“I do not know any good model for a life of Sheridan but that of Savage. Recollect however, that the life of such a man may be made far more amusing than if he had been a Wilberforce;—and this without offending the living, or insulting the dead. The whigs abuse him; however, he never left them, and such blunderers deserve neither credit nor compassion. As for his creditors,—remember, Sheridan never had a shilling, and was thrown, with great powers and passions, into the thick of the world, and placed upon the pinnacle of success, with no other external means to support him in his elevation. Did Fox * * * pay his debts?—or did Sheridan take a subscription? Was the Duke of Norfolk’s drunkenness more excusable than his? Were his intrigues more notorious than those of all his contemporaries? and is his memory to be blasted, and theirs respected? Don’t let yourself be led away by clamour, but compare him with the coalitioner Fox, and the pensioner Burke, as a man of principle, and with ten hundred thousand in personal views, and with none in talent, for he beat them all out and out. Without means, without connexion, without character (which might be false at first, and make him mad afterwards from desperation), he beat them all, in all he ever attempted. But alas poor human nature! Good night—or, rather, morning. It is four, and the dawn gleams over the Grand Canal, and unshadows the Rialto. I must to bed; up all night—but, as George Philpot says, ‘it’s life, though, damme, it’s life!’

During the greater part of the period which this last series of letters comprises, he had continued to occupy the same lodgings in an extremely narrow street called the Spezieria, at the house of the linen-draper, to whose lady he devoted so much of his thoughts. That he was, for the time, attached to this person,—as far as a passion so transient can deserve

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the name of attachment,—is evident from his whole conduct. The language of his letters shows sufficiently how much the novelty of this foreign tie had caught his fancy; and to the Venetians, among whom such arrangements are mere matters of course, the assiduity with which he attended his Signora to the theatre, and the Ridottos, was a subject of much amusement. It was with difficulty, indeed, that he could be prevailed upon to absent himself from her so long as to admit of that hasty visit to the Immortal City, out of which one of his own noblest titles to immortality sprung; and having, in the space of a few weeks, drunk in more inspiration from all he saw than, in a less excited state, possibly, he might have imbibed in years, he again hurried back, without extending his journey to Naples,—having written to the fair Marianna to meet him at some distance from Venice.

To whatever extent this unsentimental incident may have had a share in dispelling the romance of his passion, it is certain that, before the expiration of the first twelvemonth, he began to find his lodgings in the Spezieria inconvenient, and accordingly entered into treaty with Count Gritti for his Palace on the Grand Canal,—engaging to give for it, what is considered, I believe, a large rent in Venice, 200 louis a year. On finding, however, that, in the counterpart of the lease brought for his signature, a new clause had been introduced, prohibiting him not only from underletting the house, in case he should leave Venice, but from

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even allowing any of his own friends to occupy it his occasional absence, he declined closing on such terms; and resenting so material a departure from the original engagement, declared in society, that he would have no objection to give the same rent, though acknowledged to be exorbitant, for any other Palace in Venice, however inferior, in all respects, to this. After such an announcement, he was not likely to remain long unhoused; and the Countess Mocenigo having offered him one of her three Palazzi, on the Grand Canal, he removed to this house in the summer of the present year, and continued to occupy it during the remainder of his stay in Venice.

Highly censurable, in point of morality and decorum, as was his course of life while under the roof of Madame * *, it was (with pain I am forced to confess) venial in comparison with the strange, headlong career of licence to which, when weaned from that connexion, he so unrestrainedly and, it may be added, defyingly abandoned himself. Of the state of his mind on leaving England I have already endeavoured to convey some idea, and, among the feelings that went to make up that self-centred spirit of resistance which he then opposed to his fate, was an indignant scorn of his own countrymen for the wrongs he thought they had done him. For a time, the kindly sentiments which he still. harboured towards Lady Byron, and a sort of vague hope, perhaps, that all would yet come right again, kept his mind in a mood somewhat more softened and docile, as well as sufficiently under the influence still of English opinion—to prevent his breaking out into open rebellion against it, as he unluckily did afterwards.

