Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 30 September 1816
“Diodati, Sept. 30th, 1816.
“I answered your obliging letters yesterday: to-day the
Monody arrived with its title-page, which is, I presume, a separate publication.
‘The request of a friend:’—
‘Obliged by hunger and request of friends.’ |
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I will request you to expunge that same, unless you please to add, ‘by a
person of quality,’ or ‘of wit and honour about town.’ Merely say,
‘written to be spoken at Drury-lane.’ To-morrow I dine at Copet. Saturday I
strike tents for Italy. This evening, on the lake in my boat with Mr. Hobhouse, the pole which sustains the mainsail
slipped in tacking, and struck me so violently on one of my legs (the worst, luckily) as to make me do a foolish thing, viz. to faint—a downright swoon; the thing must have jarred some nerve or other, for
the bone is not injured, and hardly painful (it is six hours since), and cost
Mr. Hobhouse some apprehension and much sprinkling of water to
recover me. The sensation was a very odd one: I never had but two such before, once from
a cut on the head from a stone, several years ago, and once (long ago also) in falling
into a great wreath of snow;—a sort of gray giddiness first, then nothingness and a
total loss of memory on beginning to recover. The last part is not disagreeable, if one
did not find it again.
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| A. D. 1816. |
LIFE OF LORD BYRON. |
13 |
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“You want the original MSS. Mr.
Davies has the first fair copy in my own hand, and I have the rough
composition here, and will send or save it for you, since you wish it.
“With regard to your new literary project, if any thing
falls in the way which will, to the best of my judgment, suit you, I will send you what
I can. At present I must lay by a little, having pretty well exhausted myself in what I
have sent you. Italy or Dalmatia and another summer may, or may not, set me off again. I
have no plans, and am nearly as indifferent what may come as where I go. I shall take
Felicia Hemans’
Restoration, &c. with me; it
is a good poem—very.
“Pray repeat my best thanks and remembrances to Mr. Gifford for all his trouble and good-nature towards
me.
“Do not fancy me laid up, from the beginning of this scrawl.
I tell you the accident for want of better to say; but it is over, and I am only
wondering what the deuce was the matter with me.
“I have lately been over all the Bernese Alps and their
lakes. I think many of the scenes (some of which were not those usually frequented by
the English) finer than Chamouni, which I visited some time before. I have been to
Clarens again, and crossed the mountains behind it: of this tour I kept a short journal
for my sister, which I sent yesterday in three letters. It is not all for perusal; but
if you like to hear about the romantic part, she will, I dare say, show you what touches
upon the rocks, &c.
“Christabel—I won’t have any one sneer at Christabel: it is a fine wild poem.
* * * * *
“Madame de Staël
wishes to see the Antiquary, and I am
going to take it to her to-morrow. She has made Copet as agreeable as society and talent
can make any place on earth.
“Yours ever,
“N.”
Scrope Berdmore Davies (1782-1852)
Byron met his bosom friend while at Cambridge. Davies, a professional gambler, lent Byron
funds to pay for his travels in Greece and Byron acted as second in Davies' duels.
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
Felicia Dorothea Hemans [née Browne] (1793-1835)
English poet; author of
Tales, and Historic Scenes (1819),
Records of Woman (1828), and other volumes. She was much in demand
as a contributor to the literary annuals.
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).
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.
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.
