377—to Professor Clarke 1
Dec. 15, 1813.
Your very kind letter is the more agreeable, because, setting aside talents, judgment, and the
laudari a laudato
, etc., you have been on the spot; you have seen and described more of the East than any of your predecessors—I need not say how ably and successfully; and (excuse the bathos) you are one of the very few men who can pronounce how far my costume (to use an affected but expressive word) is correct. As to poesy, that is, as "men, gods, and columns," please to decide upon it; but I am sure that I am anxious to have an observer's, particularly a famous observer's, testimony on the fidelity of my manners and dresses; and, as far as memory and an oriental twist in my imagination have permitted, it has been my endeavour to present to the Franks, a sketch of that of which you have and will present them a complete picture. It was with this notion, that I felt compelled to make my hero and heroine relatives, as you well know that none else could there obtain that degree of intercourse leading to genuine affection; I had nearly made them rather too much akin to each other; and though the wild passions of the East, and some great examples in Alfieri, Ford, and Schiller (to stop short of antiquity), might have pleaded in favour of a copyist, yet the time and the north (not Frederic, but our climate) induced me to alter their consanguinity and confine them to cousinship. I also wished to try my hand on a female character in Zuleika, and have endeavoured, as far as the grossness of our masculine ideas will allow, to preserve her purity without impairing the ardour of her attachment.
As to criticism, I have been reviewed about a hundred and fifty times—praised and abused. I will not say that I am become indifferent to either eulogy or condemnation, but for some years at least I have felt grateful for the former, and have never attempted to answer the latter. For success equal to the first efforts, I had and have no hope; the novelty was over, and the "Bride," like all other brides, must suffer or rejoice for and with her husband. By the bye, I have used "bride" Turkishly, as affianced, not married; and so far it is an English bull, which, I trust, will be at least a comfort to all Hibernians not bigotted to monopoly. You are good enough to mention your quotations in your third volume. I shall not only be indebted to it for a renewal of the high gratification received from the two first, but for preserving my relics embalmed in your own spices, and ensuring me readers to whom I could not otherwise have aspired.
I called on you, as bounden by duty and inclination, when last in your neighbourhood; but I shall always take my chance; you surely would not have me inflict upon you a formal annunciation; I am proud of your friendship, but not so fond of myself as to break in upon your better avocations. I trust that Mrs. Clarke is well; I have never had the honour of presentation, but I have heard so much of her in many quarters, that any notice she is pleased to take of my productions is not less gratifying than my thanks are sincere, both to her and you; by all accounts I may safely congratulate you on the possession of "a bride" whose mental and personal accomplishments are more than poetical.
P. S.—Murray has sent, or will send, a double copy of the
Bride
and
Giaour
; in the last one, some lengthy additions; pray accept them, according to old custom, "from the author" to one of his better brethren. Your Persian, or any memorial, will be a most agreeable, and it is my fault if not an useful present. I trust your third will be out before I sail next month; can I say or do anything for you in the Levant? I
am
now in all the agonies of equipment, and full of schemes, some impracticable, and most of them improbable; but I mean to fly "freely to the green earth's end,"
though not quite so fast as Milton´s sprite.
P. S. 2nd.—I have so many things to say.—I want to show you Lord Sligo's letter to me detailing, as he heard them on the spot, the Athenian account of our adventure (a personal one), which certainly first suggested to me the story of
The Giaour
. It was a strange and not a very long story, and his report of the reports (he arrived just after my departure, and I did not know till last summer that he knew anything of the matter) is not very far from the truth. Don't be alarmed. There was nothing that led further than to the water's edge; but one part (as is often the case in life) was more singular than any of the
Giaour's
adventures. I never have, and never should have, alluded to it on my own authority, from respect to the ancient proverb on Travellers.
Footnote 1:
Dr. Clark, in October, 1814, was a candidate for the Professorship of Anatomy, and Byron went to Cambridge to vote for his friend. Writing to Miss Tayler, Hodgson (
Memoir
, vol. i. p. 292) adds a postscript:
"I open my letter to say that when Lord Byron went to give his vote just now in the Senate House, the young men burst out into the most rapturous applause."
The next day he writes again:
"I should add that as I was going to vote I met him coming away, and presently saw that something had happened, by his extreme paleness and agitation. Dr. Clark, who was with him, told me the cause, and I returned with B. to my room. There I begged him to sit down and write a letter and communicate this event, which he did not feel up to, but wished I would. So down I sate, and commenced my acquaintance with Miss Milbanke by writing her an account of this most pleasing event, which, although nothing at Oxford, is here very unusual indeed."
The following was Miss Milbanke's answer (
ibid
., pp. 296, 297), dated, "Seaham, November 25, 1814:"
"Dear Sir,—It will be easier for you to imagine than for me to express the pleasure which your very kind letter has given me. Not only on account of its gratifying intelligence, but also as introductory to an acquaintance which I have been taught to value, and have sincerely desired. Allow me to consider Lord Byron's friend as not 'a stranger,' and accept, with my sincerest thanks, my best wishes for your own happiness.
I am, dear sir, your faithful servant,
A. I. MlLBANKE."
Footnote 2:
The Spirit in Milton´s
Comus, a Mask
(lines 1012, 1013), says:
"I can fly, or I can run
Quickly to the green earth´s end."