By the failure of the attempted mediation with Lady Byron, his last link with home was severed; while, notwithstanding the quiet and unobtrusive life which he had led at Geneva, there was as yet, he found, no cessation whatever of the slanderous warfare against his character;—the same busy and misrepresenting spirit which had tracked his every step at home having, with no less malicious watchfulness, dogged him into exile. To this persuasion, for which he had but too much grounds, was added all that an imagination like his could lend to truth,—all that he was left to interpret, in his own way, of the absent and the silent,—till, at length, arming himself against fancied enemies and wrongs, and,

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with the condition (as it seemed to him) of an outlaw, assuming also the desperation, he resolved, as his countrymen would not do justice to the better parts of his nature, to have, at least, the perverse satisfaction of braving and shocking them with the worst. It is to this feeling, I am convinced, far more than to any depraved taste for such a course of life, that the extravagances to which he now, for a short time, gave loose are to be attributed. The exciting effect, indeed, of this mode of existence while it lasted, both upon his spirits and his genius,—so like what, as he himself tells us, was always produced in him by a state of contest and defiance, showed how much of this latter feeling must have been mixed with his excesses. The altered character, too, of his letters in this respect cannot fail, I think, to be remarked by the reader,—there being, with an evident increase of intellectual vigour, a tone of violence and bravado breaking out in them continually, which marks the high pitch of reaction to which he had wound up his temper.

In fact, so far from the powers of his intellect being at all weakened or dissipated by these irregularities, he was, perhaps, at no time of his life, so actively in the full possession of all its energies; and his friend Shelley, who went to Venice, at this period, to see him*, used to say, that all he observed of the workings of Byron’s mind, during his visit, gave him a far higher idea of its powers than he had ever before enter-

* The following are extracts from a letter of Shelley’s to a friend at this time. “Venice, August, 1818. “We came from Padua hither in a gondola; and the Gondoliere, among other things, without any hint on our part, began talking of Lord Byron. He said he was a ‘Giovanotto Inglese,’ with a ‘nome stravagante,’ who lived very luxuriously, and spent great sums of money. * * * “At three o’clock I called on Lord Byron. He was delighted to see me, and our first conversation of course consisted in the object of our visit. * * *. He took me in his gondola, across the Laguna, to a long, strandy sand, which defends Venice from the Adriatic. When we disembarked, we found his horses waiting for us, and we rode along the sands, talking. Our conversation consisted in histories of his own wounded feelings, and questions as to my affairs, with great professions of friendship and regard for me. He said that if he had been in England, at the time of the Chancery affair, he would have moved heaven and earth to have prevented such a decision. He talked of literary matters,—his Fourth Canto, which he says is very good, and indeed repeated some stanzas, of great energy, to me. When we returned to his palace, which is one of the most magnificent in Venice, &c. &c.”

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tained. It was, indeed, then that Shelley sketched out, and chiefly wrote, his poem of “Julian and Maddalo,” in the latter of which personages he has so picturesquely shadowed forth his noble friend; and the allusions to “the Swan of Albion,” in his “Lines written among the Euganean Hills,” were also, I understand, the result of the same access of admiration and enthusiasm.

In speaking of the Venetian women, in one of the preceding letters, Lord Byron, it will be recollected, remarks, that the beauty for which they were once so celebrated is no longer now to be found among the “Dame,” or higher orders, but all under the “fazzioli,” or kerchiefs, of the lower. It was, unluckily, among these latter specimens of the “bel sangue” of Venice that he now, by a suddenness of descent in the scale of refinement, for which nothing but the present wayward state of his mind can account, chose to select the companions of his disengaged hours;—and an additional proof that, in this short, daring career of libertinism, he was but desperately seeking relief for a wronged and mortified spirit, and

“What to us seem’d guilt might be but woe,”—

is that, more than once, of an evening, when his house has been in the possession of such visitants, he has been known to hurry away in his gondola, and pass the greater part of the night upon the water, as if hating to return to his home. It is, indeed, certain, that to this least

* In the preface also to this poem, under the fictitious name of Count Maddolo, the following just and striking portrait of Lord Byron is drawn.— “He is a person of the most consummate genius, and capable, if he would direct his energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. But it is his weakness to be proud: he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life. His passions and his powers are incomparably greater than those of other man, and instead of the latter having been employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent each other strength. His ambition preys upon itself for want of objects which it can consider worthy of exertion. I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other word to express the concentered and impatient feelings which consume him; but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he seems to trample, for in social life no human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank, and witty. His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication. He has travelled much; and there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different countries.”

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defensible portion of his whole life he always looked back, during the short remainder of it, with painful self-reproach; and among the causes of the detestation which he afterwards felt for Venice, this recollection of the excesses to which he had there abandoned himself was not the least prominent.

The most distinguished and, at last, the reigning favourite of all this unworthy Haram was a woman named Margarita Cogni, who has been already mentioned in one of these letters, and who, from the trade of her husband, was known by the title of the Fornarina. A portrait of this handsome virago, drawn by Harlowe when at Venice, having fallen into the hands of one of Lord Byron’s friends after the death of that artist, the noble poet, on being applied to for some particulars of his heroine, wrote a long letter on the subject, from which the following are extracts:—

“Since you desire the story of Margarita Cogni, you shall be told it, though it may be lengthy.

