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BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. XCIV.NOVEMBER, 1824.Vol. XVI.
SOUTHEY AND BYRON.
We published some time ago Mr
Southey’s two letters, in vindication of his character from the attacks of
Mr Smith of Norwich and Lord
Byron; and we now insert another, in which he answers, and certainly answers
most triumphantly, some passages of Mr Medwin’s
late book, in which his name had been
made free with in a most unjustifiable manner. About the controversy as between Mr
Southey and the Captain, we shall not say one word. It would be quite
unnecessary for us to do so. All the world will at once understand and appreciate the different
sorts of plight in which these twain have come out of their conflict.
In regard to the question—the real question—as between Mr Southey and Lord Byron
himself; we consider this as a matter by no means so simple and easy of decision. It gives us,
and all who have a proper respect for genius, the sincerest pain to see two men so eminent as
these, railing about each other’s real or supposed faults and foibles, even after the
barrier of the grave has intervened between them. No man of sense and candour can suppose, that
Mr Southey ever did, or could understand the character of
Lord Byron, whom he never saw, or that Lord Byron
did, or could, under similar circumstances, understand the character of Mr
Southey. It would have been quite as sensible to expect, that Samuel Johnson and David
Hume should be impressed with a profound respect for each other’s talents
and acquirements, and forget and forgive all each other’s deficiencies and failings.
Mr Southey is, and always was, too much of a monk, to understand a man
of the world like Byron; and Byron was too decidedly,
or rather too exclusively, a man of the world, to understand a monk like
Southey. Hence this absurd exaggeration of each other’s errors
and defects. In Southey, in one of the most learned and accomplished
scholars, and pure and virtuous men, that the modern world has produced,
Byron could see nothing but the Tory partizan, and the author of
certain articles in the Quarterly Review. In
Byron, on the other hand,—in one of the greatest of the great
Poets of England,—in a man who never wrote three pages without pouring out some emanation
of a soul beautiful, lofty, and glorious, if ever such a soul dwelt within a human
bosom,—in this great and godlike Poet of England, Southey could see
nothing else but a “pander-general to youthful vice,” and the founder of “a
Satanic school.” This nonsense on both sides excites an universal smile—nothing
more. We would scarcely endure now-a-days to hear either Hume or Gibbon talked of as Satanic characters; nor could we
sympathise very much, as matters go, with the moralist, who should carry his indignant virtue
so far as to heap with epithets of unmingled abuse the names of those, who, in our
fathers’ or grandfathers’ days, wrote Tom Jones or Peregrine
Pickle. Hume was as virtuous a man as Mr
Southey can be; so was Gibbon. Fielding was as amiable a man; and Smollett as upright and complete a gentleman. It will not do to talk so
fluently about fiends and demons in this upper world.
Few men could endure the test of having their private talk written
down,—especially after the discussion of a quart of gin between the talker and the
note-taker. Byron was a rattling, reckless fellow, who said many things that he should not have
said; but, from all we have been able to ascertain, he had a great deal too much taste and tact
to talk low trash, unless where he found his audience incapable of sympathising with any of the
higher and purer strains of his mind. We regard Medwin’s book a proof positive of a small and
mean understanding in its writer; and of his total incapacity to be for one hour, in any just
sense of the term, the companion of such a man as Lord Byron.
Lord Byron had great and undeniable faults; but we prophesy,
that the silly and exaggerated cant, which has, been flourishing in relation to him and his
great name, will ere long subside beneath that growing feeling of disgust, which is already
observable enough amidst all rational persons and classes.
Mr Southey does well to defend himself from any attack,
by which he conceives it possible for his fair moral name to be injured. He may, however, rest
assured, that no human being ever believed him to be capable of the least of the dirtinesses
attributed to him by the drunken imagination of Byron,—or the base and blundering folly of this Captain Medwin. People of all orders laugh occasionally at some of the
Laureate’s little peculiarities of thought and manner; but, upon the whole, we are
certain, that no man ever stood so high in our literature,—and stood there surrounded
with a more general atmosphere of respect and good-will. He is totally mistaken if he supposes
himself to be regarded with spleen or hatred by any class of English readers. His only enemies
are a few pert critics,—scarcely one of whom would dare to open his lips in Mr
Southey’s presence;—and the miserable riff-raff of Cockneydom,—none of whom
one can willingly imagine to occupy even one second of the serious attention of such a man, and
such an author as he.
