Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 14 June 1814
“I return your packet of this morning. Have you heard that
Bertrand has returned to Paris with the
account of Napoleon’s having lost his senses?
It is a report; but, if true, I must, like Mr. Fitzgerald and Jeremiah (of
lamentable memory) lay claim to prophecy; that is to say, of saying, that he ought to go out of his senses, in the penultimate stanza of a
certain Ode,—the which, having been
pronounced nonsense by several profound critics, has a still
further pretension, by its unintelligibility, to inspiration.
“Ever, &c.”
Henri Gratien Bertrand (1773-1844)
French general who followed Napoleon into exile; his memoirs were translated as
Napoleon at Elba (1952).
William Thomas Fitzgerald (1759-1829)
A clerk in the Navy Office who for three decades supplied the newspapers and magazines
with patriotic effusions, many first performed orally at Literary Fund banquets.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
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).