“In the summer of 1817, * * * * and myself were sauntering on horseback along the Brenta one evening, when, amongst a group of peasants, we remarked two girls as the prettiest we had seen for some time. About this period, there had been great distress in the country, and I had a little relieved some of the people. Generosity makes a great figure at very little cost in Venetian livres, and mine had probably been exaggerated as an Englishman’s. Whether they remarked us looking at them or no, I know not; but one of them called out to me in Venetian, ‘Why do not you who relieve others, think of us also?’ I turned round and answered her—‘Cara, tu sei troppo bella e giovane per aver’ bisogna del’ soccorso mio.’ She answered, ‘If you saw my hut and my food, you would not say so.’ All this passed half jestingly, and I saw no more of her for some days.

“A few evenings after, we met with these two girls again, and they addressed us more seriously, assuring us of the truth of their statement. They were cousins; Margarita married, the other single. As I doubted still of the circumstances, I took the business in a different light, and

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made an appointment with them for the next evening. * * *
* * * * * * * * * In short, in a few evenings we arranged our affairs, and for a long space of time she was the only one who preserved over me an ascendancy which was often disputed, and never impaired.

“When I first knew her, I was in ‘relazione’ (liaison) with la Signora * *, who was silly enough one evening at Dolo, accompanied by some of her female friends, to threaten her; for the gossips of the Villeggiatura had already found out, by the neighing of my horse one evening, that I used to ‘ride late in the night’ to meet the Fornarina. Margarita threw back her veil (fazziolo), and replied in very explicit Venetian: ‘You are not his wife: I am not his wife. you are his Donna, and I am his Donna: your husband is a becco, and mine is another. For the rest, what right have you to reproach me? If he prefers me to you, is it my fault? If you wish to secure him, tie him to your petticoat-string.—But do not think to speak to me without a reply, because you happen to be richer than I am.’ Having delivered this pretty piece of eloquence (which I translate as it was related to me by a bystander), she went on her way, leaving a numerous audience, with Madame * *, to ponder at her leisure on the dialogue between them.

“When I came to Venice for the winter, she followed; and as she found herself out to be a favourite, she came to me pretty often. But she had inordinate self-love, and was not tolerant of other women.

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At the ‘Cavaichina,’ the masqued ball on the last night of the Carnival, where all the world goes, she snatched off the mask of Madame Contarini, a lady noble by birth, and decent in conduct, for no other reason but because she happened to be leaning on my arm. You may suppose what a cursed noise this made; but this is only one of her pranks.

“Madame Benzoni also took her under her protection, and then her head turned. She was always in extremes, either crying or laughing, and so fierce when angered, that she was the terror of men, women, and children—for she had the strength of an Amazon, with the temper of Medea. She was a fine animal, but quite untameable. I was the only person that could at all keep her in any order, and when she saw me really angry (which they tell me is a savage sight), she subsided. But she had a thousand fooleries. In her fazziolo, the dress of the lower orders, she looked beautiful; but, alas! she longed for a hat and feathers; and all I could say or do (and I said much) could not prevent this travestie. I put the first into the fire; but I got tired of burning them

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before she did of buying them, so that she made herself a figure—for they did not at all become her.

“That she had a sufficient regard for me in her wild way, I had many reasons to believe. I will mention one. In the autumn, one day, going to the Lido with my gondoliers, we were overtaken by a heavy squall, and the gondola put in peril—hats blown away, boat filling, oar lost, tumbling sea, thunder, rain in torrents night coming, and wind unceasing. On our return, after a tight struggle, I found her on the open steps of the Mocenigo palace, on the Grand Canal, with her great black eyes flashing through her tears, and the long dark hair, which was streaming, drenched with rain, over her brows and breast. She was perfectly exposed to the storm; and the wind blowing her hair and dress about her thin tall figure, and the lightning flashing round her, and the waves rolling at her feet, made her look like Medea alighted from her chariot, or the Sibyl of the tempest that was rolling around her, the only living thing within hail at that moment except ourselves. On seeing me safe, she did not wait to greet me, as might have been expected but calling out to me.—‘Ah! can’ della Madonna, xe esto il tempo per andar’ al’ Lido?’ (Ah! dog of the Virgin, is this a time to go to Lido?) ran into the house, and solaced herself with scolding the boatmen for not foreseeing the ‘temporale.’ I am told by the servants that she had only

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been prevented from coming in a boat to look after me, by the refusal of all the gondoliers of the canal to put out into the harbour in such a moment; and that then she sate down on the steps in all the thickest of the squall, and would neither be removed nor comforted. Her joy at seeing me again was moderately mixed with ferocity, and gave me the idea of a tigress over her recovered cubs.