Had Southey and Byron been thrown together in life, we are certain, there would have been
nothing but kindliness of feeling between them. It is now too late to pray for this;—but
we are sure the world will not thank the survivor for anything tending to prolong unnecessarily
the existence of feelings which never ought to have existed at all.
As a specimen of controversial and vituperative writing, the following letter is
certainly well worthy of attention. Many of the turns are really quite exquisite in
skilfulness,—and there is an honest breadth of scorn over some whole paragraphs, that
reminds us of Warburton himself.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE COURIER. “Sir,
“On two former occasions you have allowed me, through the channel of your
Journal, to contradict a calumnious accusation as publicly as it had been preferred: and
though, in these days of slander, such things hardly deserve refutation, there are reasons
which induce me once more to request a similar favour.
“Some extracts from Captain
Medwin’s recent publication of Lord Byron’s Conversations have been
transmitted to me by a friend, who, happening to know what the facts are which are there
falsified, is of opinion that it would not misbecome me to state them at this time. I wish it,
however, to be distinctly understood, that in so doing I am not influenced by any desire of
vindicating myself; that would be wholly unnecessary, considering from what quarter the charges
come. I notice them for the sake of laying before the public one sample more of the practices
of the Satanic School, and shewing what credit is due to Lord
Byron’s assertions. For that his Lordship spoke to this effect, and in
this temper, I have no doubt; Captain Medwin having, I dare say, to the
best of his recollection, faithfully performed the worshipful office of retailing all the
effusions of spleen, slander, and malignity, which were vented in his presence. Lord
Byron is the person who suffers most by this; and, indeed, what man is there
whose character would remain uninjured if every peevish or angry expression, every sportive or
extravagant sally, thrown off in the unsuspicious and imagined safety of private life, were to
be secretly noted down, and published, with no notice of circumstances to shew how they had
arisen, and when no explanation was possible? One of the offices which has been attributed to
the devil, is that of thus registering every idle word. There is an end of all confidence or
comfort, in social intercourse, if such a practice is to be tolerated by public opinion. When I
take these conversations to be authentic, it is because, as far as I am concerned, they accord,
both in matter and spirit, with what his Lordship himself had written and published, and it is
on this account, only, that I deem them worthy of notice—the last notice that I shall
ever bestow upon the subject. Let there many ‘More Last Words of Mr
Baxter,’ as the ‘reading public’ may choose to pay
for, they will draw forth no further reply from me.
“Now then to the point.—The following speech is reported by
Captain Medwin, as Lord
Byron’s:—
“‘I am glad Mr Southey owns
that article* on ‘Foliage,’ which excited my choler so much. But who else
could have been the author? Who but Southey would have had the baseness,
under pretext of reviewing the work of one man, insidiously to make it a nest-egg for hatching
malicious calumnies against others? I say nothing of the critique itself on ‘Foliage;’ but what was the object of that article? I repeat, to
vilify and scatter his dark and devilish insinuations against me and others. Shame on the man
who could wound an already bleeding heart—be barbarous enough to revive the memory of an
event that Shelley was perfectly innocent of—and
found scandal on falsehood! Shelley taxed him with writing that article
some years ago; and he had the audacity to admit that he had treasured up some opinions of
Shelley, ten years before, when he was on a visit at Keswick, and had
made a note of them at the time.’
“The reviewal in question I did not
write.—Lord Byron might have known this if he
had enquired of Mr Murray, who would readily have
assured him that I was not the author: and he might have known it from the reviewal itself,
where the writer declares, in plain words, that he was a contemporary of Shelley’s, at Eton. I had no concern in it, directly or
indirectly; but let it not be inferred that, in thus disclaiming that paper, any disapproval of
it is intended. Papers in the Quarterly Review
have been ascribed to me, (those on Keats’s
Poems, for example), which I have heartily condemned, both for their spirit and
manner. But, for the one in question, its composition would be creditable to the most
distinguished writer; nor is there any thing either in the opinions expressed, or in the manner
of expressing them, which a man of just and honourable principles would have hesitated to
advance. I would not have written that part of it which alludes to Mr
Shelley, because, having met him on familiar terms, and parted with him in
kindness, (a feeling of which Lord Byron had no conception), would have
withheld me from animadverting in that manner upon his conduct. In other respects, the paper
contains nothing that I would not have avowed if I had written, or subscribed, as entirely
assenting to, and approving, it.
