Memoir of John Murray
John Murray to Lord Byron, [4 November 1815?]
“I assure you my conscience has not been without its
compunctions, at not calling or writing, although incessant ![]()
| ‘THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.’ | 357 |
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business and interruptions have
prevented both. Mr. Gifford has read,
with great delight, the ‘Siege of
Corinth,’ in which—from the apparition, which is
exquisitely conceived and supported, to the end—he says, you have
equalled your best: the battle in the streets, and the catastrophe, all worthy
of their author. He makes three critical remarks: that we are rather too long
in coming to the interesting part; the scene immediately before the apparition
is rather too frightful; and there are perhaps too many minutiæ after the
catastrophe—all very easy of improvement if you feel their force, which
certainly I do: and, then, it is as beautiful a little poem as ever was
written. You would have received a proof before this had I not been anxious to
preserve the MSS.; but a portion will be sent this night, and the rest on
Monday. Coleridge is wild and fanciful,
and will make much talk. I will gladly make a bidding when I can have the
remainder,* as well to judge of quantity as quality. I am very anxious to
receive Mr. Hunt’s poem [’Rimini’], of which your
opinion is perfectly satisfactory. I should have put up for you the sheets of
Sir John Malcolm’s
‘Persia,’
which will not be published till December, but I am anxious that you should
have the first reading of it, and I will give you a better copy hereafter, with
twenty plates. Mr. Ward was with me
yesterday, and inquired most warmly about you. We are filling now: if you are
out about four, will you look in and see us. Pardon my haste.
“J. M.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
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).
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of
The
Examiner and
The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and
Shelley.
Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833)
Indian administrator and diplomat; author of
Political History of
India (1811); his life of Clive was posthumously published in 1836.
John William Ward, earl of Dudley (1781-1833)
The son of William Ward, third Viscount Dudley (d. 1823); educated at Edinburgh and
Oxford, he was an English MP, sometimes a Foxite Whig and sometimes Canningite Tory, who
suffered from insanity in his latter years.