“But her reign drew near a close. She became quite ungovernable some months after, and a concurrence of complaints, some true, and many false—‘a favourite has no friends’—determined me to part with her. I told her quietly that she must return home (she had acquired a sufficient provision for herself and mother, &c. in my service), and she refused to quit the house. I was firm, and she went threatening knives and revenge. I told her that I had seen knives drawn before her time, and that if she chose to begin, there was a knife, and fork also, at her service on the table, and that intimidation would not do. The next day, while I was at dinner, she walked in (having broken open a glass door that led from the hall below to the staircase, by way of prologue), and advancing straight up to the table, snatched the knife from my hand, cutting me slightly in the thumb in the operation. Whether she meant to use this against herself or me, I know not—probably against neither—but Fletcher seized her by the arms, and disarmed her. I then called my boatmen, and desired them to get the gondola ready, and conduct her to her own house again, seeing carefully that she did herself no mischief by the way. She seemed quite quiet, and walked down stairs. I resumed my dinner.

“I foresaw her intention to refix herself, and sent for a surgeon,

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inquiring how many hours it would require to restore her from her agitation; and he named the time. I then said, ‘I give you that time, and more if you require it; but at the expiration of this prescribed period, if she does not leave the house, I will.’

“I had her sent home quietly after her recovery, and never saw her since, except twice at the opera, at a distance amongst the audience. She made many attempts to return, but no more violent ones.—And this is the story of Margarita Cogni, as far as it relates to me.

“She was quick in reply; as, for instance—One day when she had made me very angry with beating somebody or other, I called her a cow (cow, in Italian, is a sad affront). I called her ‘Vacca.’ She turned round, curtsied, and answered, ‘Vacca tua, ‘celenza’ (i. e. eccelenza). ‘Your cow, please your Excellency.’ In short, she was as I said before, a very fine animal, of considerable beauty and energy, with many good and several amusing qualities, but wild as a witch and fierce as a demon. She used to boast publicly of her ascendancy over me, contrasting it with that of other women, and assigning for it sundry reasons, * * *. True it was, that they all tried to get her away, and no one succeeded till her own absurdity helped them.

“I omitted to tell you her answer, when I reproached her for snatching Madame Contarini’s mask at the Cavalchina. I represented to her that she was a lady of high birth, ‘una Dama,’ &c. She answered, ‘Se ella è dama mi (io) son Veneziana;’—‘if she is a lady, I am a Venetian.’ This would have been fine a hundred years ago, the pride of the nation rising up against the pride of aristocracy: but, alas! Venice, and her people, and her nobles, are alike returning fast to the ocean; and

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where there is no independence, there can be no real self-respect. I believe that I mistook or mis-stated one of her phrases in my letter; it should have been—‘Can’ della Madonna, cosa vus’ tu? esto non é tempo per andar’ a Lido?’”

It was at this time, as we shall see by the letters I am about to produce, and as the features, indeed, of the progeny itself would but too plainly indicate, that he conceived, and wrote some part of, his Poem of “Don Juan;”—and never did pages more faithfully and, in many respects, lamentably reflect every variety of feeling, and whim, and passion that, like the rack of autumn, swept across the author’s mind in writing them. Nothing less, indeed, than that singular combination of attributes, which existed and were in full activity in his mind at this moment, could have suggested, or been capable of, the execution of such a work. The cool shrewdness of age with the vivacity and glowing temperament of youth,—the wit of a Voltaire, with the sensibility of a Rousseau,—the minute, practical knowledge of the man of society, with the abstract and self-contemplative spirit of the poet,—a susceptibility of all that is grandest and most affecting in human virtue, with a deep, withering experience of all that is most fatal to it,—the two extremes, in short, of man’s mixed and inconsistent nature, now rankly smelling of earth, now breathing of heaven,—such was the strange assemblage of contrary elements, all meeting together in the same mind, and all brought to bear, in turn, upon the same task, from which alone could have sprung this extraordinary Poem,—the most powerful and, in many respects, painful display of the versatility of genius that has ever been left for succeeding ages to wonder at and deplore.

I shall now proceed with his correspondence,—having thought some of the preceding observations necessary, not only to explain to the reader much of what he will find in these letters, but to account to him for much that has been necessarily omitted.

