Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to Francis Hodgson, 12 December 1811
“8, St. James’s-street, Dec. 12th, 1811.
“Why, Hodgson! I fear
you have left off wine and me at the same time,—I have written and written and written,
and no answer! My dear Sir Edgar,
water disagrees with you,—drink sack and write. Bland did not come to his appointment, being unwell, but M * * e supplied all other vacancies most
delectably. I have hopes of his joining us at Newstead. I am sure you would like him
more and more as he developes,—at least I do.
“How Miller and
Bland go on, I don’t know. Cawthorne talks of being in treaty for a novel of
Me. D’Arblay’s, and if he obtains
it (at 1000 gs.!!) wishes me to see the MS. This I should read with pleasure,—not that I
should ever dare to venture a criticism on her whose writings Dr. Johnson once revised, but for the pleasure of the
thing. If my worthy publisher wanted a sound opinion, I should send the MS. to Rogers and M * * e, as men most alive to true taste. I have had
frequent letters from Wm. Harness, and you are
silent; certes, you are not a schoolboy. However, I have the consolation of knowing that
you are better employed, viz. reviewing. You don’t deserve that I should add
another syllable, and I won’t. Yours, &c.
“P.S. I only wait for your answer to fix our
meeting.”
Robert Bland (1779 c.-1825)
Under-master at Harrow 1796-1805, where he taught Byron; he was a friend of Byron and of
Francis Hodgson. With John Herman Merivale he published
Translations,
chiefly from the Greek Anthology (1806).
Frances D'Arblay [née Burney] (1752-1840)
English novelist, the daughter of the musicologist Dr. Charles Burney; author of
Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World
(1778),
Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782), and
Camilla (1796).
James Cawthorne (1832 fl.)
London bookseller who published Byron's
English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers (1809); he had a shop at 132 Strand from 1810-32.
William Harness (1790-1869)
A Harrow friend and early correspondent of Byron. He later answered the poet in
The Wrath of Cain (1822) and published an edition of Shakespeare
(1825) and other literary projects. Harness was a longtime friend of Mary Russell
Mitford.
Francis Hodgson (1781-1852)
Provost of Eton College, translator of Juvenal (1807) and close friend of Byron. He wrote
for the
Monthly and
Critical Reviews, and was
author of (among other volumes of poetry)
Childe Harold's Monitor; or
Lines occasioned by the last Canto of Childe Harold (1818).
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).
William Richard Beckford Miller (1769-1844)
Albemarle-Street bookseller; he began publishing in 1790; shortly after he rejected
Byron's
Childe Harold in 1811 his stock and premises were purchased
by John Murray.
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.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Columbus (1810),
Jaqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28).
