“(Thou wilt never be called ‘true Thomas,’ like He of Ercildoune), why don’t you write to me?—as you won’t, I must. I was near you at Aston the other day, and hope I soon shall be again. If so, you must and shall meet me, and go to Matlock and elsewhere and take what, in flash dialect, is poetically termed ‘a lark,’ with Rogers and me for accomplices. Yesterday, at Holland-house, I was introduced to Southey—the best looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet’s head and shoulders, I would almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that, and—there is his eulogy.
| A. D. 1813. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 429 |
“ * * read me part of a letter from you. By the foot of Pharaoh, I believe there was abuse, for he stopped short, so he did, after a fine saying about our correspondence, and looked—I wish I could revenge myself by attacking you, or by telling you that I have had to defend you—an agreeable way which one’s friends have of recommending themselves by saying—‘Ay, ay, I gave it Mr. Such-a-one for what he said about your being a plagiary and a rake, and so on.’ But do you know that you are one of the very few whom I never have the satisfaction of hearing abused, but the reverse;—and do you suppose I will forgive that?
“I have been in the country, and ran away from the Doncaster races. It is odd,—I was a visitor in the same house which came to my sire as a residence with Lady Carmarthen (with whom he adulterated before his majority—by the by, remember, she was not my mamma)—and they thrust me into an old room, with a nauseous picture over the chimney, which I should suppose my papa regarded with due respect, and which, inheriting the family taste, I looked upon with great satisfaction. I staid a week with the family, and behaved very well—though the lady of the house is young and religious, and pretty, and the master is my particular friend. I felt no wish for any thing but a poodle dog, which they kindly gave me. Now, for a man of my courses, not even to have coveted is a sign of great amendment. Pray pardon all this nonsense, and don’t ‘snub me when I’m in spirits.’
“Here’s an impromptu for you by a ‘person of quality,’ written last week, on being reproached for low spirits.
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“When from the heart where Sorrow sits*,
Her dusky shadow mounts too high,
And o’er the changing aspect flits,
And clouds the brow, or fills the eye:
Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink;
My Thoughts their dungeon know too well—
Back to my breast the wanderers shrink,
And bleed within their silent cell.”
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