Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 17 September 1817
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“Mr. Hobhouse
purposes being in England in November; he will bring the Fourth Canto with him, notes and all; the text contains
one hundred and fifty stanzas, which is long for that measure.
“With regard to the ‘Ariosto of the North,’ surely their themes, chivalry, war, and
love, were as like as can be; and as to the compliment, if you knew what the Italians
think of Ariosto, you would not hesitate
* On this paragraph, in the MS. copy of the above letter, I
find the following note, in the handwriting of Mr.
Gifford: “There is more good sense, and feeling, and judgment
in this passage, than in any other I ever read, or Lord Byron
wrote.” |
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| 148 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1817. |
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about that. But as to their ‘measures,’ you
forget that Ariosto’s is an octave stanza, and Scott’s any thing but a stanza. If you think
Scott will dislike it, say so, and I will expunge. I do not call
him the ‘Scotch Ariosto,’ which would be sad provincial eulogy, but the ‘Ariosto of
the North,’ meaning of all countries that are not the
South.
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As I have recently troubled you rather frequently, I will
conclude, repeating that I am
“Yours ever, &c.”
Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533)
Italian poet, author of the epic romance
Orlando Furioso
(1532).
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).
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.