“It is not true that Shelley ever
inquired of me whether I was the author of that paper, which, purporting, as it did, to be
written by an Etonian of his own standing, he very well knew I was not. But in this part of
Lord Byron’s statement there may be some mistake,
mingled with a great deal of malignant falsehood. Mr.
Shelley addressed a letter to me from Pisa, asking if I were the author of a
criticism in the Quarterly Review upon his Revolt of Islam; not exactly, in Lord
Byron’s phrase, taxing me with it, for he declared his own belief that I
was not, but added, that he was induced to ask the question by the positive declaration of some
friends in England that the article was mine. Denying, in my reply, that either he or any other
person was entitled to propose such a question upon such grounds, I, nevertheless, assured him
that I had not written the paper, and that I had never, in any of my writings, alluded to him
in any way.
“Now for the assertion that I had the audacity to admit having treasured
up some of Shelley’s opinions, when he resided at
Keswick, and having made notes of them at the time. What truth is mixed up with the slander of
this statement I shall immediately explain; premising only, that, as the opinion there implied,
concerning the practise of noting down familiar conversation, is not applicable to me, I
transfer it to Captain Medwin, for his own especial use.
“Mr Shelley having, in the letter
alluded to, thought proper to make some remarks upon my opinions, I took occasion, in reply, to
comment upon his, and to ask him (as the tree is known by its fruits) whether he had found them
* A volume of Poems by Mr Leigh
Hunt. The reader, who may be desirous of referring to the article, will
find it in the 18th vol. of the Quarterly
Review, p. 324.
conducive to his own happiness, and the happiness of those with whom he
had been most nearly connected. This produced a second letter from him, written in a tone,
partly of justification, partly of attack. I replied to this also—not by any such absurd
admission as Lord Byron has stated—but by
recapitulating to him, as a practical illustration of his principles, the leading circumstances
of his own life, from the commencement of his career at University College. The earlier facts I
stated upon his own authority, as I had heard them from his own lips; the latter were of public
notoriety. There the correspondence ended. On his part it had been conducted with the courtesy
which was natural to him—on mine, in the spirit of one who was earnestly admonishing a
fellow-creature.
“This is the correspondence upon which Lord
Byron’s misrepresentation has been constructed. It is all that ever past
between us, except a note from Shelley, some years
before, accompanying a copy of his Alastor, and one of mine in acknowledgment of it. I have
preserved his letter, together with copies of my own; and, if I had as little consideration for
the feelings of the living as Capt. Medwin has
displayed, it is not any tenderness towards the dead† that would withhold me now from
publishing them.
“It is not likely that Shelley
should have communicated my part of this correspondence to Lord
Byron, even if he did his own. Bearing testimony, as his heart did, to the truth
of my statements in every point, and impossible as it was to escape from the conclusion which
was there brought home, I do not think he would have dared produce it. How much, or how little,
of the truth was known to his Lordship, or with which of the party at Pisa the insolent and
calumnious misrepresentation conveyed in his Lordship’s words originated, is of little
consequence.
“The charge of scattering dark and devilish insinuations is one which, if
Lord Byron were living, I would throw back in his teeth.
Me he had assailed without the slightest provocation, and with that unmanliness too which was
peculiar to him; and in this course he might have gone on without giving me the slightest
uneasiness, or calling forth one animadversion in reply. When I came forward to attack his
Lordship, it was upon public, not upon private, grounds. He is pleased, however, to suppose
that he had ‘mortally offended’ Mr.
Wordsworth and myself many years ago, by a letter which he had written to the
Ettrick Shepherd. ‘Certain it is,’ he
says, ‘that I did not spare the Lakists in it, and he told me that he could not
resist the temptation, and had shown it to the fraternity. It was too tempting; and, as I
could never keep a secret of my own (as you know), much less that of other people, I could
not blame him. I remember saying, among other things, that the Lake Poets were such fools
as not to fish in their own waters. But this was the least offensive part of the
epistle.’ No such epistle was ever shown either to Mr
Wordsworth or to me: but I remember (and this passage brings it to my
recollection) to have heard that Lord Byron had spoken of us, in a letter
to Hogg, with some contempt, as fellows who could neither vie with him for
skill in angling, not for prowess in swimming—Nothing more than this came to my hearing;
and I must have been more sensitive than his Lordship himself could I have been offended by it.