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LETTER CCCXVIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

“Venice, June 18th, 1818.

“Business and the utter and inexplicable silence of all my correspondents renders me impatient and troublesome. I wrote to Mr. Hanson for a balance which is (or ought to be) in his hands;—no answer. I expected the messenger with the Newstead papers two months ago, and instead of him, I received a requisition to proceed to Geneva, which (from * *, who knows my wishes and opinions about approaching England) could only be irony or insult.

“I must, therefore, trouble you to pay into my bankers’ immediately whatever sum or sums you can make it convenient to do on our agreement; otherwise, I shall be put to the severest and most immediate inconvenience; and this at a time when, by every rational prospect and calculation, I ought to be in the receipt of considerable sums. Pray do not neglect this; you have no idea to what inconvenience you will otherwise put me. * * had some absurd notion about the disposal of this money in annuity (or God knows what), which I merely listened to when he was here to avoid squabbles and sermons; but I have occasion for the principal, and had never any serious idea of appropriating it otherwise than to answer my personal expenses. Hobhouse’s wish is, if possible, to force me back to England*: he will not succeed; and if he did, I would not stay. I hate the country, and like this; and all foolish opposition, of course, merely adds to the feeling. Your silence makes me doubt the success of Canto Fourth. If it has failed, I will make such deduction as you think proper and fair from the original agreement; but I could wish whatever is to be paid were remitted to me, without delay, through the usual channel, by course of post.

“When I tell you that I have not heard a word from England since very early in May, I have made the eulogium of my friends, or the persons who call themselves so, since I have written so often and in the

* Deeply is it, for many reasons, to be regretted that this friendly purpose did not succeed.

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greatest anxiety. Thank God, the longer I am absent, the less cause I see for regretting the country or its living contents.

“I am yours, &c.

“P.S. Tell Mr. * * * that * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * and that I will never forgive him (or any body) the atrocity of their late silence at a time when I wished particularly to hear, for every reason, from my friends.”

LETTER CCCXIX.

TO MR. MURRAY.

“Venice, July 10th, 1818.

“I have received your letter and the credit from Morlands, &c. for whom I have also drawn upon you at sixty days’ sight for the remainder, according to your proposition.

“I am still waiting in Venice, in expectancy of the arrival of Hanson’s clerk. What can detain him, I do not know; but I trust that Mr. Hobhouse, and Mr. Kinnaird, when their political fit is abated, will take the trouble to inquire and expedite him, as I have nearly a hundred thousand pounds depending upon the completion of the sale and the signature of the papers.

“The draft on you is drawn up by Siri and Willhalm. I hope that the form is correct. I signed it two or three days ago, desiring them to forward it to Messrs. Morland and Ransom.

“Your projected editions for November had better be postponed, as I have some things in project, or preparation, that may be of use to you, though not very important in themselves. I have completed an Ode on Venice, and have two Stories, one serious and one ludicrous (à la Beppo), not yet finished, and in no hurry to be so.

“You talk of the letter to Hobhouse being much admired, and speak of prose. I think of writing (for your full edition) some Memoirs of my life, to prefix to them, upon the same model (though far enough, I fear, from reaching it) of Gifford, Hume, &c.; and this without any intention of making disclosures, or remarks upon living people, which

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would be unpleasant to them: but I think it might be done, and well done. However, this is to be considered. I have materials in plenty, but the greater part of them could not be used by me, nor for these hundred years to come. However, there is enough without these, and merely as a literary man, to make a preface for such an edition as you meditate. But this is by the way: I have not made up my mind.

“I enclose you a note on the subject of ‘Parisina,’ which Hobhouse can dress for you. It is an extract of particulars from a history of Ferrara.

“I trust you have been attentive to Missiaglia, for the English have the character of neglecting the Italians at present, which I hope you will redeem.

“Yours in haste,

“B.”

LETTER CCCXX.

TO MR. MURRAY.

“Venice, July 17th, 1818.

“I suppose that Aglietti will take whatever you offer, but till his return from Vienna I can make him no proposal; nor, indeed, have you authorised me to do so. The three French notes are by Lady Mary; also another half-English-French-Italian. They are very pretty and passionate; it is a pity that a piece of one of them is lost. Algarotti seems to have treated her ill; but she was much his senior, and all women are used ill—or say so, whether they are or not.

