Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to Samuel Rogers, 4 April 1817
“It is a considerable time since I wrote to you last, and I
hardly know why I should trouble you now, except that I think you will not be sorry to
hear from me now and then.—You and I were never correspondents, but always something
better, which is, very good friends.
“I saw your friend Sharp in Switzerland, or rather in the German territory (which is and is
not Switzerland), and he gave Hobhouse and me a
very good route for the Bernese Alps; however, we took another from a German, and went
by Clarens, the Dent de Jaman to Montbovon, and through Simmenthal to Thoun, and so on
to Lauterbrounn; except that from thence to the Grindelwald, instead of round about we
went right over the Wengen Alps’ very summit, and being close under ![]()
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the Jungfrau, saw it, its glaciers, and heard the
avalanches in all their glory, having famous weather therefor. We
of course went from the Grindelwald over the Sheidech to Brientz and its lake; past the
Reichenbach and all that mountain road, which reminded me of Albania and Ætolia and
Greece, except that the people here were more civilized and rascally. I did not think so
very much of Chamouni (except the source of the Arveron, to which we went up to the
teeth of the ice, so as to look into and touch the cavity, against the warning of the
guides, only one of whom would go with us so close) as of the Jungfrau, and the
Pissevache, and Simplon, which are quite out of all mortal competition.
“I was at Milan about a moon, and saw Monti and some other
living curiosities, and thence on to Verona, where I did not forget your story of the
assassination during your sojourn there, and brought away with me some fragments of
Juliet’s tomb, and a lively recollection of
the amphitheatre. The Countess Goetz (the governor’s wife
here) told me that there is still a ruined castle of the Montecchi between Verona and
Vicenza. I have been at Venice since November, but shall proceed to Rome shortly. For my
deeds here, are they not written in my letters to the unreplying Thomas Moore? to him I refer you: he has received them
all, and not answered one.
“Will you remember me to Lord and Lady Holland? I have to
thank the former for a book which I have not yet received, but expect to reperuse with
great pleasure on my return, viz. the 2d. edition of Lope de Vega. I have heard of Moore’s forthcoming poem: he cannot wish himself more success than I wish
and augur for him. I have also heard great things of ‘Tales of my Landlord,’ but I have not yet
received them; by all accounts they beat even Waverley, &c., and are by the same author. Maturin’s second tragedy has, it seems, failed, for which I should think any body would be
sorry. My health was very victorious till within the last month, when I had a fever.
There is a typhus in these parts, but I don’t think it was that. However, I got
well without a physician or drugs.
“I forgot to tell you that, last autumn, I furnished
Lewis with ‘bread and salt’ for
some days at Diodati, in reward for which (besides ![]()
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his
conversation) be translated ‘Goëthe’s Faust’ to me by word of mouth, and I set him by the ears with Madame de Staël about the slave trade. I am indebted for
many and kind courtesies to our Lady of Copet, and I now love her as much as I always
did her works, of which I was and am a great admirer. When are you to begin with
Sheridan? what are you doing, and how do you
do?
“Ever very truly, &c.”
Elizabeth Fox, Lady Holland [née Vassall] (1771 c.-1845)
In 1797 married Henry Richard Fox, Lord Holland, following her divorce from Sir Godfrey
Webster; as mistress of Holland House she became a pillar of Whig society.
Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840)
Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place
for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish
and Italian;
Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)
German poet, playwright, and novelist; author of
The Sorrows of Young
Werther (1774) and
Faust (1808, 1832).
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).
Charles Robert Maturin (1780-1824)
Anglo-Irish clergyman, novelist, and playwright patronized by Walter Scott; author of the
tragedy
Betram (1816) and the novel
Melmoth the
Wanderer (1820).
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.
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 Sharp [Conversation Sharp] (1759-1835)
English merchant, Whig MP, and member of the Holland House set; he published
Letters and Essays in Poetry and Prose (1834).
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.
