Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org
There was once an Archbishop of Dublin, whose palace and paths were beset by
friends and relatives, till patience and purse were equally exhausted. One day, as he was
riding out, a mendicant accosted him, with that preface to a begging petition, so common, which
enlists your sense of religion and your feelings in their favour:—“For the love of God, a
trifle—I have not a friend in the world!”—“Not a friend in the world?”
exclaimed the Prelate—“would the man be an archangel;”—What the Archbishop said in
his life, Save me from my friends!
”
Great men are generally made responsible for the sins of their biographers,
whose flippancy, or whose dullness, whose too narrow or too theoretic views, alike reflect on
their unfortunate subject. At the first glance,
”—all were prepared to expect a
life, which, with laudable partiality, would soften and redeem all darker shades, and, by
taking the best, take perhaps the truest view; for there is more truth in charitable
conclusions, than we are always willing to admit.
“Wait for the end,
” said the Grecian sage. Certainly in this
case, the congratulatory predictions have brought any thing but their own fulfilment. Has
Assuredly he has not. Every petulant expression is recorded, every degrading act
registered; his sneers and his intrigues, all that must awaken and exasperate the angry feeling
of those concerned, and disgust even those who are not, are assiduously dragged into light. If
we wish to array every moral principle of the reader against a hero, what better method of
doing it, than by dwelling upon his most vicious actions? and assuming that pseudo-tone of
apology, which only revolts the sense of right it affects to blind? Is this fair? or rather
shall we ask, is it not false?
If we seek to make the same hero ridiculous, what easier method than to
enumerate his most trifling actions as things of importance, forcing the small incident to
enact the tumid frog of the fable? * The old Mitylenæn means to hint, “that where double-tongued guile is
cherished at heart, truth never passes the lips.
”
“I have got some extremely good apartments in the house
of a merchant of Venice, who is a good deal occupied with business, and has a wife in her
twenty-second year.
” Again, “I am very well off with
”
Are such and similar passages consistent with the reason assigned for the
suppression of others, because they are of a like nature! By the suppression of a passage, we
are naturally led to conclude that its coarseness called for its omission, or that its
contents, if known, might injure
“I had a civet-cat the other day, too; but it ran away,
after scratching my monkey’s cheek, and I am in search of it still. It was the
fiercest beast I ever saw, and like —— in the face and manner.”—“Our weather is
very fine, which is more than the summer has been. At Milan I shall expect to hear from
you. Address either to Milan
” post restante, or by way of Geneva, to
the care of both for my sister.”—“There are few English here, but
several of my acquaintance, amongst others the the sashes.”—“The crow is lame
of a leg—wonder how it happened—some fool trod upon his toe, I suppose; the falcon pretty
brisk; the cats large and noisy; the monkeys I have not looked to since the cold weather,
as they suffer by being brought up. Horses must be gay—get a ride as soon as weather
serves. Deuced muggy still.”—“Dined; tried on a new coat; mended the fire with
some syobolewords for the next six months—*** and ***.
The new sacred word is ***—the reply, ***—the rejoinder, ***. The former word (now changed)
was ***; there is also ***—***. Things seem fast coming to a crisis—Ca ira!
True, there was a book to be made, and that book a quarto, and that quarto to
be filled. A quarto—the state-coach and six—the last remains of the heavy aristocracy of
literature. But still, even when we consider the broad domain of margin, the ease with which a
few flimsy, flowery paragraphs are thrown off—
Now there are two ways of cutting this Gordian knot between profession and
practice. First, that it takes its origin from a mistake in judgment—a conclusion which none
can admit; his noble and valued friend
” was but the mask
to a very different one, and that, in fact and reality, he envied, feared, and disliked this
“wonderful and gifted individual.
”
Through his whole life, all the leaven of Fleet-street clinging about him.
”
That noble
friend
” can create but little surprise. to forgive as a
Christian; that is to say, not at all;
” but very difficult to forget. We can
pardon being made the object of abuse, but never being made the object of ridicule. Nay, when
they nominally stood forth as the of the better brothers;
” as when he
says, “Public opinion never led, nor ever shall lead me; I will not sit on a degraded
throne; so pray put Messrs.——, or——, or
” This seems to us one of those
pleasantries, pleasant to all but the individual most concerned. scented vanity by a kindred instinct, and
pampered it by way of exchange.
