Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 11 September 1820
“Ravenna, Sept. 11th, 1820.
“Here is another historical note for you. I want to be as
near truth as the drama can be.
“Last post I sent you a note fierce as Faliero himself*, in answer to a trashy tourist, who pretends that he could have been
introduced to me. Let me have a proof of it, that I may cut its lava into some shape.
“What Gifford says is
very consolatory (of the First Act). English, sterling genuine
English, is a desideratum amongst you, and I am glad that I have got so much
left; though Heaven knows how I retain it: I hear none but from my valet, and his is Nottinghamshire; and I see none but in your new publications, and
theirs is no language at all, but jargon. Even your * * * * is terribly
stilted and affected, with ‘very, very’ so soft and
pamby.
“Oh! if ever I do come amongst you
again, I will give you such a ‘Baviad and Mæviad!’
not as good as the old, but even better
merited. There never was such a set as your ragamuffins (I mean not yours only,
but every body’s). What with the Cockneys, and the Lakers, and the followers of Scott, and
Moore, and Byron, you are
in the very uttermost decline and degradation of literature. I can’t think of it
without all the remorse of a murderer. I wish that Johnson were alive again to crush them!”
Marino Faliero (1285-1355)
Doge of Venice 1354-55; he was executed after joining in a plot against the patricians of
the city.
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
English man of letters, among many other works he edited
A Dictionary
of the English Language (1755) and Shakespeare (1765), and wrote
Lives of the Poets (1779-81).
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
Jane Watts [née Waldie] (1793-1826)
English painter who studied under Alexander Nasmyth; author of
Sketches
Descriptive of Italy in 1816-17; with a brief Account of Travels in various Parts of
France and Switzerland (1820).