Lord Byron must have known that I had the flocci of his eulogium to balance the nauci of his scorn; and that the one would have nihili-pili-fied the other, even if I had not well
understood the worthlessness of both.
“It was because Lord Byron had brought
a stigma upon English literature, that I accused him; because he had perverted great talents to
the worst purposes; because he had set up for pander-general to the youth of Great Britain as
long as his writings should endure; because he had committed a high crime and misdemeanour
against society, by sending forth a work, in which mockery was mingled with horrors, filth with
impiety, profligacy with sedition and slander. For these offences I came forward to arraign
him. The accusation was not made darkly, it was not insinuated, nor was it advanced under the
cover of a review. I attacked him openly in my own name, and only not by
his, because he had not then publicly avowed the flagitious production, by which he will be
remembered for lasting infamy. He replied in a manner altogether worthy of himself and his
cause. Contention with a generous and honourable opponent leads naturally to esteem, and
probably to friendship; but, next to such an antagonist, an enemy like Lord
Byron is to be desired; one, who by his conduct in the contest, divests himself
of every claim to respect; one, whose baseness is such as to sanctify the vindictive feeling
that it provokes, and upon whom the act of taking vengeance, is that of administering justice.
I answered him as he deserved to he answered, and the effect which that answer produced upon
his Lordship, has been described by his faithful chronicler, Capt.
Medwin. This is the real history of what the purveyors of scandal for the public
are pleased sometimes to announce in their advertisements as ‘Byron’s Controversy
with Southey.’ What there was dark and devilish in it belongs to his Lordship; and had I
been compelled to resume it during his life, he, who played the monster in literature, and
aimed his blows at women, should have been treated accordingly. ‘The Republican
Trio,’ says Lord Byron, ‘when they began to publish in
common, were to have had a community of all things, like the Ancient Britons—to have
lived in a state of nature like savages—and peopled some island of the blest with
children in common like ——. A very pretty Arcadian notion!’ I
may be excused for wishing that Lord Byron had published this himself: but
though he is responsible for the atrocious falsehood, he is not for its posthumous publication.
I shall only observe, therefore, that the slander is as worthy of his Lordship, as the scheme
itself would have been. Nor would I have condescended to notice it even thus, were it not to
show how little this calumniator knew concerning the objects of his uneasy and restless hatred.
Mr Wordsworth and I were strangers to each other,
even by name, when he represents us as engaged in a Satanic confederacy, and we never published
any thing in common.
“Here I dismiss the subject. It might have been thought that
Lord Byron had attained the last degree of disgrace when his head was
set up for a sign at one of those preparatory schools for the brothel and the gallows; where
obscenity, sedition, and blasphemy, are retailed in drams for the vulgar. There remained one
further shame: there remained this exposure of his Private Conversations, which has compelled
his Lordship’s friends, in their own defence, to compare his oral declarations with his
written words, and thereby demonstrate that he was as regardless of truth as he was incapable
of sustaining those feelings suited to his birth, station, and high endowments, which sometimes
came across his better mind.
“Robert Southey. “Keswick, Dec. 8, 1824.”
† In the Preface to his Monody on Keats, Shelley, as I have been informed, asserts, that I was the author of the
criticism in the Quarterly Review, upon
that young man’s poems, and that his death was occasioned by it. There was a degree
of meanness in this, (especially considering the temper and tenour of our correspondence),
which I was not then prepared to expect from Shelley, for that he
believed me to be the author of that paper, I certainly do not believe. He was once, for a
short time, my neighbour. I met him upon terms, not of friendship indeed, but, certainly,
of mutual good will. I admired his talents; thought that he would outgrow his errors
(perilous as they were), and trusted that, meantime, a kind and generous heart would resist
the effect of fatal opinions which he had taken up in ignorance and boyhood. Herein I was
mistaken. But when I ceased to regard him with hope, he became to me an object for sorrow
and awful commiseration, not of any injurious or unkind feeling; and when I expressed
myself with just severity concerning him, it was in direct communication to himself.