” He might like “golden opinions from all
ranks of men,
” but he infinitely preferred taking their gold after he had knocked
them down. As to friendship, it is a propensity in which my genius is very
limited. I do not know the male human being, except
”
After this positive disclaimer, and distinction between personal and accidental friends, his
Lordship proceeds: “All my others are men-of-the-world friendships.But as for friends and friendship, I have (as I already said)
named the only remaining male
” Lest, however, for whom I feel any thing of the
kind.
” That a nature such as perhaps Thomas
Moore.
“Upon him bravely, do thy worst, And foul fall him who blenches first.”
if it were to be done* over again, I should act in the same manner.” This conclusion is more satisfactory to himself than to his readers. It would require something far more intelligible than this self-gratulatory paragraph to change the general opinion, or remove the odium attached to this transaction.
Your entering into my project for the Memoir is pleasant to me.” “
So” It is curious to observe how clearly his Lordship foresees the advantages of his own death, in a business point of view: “Longman don’t bite: it was my wish to have made that work of use.Murray , however, does bite to the tune of two thousand guineas.
You need not be alarmed; the fourteen years will hardly elapse without some mortality among us: so your calculation will not be in so much peril, as the ‘argosie’ will sink before that time, and the pound of flesh be withered, previously to your being so long out of a return.” Again, he writes to
I really think you should have more, if I evaporate in a reasonable time.” Again, in allusion to
I thought our Magnifico would pound you, if possible: he’s trying to pound me too, but I’ll specie the rogue.”
Thus, while endeavouring to raise money upon the MS., * We would call the attention of our readers to the following
passage, p. 294. “sound, and free from
blemish.
” But the whole business My, this present writing, is to direct you that,
” Surely this is one proof, at least, that the contents of the
“if she chooses, she may see the MS. memoir in your
possession. I wish her to have fair play in all cases, even though it will not be
published till after my decease. For this purpose it were but just that
There is such a similarity of case and conduct between I was aggrieved, I resent
and revenge to the uttermost of my power.
” But
Such defence we deprecate, for any memory which has our good wishes.
We particularly pointed attention to one or two literary slights, as the key
to amende honorableHere,
” said
these are the rooms I use myself, and here I mean to establish
you.
” Yet one touch of offended vanity could cancel this long arrear of kindness.
“What, but one halfpenny-worth of bread to all this sack?
Monstrous!!!
”—We close this revolting part of our subject in the too pertinent words
of the Psalmist—
“It is not an open enemy that hath done me this
dishonour; for then I could have borne it. Neither was it mine adversary that did magnify
himself against me; for then, peradventure, I would have hid myself from him. But it was
even thou, my companion—mine own familiar friend.
”
Nothing more accurate, and, we must add, more just than his observations, when referring
to the business of life. The next distinguishing mark, is the feverish, insatiate, and
unbounded vanity they display. What will be said? is the great first cause. But is not this
weakness, the inevitable attendant on a literary career? We all know we cannot take to
dram-drinking with impunity, and flattery is just a mental glass of brandy,—the love of
excitement engenders the interpret to their own
”—in short, he was to live through a carnival
of compliment. Thirdly, he was to abide the reaction of his own success, when praise was no
longer a novelty, and its sweets cloyed; but the sting of abuse still retained its smart, and
of a person on whom the gaze of the public has long been concentrated, nothing is too absurd to
be invented—too atrocious to be repeated—too false to be believed—for “Folly loves the
martyrdom of fame.
” All these stages leave their sediment behind; the first, its
anxiety and bitterness; the second, its satiety and disgust; the third, its disdain and
defiance.
We leave it to those—who deem that to depreciate is to assimilate to their own
low level—those Tartars of the moral world, who seem to think that the qualities of those they
destroy must become their own possession and inheritance,—We leave to such as these to point
attention to
But it is the common cause of all—
the common cause, too, of all who have been either enlightened or delighted, to rise up
against the base spirit which, for grain or for grudge, violates the confidence and degrades
the memory of the dead. Who among us has been so careful and so cautious in speech, or so
upright in conduct, as to challenge such scrutiny, and abide the test to which a base delight
”
from those traits which he shared in common with his fellow men? Why should we not rather dwell
upon his works, with a high and generous pride in the noble monument thus erected in the
literature of our own age?
those hopes may rest in security, for that language enrolls his memory.