Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Journal Entry: 6 March 1814
“Sunday, March 6th.
On Tuesday last dined with Rogers,—Made. de
Staël, Mackintosh, Sheridan, Erskine,
and Payne Knight, Lady
Donegall and Miss R. there. Sheridan told a very good
story of himself and Me. de
Recamier’s handkerchief; Erskine a few stories
of himself only. She is going to write a big book about England,
she says;—I believe her. Asked by her how I liked Miss
* *’s thing, called * *, and answered (very sincerely) that I
thought it very bad for her, and worse than any of the others.
Afterwards thought it possible Lady Donegall, being Irish, might be
a Patroness of * *, and was rather sorry for my opinion, as I hate putting people
into fusses, either with themselves, or their favourites; it looks as if one did it on
purpose. The party went off very well, and the fish was very much to my gusto. But we
got up too soon after the women; and Mrs. Corinne always lingers so
long after dinner, that we wish her in—the drawing-room.
“To-day C. called,
and, while sitting here, in came Merivale. During
our colloquy, C. (ignorant that M. was the writer) abused the
household, as a new peruke, and other
symptoms of promotion, testified. When asked “how he came to carry this old
woman about with him from place to place,” Lord
Byron’s only answer was, “the poor old devil was so
kind to me.” |
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| 504 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1814. |
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‘mawkishness of the Quarterly Review of Grimm’s Correspondence.’ I (knowing the secret) changed the conversation as
soon as I could; and C. went away, quite convinced of having made the most favourable
impression on his new acquaintance. Merivale is luckily a very
good-natured fellow, or, God he knows what might have been engendered from such a
malaprop. I did not look at him while this was going on, but I felt like a coal,—for I
like Merivale, as well as the article in question. * * * *
* *
*
“Asked to Lady
Keith’s to-morrow evening—I think I will go; but it is the first
party invitation I have accepted this ‘season,’ as the learned Fletcher called it, when that youngest brat of Lady * *’s cut my eye and cheek open with a
misdirected pebble—‘Never mind, my lord, the scar will be gone before the season;’ as if one’s eye was of no importance
in the mean time.
‘Lord Erskine called, and
gave me his famous pamphlet, with a marginal note and corrections in his handwriting.
Sent it to be bound superbly, and shall treasure it.
“Sent my fine print of Napoleon to be framed. It is framed; and the
emperor becomes his robes as if he had been hatched in them.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
Scottish poet and man of letters; author of
The Pleasures of Hope
(1799),
Gertrude of Wyoming (1808) and lyric odes. He edited the
New Monthly Magazine (1821-30).
Anna May Chichester, marchioness of Donegall [née May] (d. 1849)
The illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward May, second baronet; she married Sir George
Augustus Chichester, second marquess of Donegall in 1795. In 1815 it was revealed that she
was under-age at the time of her marriage.
Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849)
Irish novelist; author of
Castle Rackrent (1800)
Belinda (1801),
The Absentee (1812) and
Ormond (1817).
Thomas Erskine, first baron Erskine (1750-1823)
Scottish barrister who was a Whig MP for Portsmouth (1783-84, 1790-1806); after defending
the political radicals Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall in 1794 he was lord chancellor in the
short-lived Grenville-Fox administration (1806-07).
William Fletcher (1831 fl.)
Byron's valet, the son of a Newstead tenant; he continued in service to the end of the
poet's life, after which he was pensioned by the family. He married Anne Rood, formerly
maid to Augusta Leigh, and was living in London in 1831.
Richard Payne Knight (1751-1824)
MP and writer on taste; in 1786 he published
An Account of the Remains
of the Worship of Priapus for the Society of Dilettanti; he was author of
The Landscape: a Didactic Poem (1794),
An
Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste (1805) and other works.
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832)
Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in
Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and
MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).
John Herman Merivale (1779-1844)
English poet and translator, friend of Francis Hodgson, author of
Orlando in Ronscevalles: a Poem (1814). He married Louisa Drury, daughter of the
headmaster at Harrow, and wrote for the
Monthly Review while
pursuing a career in the law.
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
Jeanne-Françoise Récamier (1777-1849)
Friend of Madame de Staël and lover of Benjamin Constant; her
Souvenirs
et correspondance was published in 1859.
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).
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)
Anglo-Irish playwright, author of
The School for Scandal (1777),
Whig MP and ally of Charles James Fox (1780-1812).
Germaine de Staël (1766-1817)
French woman of letters; author of the novel
Corinne, ou L'Italie
(1807) and
De l'Allemagne (1811); banned from Paris by Napoleon, she
spent her later years living in Germany, Britain, and Switzerland.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