* * * * * * *

“I shall be glad of your books and powders. I am still in waiting for Hanson’s clerk, but luckily not at Geneva. All my good friends wrote to me to hasten there to meet him, but not one had the good sense, or the good nature, to write afterwards to tell me that it would be time and a journey thrown away, as he could not set off for some months after the period appointed. If I had taken the journey on the general suggestion, I never would have spoken again to one of you as long as I existed. I have written to request Mr. Kinnaird, when the foam of his politics is wiped away, to extract a positive answer from that

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* * * *, and not to keep me in a state of suspense upon the subject. I hope that Kinnaird, who has my power of attorney, keeps a look-out upon the gentleman, which is the more necessary, as I have a great dislike to the idea of coming over to look after him myself.

“I have several things begun, verse and prose, but none in much forwardness. I have written some six or seven sheets of a Life, which I mean to continue, and send you when finished. It may perhaps serve for your projected editions. If you would tell me exactly (for I know nothing, and have no correspondents, except on business) the state of the reception of our late publications, and the feeling upon them, without consulting any delicacies (I am too seasoned to require them), I should know how and in what manner to proceed. I should not like to give them too much, which may probably have been the case already; but, as I tell you, I know nothing.

“I once wrote from the fulness of my mind and the love of fame (not as an end, but as a means, to obtain that influence over men’s minds which is power in itself and in its consequences), and now from habit and from avarice; so that the effect may probably be as different as the inspiration. I have the same facility, and indeed necessity, of composition, to avoid idleness (though idleness in a hot country is a pleasure), but a much greater indifference to what is to become of it, after it has served my immediate purpose. However, I should on no account like to——but I won’t go on, like the archbishop of Granada, as I am very sure that you dread the fate of Gil Blas, and with good reason.

“Yours, &c.

“P.S. I have written some very savage letters to Mr. Hobhouse, Kinnaird, to you, and to Hanson, because the silence of so long a time made me tear off my remaining rags of patience. I have seen one or two late English publications which are no great things, except Rob Roy. I shall be glad of Whistlecraft.”

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LETTER CCCXXI.

TO MR. MURRAY.

“Venice, August 26th, 1818.

“You may go on with your edition, without calculating on the Memoir, which I shall not publish at present. It is nearly finished, but will be too long; and there are so many things, which, out of regard to the living, cannot be mentioned, that I have written with too much detail of that which interested me least; so that my autobiographical Essay would resemble the tragedy of Hamlet at the country theatre, recited ‘with the part of Hamlet left out by particular desire.’ I shall keep it among my papers; it will be a kind of guide-post in case of death, and prevent some of the lies which would otherwise be told, and destroy some which have been told already.

“The Tales also are in an unfinished state, and I can fix no time for their completion: they are also not in the best manner. You must not, therefore, calculate upon any thing in time for this edition. The Memoir is already above forty-four sheets of very large, long paper, and will be about fifty or sixty; but I wish to go on leisurely; and when finished, although it might do a good deal for you at the time, I am not sure that it would serve any good purpose in the end either, as it is full of many passions and prejudices, of which it has been impossible for me to keep clear:—I have not the patience.

“Enclosed is a list of books which Dr. Aglietti would be glad to receive by way of price for his MS. letters, if you are disposed to purchase at the rate of fifty pounds sterling. These he will be glad to have as part, and the rest I will give him in money, and you may carry it to the account of books, &c. which is in balance against me, deducting it accordingly. So that the letters are yours, if you like them, at this rate; and he and I are going to hunt for more Lady Montague letters, which he thinks of finding. I write in haste. Thanks for the article, and believe me,

“Yours, &c.”

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To the charge brought against Lord Byron by some English travellers of being, in general, repulsive and inhospitable to his own countrymen, I have already made allusion; and shall now add to the testimony then cited in disproof of such a charge some particulars, communicated to me by Captain Basil Hall, which exhibit the courtesy and kindliness of the noble poet’s disposition in their true, natural light.

“On the last day of August, 1818 (says this distinguished writer and traveller), I was taken ill with an ague at Venice, and having heard enough of the low state of the medical art in that country, I was not a little anxious as to the advice I should take. I was not acquainted with any person in Venice to whom I could refer, and had. only one letter of introduction, which was to Lord Byron; but as there were many stories floating about of his lordship’s unwillingness to be pestered with tourists, I had felt unwilling, before this moment, to intrude myself in that shape. Now, however, that I was seriously unwell, I felt sure that this offensive character would merge in that of a countryman in distress, and I sent the letter by one of my travelling companions to Lord Byron’s lodgings with a note, excusing the liberty I was taking, explaining that I was in want of medical assistance, and saying I should not send to any one till I heard the name of the person who, in his lordship’s opinion, was the best practitioner in Venice.

