Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 2 September 1814
“Newstead Abbey, September 2d, 1814.
“I am obliged by what you have sent, but would rather not
see any thing of the kind*; we have had enough of these things already, good and bad,
and next month you need not trouble yourself to collect even the higher generation—on my account. It gives me much pleasure to hear of Mr. Hobhouse’s and Mr.
Merivale’s good entreatment by the journals you mention.
“I still think Mr.
Hogg and yourself might make out an alliance. Dodsley’s was, I believe, the last decent
thing of the kind, and his had great success in its day, and
lasted several years; but then he had the double advantage of editing and publishing.
The Spleen, and several of
Gray’s odes, much
of Shenstone, and many
others of good repute, made their first appearance in his collection. Now, with the
support of Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, &c., I
see little reason why you should not do as well; and if once fairly established, you
would have assistance from the youngsters, I dare say. Stratford Canning (whose ‘Buonaparte’ is excellent), and many others, and
Moore, and Hobhouse, and I, would try a fall now and then (if permitted), and you
might coax Campbell, too, into it. By the by, he has an unpublished (though printed) poem on a scene in Germany
(Bavaria, I think), which I saw last year, that is perfectly magnificent, and equal to
himself. I wonder he don’t publish it.
“Oh!—do you recollect S * *, the engraver’s, mad letter about not
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade, With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard: His garments only a slight murmur made; He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird, But slowly; and as he pass’d Juan by, Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.” |
![]() It is said, that the Newstead ghost appeared, also, to
Lord Byron’s cousin, Miss Fanny Parkins, and that she made a sketch of him from memory.
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* The reviews and magazines of the month. |
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| 578 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1814. |
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engraving Phillip’s picture of Lord Foley? (as he
blundered it); well, I have traced it, I think. It seems, by the papers, a preacher of
Johanna Southcote’s is named Foley; and I can no way account
for the said S * *’s confusion of words and ideas, but by that of his
head’s running on Johanna and her apostles. It was a mercy he
did not say Lord Tozer. You know, of course,
that S * * is a believer in this new (old) virgin of
spiritual impregnation.
“I long to know what she will produce*: her being with child
at sixty-five is indeed a miracle, but her getting any one to beget it, a greater.
“If you were not going to Paris or Scotland, I could send
you some game: if you remain, let me know.
“P.S. A word or two of ‘Lara,’ which your enclosure brings before me. It
is of no great promise separately; but, as connected with the other tales, it will do
very well for the volumes you mean to publish. I would recommend this
arrangement—Childe Harold, the
smaller Poems, Giaour, Bride, Corsair, Lara; the last completes the series, and its very likeness renders it
necessary to the others. Cawthorne writes that
they are publishing English Bards in Ireland: pray inquire into this; because it must be
stopped.”
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).
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.
Robert Dodsley (1704-1764)
English bookseller, poet, and miscellaneous writer; originally a footman, he was started
in his literary career by Alexander Pope.
Thomas Philip Foley (1758-1835)
The son of Philip Foley; he was educated at Trinity and Jesus Colleges, Cambridge, was
Vicar of Wombourn and Trysull, Staffordshire, and was a follower of Joanna
Southcott.
Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
English poet, author of “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” “Elegy written in a
Country Churchyard,” and “The Bard”; he was professor of history at Cambridge
(1768).
John Cam Hobhouse, baron Broughton (1786-1869)
Founder of the Cambridge Whig Club; traveled with Byron in the orient, radical MP for
Westminster (1820); Byron's executor; after a long career in politics published
Some Account of a Long Life (1865) later augmented as
Recollections of a Long Life, 6 vols (1909-1911).
James Hogg [The Ettrick Shepherd] (1770-1835)
Scottish autodidact, poet, and novelist; author of
The Queen's
Wake (1813) and
Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified
Sinner (1824).
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.
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.
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.
Frances Parkyns (d. 1799)
A “cousin” and childhood friend of Lord Byron, who stayed with the Parkyns family in 1799
while his foot was being tended. The family relation may have been through the Parkyns of
Bunny Hall.
Thomas Phillips (1770-1845)
English painter who assisted Benjamin West, exhibited at the Royal Academy, and painted
portraits of English poets including Byron, Crabbe, Scott, Southey, and Coleridge.
William Sharp (1749-1824)
English engraver, political radical, and follower of Joanna Southcott.
William Shenstone (1714-1763)
English poet and landscape gardener; author of
The Schoolmistress
(1737, 1742) "A Pastoral Ballad" (1743).
Joanna Southcott (1750-1814)
English prophet and visionary, originally the daughter of a Devonshire farmer.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.
