anonymous. It is in the old style of
English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers
.
Ever yours,
Byron
.
P. S.—
With
the next edition of
Childe Harold
you may print the first fifty or a hundred opening lines of the
Curse of Minerva
down to the couplet beginning
Mortal ('twas thus she spake), etc.
Of course, the moment the Satire begins, there you will stop, and the opening is the best part.
Footnote 1:
The
Parenthetical Address
, "By Dr. Plagiary," is a parody by Byron of Dr, Busby's
Address
, the original of which will be found in the
Genuine Rejected Addresses
, as well as parodied in
Rejected Addresses
("Architectural Atoms"). On October 14 young Busby forced his way on to the stage of Drury Lane, attempted to recite his father's address, and was taken into custody. On the next night, Dr. Busby, speaking from one of the boxes, obtained a hearing for his son, who could not, however, make his voice heard in the theatre. Then another "rejected" author tried to recite his composition, but was hooted down. Order was restored by Raymond reminding the audience that the Chamberlain's licence was necessary for all stage speeches. To the failure of the younger Busby (himself a competitor and the author of an "Unalogue" of fifty-six lines) to make himself heard, Byron alludes in the stage direction to the
Parenthetical Address
—"to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by Master P." The
Parenthetical Address
appeared in the
Morning Chronicle
for October 23, 1812. In the same issue was printed a long statement by Dr. Busby, in which, after paying a compliment to Byron's "poetical genius," he insisted that the Committee of Drury Lane had broken faith by not choosing one of the addresses sent in by competitors. (See references to Dr. Busby in
Poems
, vol. i. pp. 481 and 485,
note
1.) Dr. Thomas Busby (1755-1838) composed the music for Holcroft's
Tale of Mystery
, the first musical melodrama produced on the English stage (Covent Garden, November 13, 1802). He was for some time assistant editor of the
Morning Post
, and Parliamentary reporter for the
London Courant
; wrote on musical subjects, taught languages and music, and translated Lucretius into rhymed verse (1813).
Footnote 2:
The Curse of Minerva,
written at Athens, in 1811, was not published as a whole till 1828. But the first fifty-four lines appeared in Canto III of
The Corsair
(1814). (See
The Curse of Minerva:
Introductory note,
Poems,
1898, vol. i. p. 453.)