“Unfortunately for me, Lord Byron was still in bed, though it was near noon, and still more unfortunately, the bearer of my message scrupled to awake him, without first coming back to consult me. By this time I was in all the agonies of a cold ague fit, and, therefore, not at all in a condition to be consulted upon any thing—so I replied pettishly, ‘Oh, by no means disturb Lord Byron on my account—ring for the landlord, and send for any one he recommends.’ This absurd injunction being forthwith and literally attended to, in the course of an hour I was under the discipline of mine host’s friend, whose skill and success it is no part of my present purpose to descant upon:—it is sufficient to mention that I was irrevocably in his hands long before the following most kind note was brought to me, in great haste, by Lord Byron’s servant.

196

NOTICES OF THE

A. D. 1818.

‘Venice, August 31st, 1818.

‘DEAR SIR,

‘Dr. Aglietti is the best physician, not only in Venice, but in Italy: his residence is on the Grand Canal, and easily found; I forget the number, but am probably the only person in Venice who don’t know it. There is no comparison between him and any of the other medical people here. I regret very much to hear of your indisposition, and shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you the moment I am up. I write this in bed, and have only just received the letter and note. I beg you to believe that nothing but the extreme lateness of my hours could have prevented me from replying immediately, or coming in person. I have not been called a minute.—I have the honour to be, very truly,

‘Your most obedient servant.

‘Byron.’

“His lordship soon followed this note, and I heard his voice in the next room; but although he waited more than an hour, I could not see him, being under the inexorable hands of the doctor. In the course of the same evening he again called, but I was asleep. When I awoke I found his lordship’s valet sitting by my bedside. ‘He had his master’s orders,’ he said, ‘to remain with me while I was unwell, and was instructed to say, that whatever his lordship had, or could procure, was at my service, and that he would come to me and sit with me, or do whatever I liked, if I would only let him know in what way he could be useful.’

“Accordingly, on the next day, I sent for some book, which was brought, with a list of his library. I forget what it was which prevented my seeing Lord Byron on this day, though he called more than once; and on the next, I was too ill with fever to talk to any one.

“The moment I could go out I took a gondola and went to pay my respects, and to thank his lordship for his attentions. It was then nearly three o’clock, but he was not yet up; and when I went again on the following day at five, I had the mortification to learn that he had gone, at the same hour, to call upon me, so that we had crossed each

A. D. 1818.

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

197

other on the canal; and, to my deep and lasting regret, I was obliged to leave Venice without seeing him.”

LETTER CCCXXII.

TO MR. MOORE.

“Venice, September 19th, 1818.

“An English newspaper here would be a prodigy, and an opposition one a monster; and except some extracts from extracts in the vile, garbled Paris gazettes, nothing of the kind reaches the Veneto-Lombard public, who are perhaps the most oppressed in Europe. My correspondencies with England are mostly on business, and chiefly with my * * *, who has no very exalted notion, or extensive conception, of an author’s attributes; for he once took up an Edinburgh Review, and, looking at it a minute, said to me, ‘So, I see you have got into the magazine,’—which is the only sentence I ever heard him utter upon literary matters, or the men thereof.

“My first news of your Irish Apotheosis has, consequently, been from yourself. But, as it will not be forgotten in a hurry, either by your friends or your enemies, I hope to have it more in detail from some of the former, and, in the meantime, I wish you joy with all my heart. Such a moment must have been a good deal better than Westminster-abbey,—besides being an assurance of that one day (many years hence, I trust,) into the bargain.

“I am sorry to perceive, however, by the close of your letter, that even you have not escaped the ‘surgit amari,’ &c. and that your damned deputy has been gathering such ‘dew from the still vext Bermoothes’—or rather vexatious. Pray, give me some items of the affair, as you say it is a serious one; and, if it grows more so, you should make a trip over here for a few months, to see how things turn out. I suppose you are a violent admirer of England by your staying so long in it. For my own part, I have passed, between the age of one-and-twenty and thirty, half the intervenient years out of it without regretting any thing, except that I ever returned to it at all, and the gloomy prospect before me of business and parentage obliging me, one day, to return to it again,—at least, for

198

NOTICES OF THE

A. D. 1818.

the transaction of affairs, the signing of papers, and inspecting of children.

