Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to Thomas Moore, 28 February 1817
“Venice, February 28th, 1817.
“You will, perhaps, complain as much of the frequency of my
letters now, as you were wont to do of their rarity. I think this is the fourth within
as many moons. I feel anxious to hear from you, even more than usual, because your last
indicated that you were unwell. At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The
Carnival—that is, the latter part of it—and sitting up late o’ nights, had knocked
me up a little. But it is over,—and it is now Lent, with all its abstinence and Sacred
Music.
“The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I
went, as also to most of the ridottos, &c. &c. and, though I did not dissipate
much upon the whole, yet I find ‘the sword wearing out the scabbard,’ though
I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine. ![]()
| A. D. 1817. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 79 |
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“So, we’ll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword out-wears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest. Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we’ll go no more a roving By the light of the moon. |
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I have lately had some news of litteratoor, as I heard the
editor of the Monthly pronounce it once upon a time. I hear that W. W. has been publishing and responding to the attacks
of the Quarterly, in the learned Perry’s Chronicle. I read his poesies last autumn, and, amongst them, found an
epitaph on his bull-dog, and another on myself. But I beg leave
to assure him (like the astrologer Partridge)
that I am not only alive now, but was alive also at the time he wrote it. * * * *
* *
* * Hobhouse has (I
hear, also) expectorated a letter against the Quarterly,
addressed to me. I feel awkwardly situated between him and Gifford, both being my friends.
“And this is your month of going to press—by the body of
Diana! (a Venetian oath), I feel as anxious—but
not fearful for you—as if it were myself coming out in a work of humour, which would,
you know, be the antipodes of all my previous publications. I don’t think you have
any thing to dread but your own reputation. You must keep up to that. As you never
showed me a line of your work, I do
not even know your measure; but you must send me a copy by Murray forthwith, and then you shall hear what I think. I dare say you
are in a pucker. Of all authors, you are the only really modest
one I ever met with,—which would sound oddly enough to those who recollect your morals
when you were young—that is, when you were extremely young—I
don’t mean to stigmatise you either with years or morality.
“I believe I told you that the E. R. had attacked me, in an article ![]()
| 80 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1817. |
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on Coleridge (I have not seen
it)—‘Et tu, Jeffrey?’—‘there is nothing but
roguery in villanous man.’ But I absolve him of all attacks, present and
future; for I think he had already pushed his clemency in my behoof to the utmost, and I
shall always think well of him. I only wonder he did not begin before, as my domestic
destruction was a fine opening for all the world, of which all, who could, did well to
avail themselves.
“If I live ten years longer, you will see, however, that it
is not over with me—I don’t mean in literature, for that is nothing; and it may
seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But you will see that I shall do
something or other—the times and fortune permitting—that, ‘like the cosmogony,
or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.’ But I
doubt whether my constitution will hold out. I have, at intervals, exorcised it most
devilishly.
“I have not yet fixed a time of return, but I think of the
spring. I shall have been away a year in April next. You never mention Rogers, nor Hodgson, your clerical neighbour, who has lately got a living near you.
Has he also got a child yet?—his desideratum, when I saw him last. * * *
* *
* *
“Pray let me hear from you, at your time and leisure,
believing me ever and truly and affectionately, &c.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
George Edward Griffiths (1772-1828)
In 1803 he succeeded his father Ralph Griffiths as editor of the
Monthly Review, continuing until 1825.
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).
Francis Hodgson (1781-1852)
Provost of Eton College, translator of Juvenal (1807) and close friend of Byron. He wrote
for the
Monthly and
Critical Reviews, and was
author of (among other volumes of poetry)
Childe Harold's Monitor; or
Lines occasioned by the last Canto of Childe Harold (1818).
Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773-1850)
Scottish barrister, Whig MP, and co-founder and editor of the
Edinburgh
Review (1802-29). As a reviewer he was the implacable foe of the Lake School of
poetry.
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.
John Partridge (1644-1715)
English astrologer and almanac-maker ridiculed by Jonathan Swift; he was the compiler of
Merlinus Liberatus from 1680.
James Perry (1756-1821)
Whig journalist; founder and editor of the
European Magazine
(1782), editor of the
Morning Chronicle (1790-1821).
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).
James Wedderburn Webster (1789-1840)
Byron's friend who visited him in Athens (1810) and to whom Byron lent money he could ill
afford. Webster published
Waterloo, and other Poems (1816).
The Monthly Review. (1749-1844). The original editor was Ralph Griffiths; he was succeeded by his son George Edward who
edited the journal from 1803 to 1825, who was succeeded by Michael Joseph Quin
(1825–32).
Morning Chronicle. (1769-1862). James Perry was proprietor of this London daily newspaper from 1789-1821; among its many
notable poetical contributors were Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, Rogers, and Campbell.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