“I have here my natural daughter, by name Allegra,—a pretty little girl enough, and reckoned like papa†. Her mamma is English,—but it is a long story, and—there’s an end. She is about twenty months old. * * * * * * *

“I have finished the First Canto (a long one, of about 180 octaves) of a poem in the style and manner of ‘Beppo,’ encouraged by the good success of the same. It is called ‘Don Juan,’ and is meant to be a little quietly facetious upon every thing. But I doubt whether it is not—at least, as far as it has yet gone—too free for these very modest days. However, I shall try the experiment, anonymously, and if it don’t take, it will be discontinued. It is dedicated to S * * in good, simple, savage verse, upon the * * * *’s politics, and the way he got them. But the bore of copying it out is intolerable; and if I had an amanuensis he would be of no use, as my writing is so difficult to decipher.

“My poem’s Epic, and is meant to be Divided in twelve books, each book containing, With love and war, a heavy gale at sea— A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning— New characters, &c. &c.

The above are two stanzas, which I send you as a brick of my Babel, and by which you can judge of the texture of the structure.

† This little child had been sent to him by its mother about four or five months before, under the care of a Swiss nurse, a young girl not above nineteen or twenty years of age, and in every respect unit to have the charge of such an infant, without the superintendence of some more experienced person. “The child, accordingly.” says my informant, “was but ill taken care of;—not that any blame could attach to Lord Byron, for he always expressed himself most anxious for her welfare, but because the nurse wanted the necessary experience. The poor girl was equally to be pitied; for, as Lord Byron’s household consisted of English and Italian men servants, with whom she could hold no converse, and as there was no other female to consult with and assist her in her charge, nothing could be more forlorn than her situation proved to be.” Soon after the date of the above letter, Mrs. Hoppner, the lady of the Consul General, who had, from the first, in compassion both to father and child, invited the little Allegra occasionally to her house, very kindly proposed to Lord Byron to take charge of her altogether, and an arrangement was accordingly concluded upon for that purpose.

A. D. 1818.

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

199

“In writing the Life of Sheridan, never mind the angry lies of the humbug whigs. Recollect that he was an Irishman and a clever fellow, and that we have had some very pleasant days with him. Don’t forget that he was at school at Harrow, where, in my time, we used to show his name—R. B. Sheridan, 1765—as an honour to the walls. Remember * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * Depend upon it that there were worse folks going, of that gang, than ever Sheridan was.

“What did Parr mean by ‘haughtiness and coldness?’ I listened to him with admiring ignorance, and respectful silence. What more could a talker for fame have?—they don’t like to be answered. It was at Payne Knight’s I met him, where he gave me more Greek than I could carry away. But I certainly meant to (and did) treat him with the most respectful deference.

“I wish you good night, with a Venetian benediction, ‘Benedetto te, e la terra che ti fara!’—‘May you be blessed, and the earth which you will make’—is it not pretty? You would think it still prettier if you had heard it, as I did two hours ago, from the lips of a Venetian girl, with large black eyes, a face like Faustina’s, and the figure of a Juno—tall and energetic as a Pythoness, with eyes flashing, and her dark hair streaming in the moonlight—one of those women who may be made any thing. I am sure if I put a poniard into the hand of this one, she would plunge it where I told her,—and into me, if I offended her. I like this kind of animal, and am sure that I should have preferred Medea to any woman that ever breathed. You may, perhaps, wonder that I don’t in that case *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl, any thing, but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered around me†. *
* * *

† “I had one only fount of quiet left, And that they poison’d! My pure household gods Were shiver’d on my hearth.” MARINO FALIERO.

200

NOTICES OF THE

A. D. 1818.

* * * *. Do you suppose I have forgotten or forgiven it? It has comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and I am only a spectator upon earth, till, a tenfold opportunity offers. It may come yet. There are others more to be blamed than * * * *, and it is on these that my eyes are fixed unceasingly.”

LETTER CCCXXIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

“Venice, Sept. 24, 1818.

“In the one hundredth and thirty-second stanza of Canto 4th, the stanza runs in the manuscript

“And thou, who never yet of human wrong Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!

and not ‘lost,’ which is nonsense, as what losing a scale means, I know not; but leaving an unbalanced scale, or a scale unbalanced, is intelligible†. Correct this, I pray—not for the public, or the poetry, but I do not choose to have blunders made in addressing any of the deities so seriously as this is addressed.

“Yours, &c.

“P.S. In the translation from the Spanish, alter

In increasing squadrons flew,

to—

“To a mighty squadron grew.

“What does ‘thy waters wasted them’ mean (in the Canto)? That is not me‡. Consult the MS. always.

“I have written the first Canto (180 octave stanzas) of a poem in the style of Beppo, and have Mazeppa to finish besides.

† This correction, I observe, has never been made,—the passage still remaining, unmeaningly, “Lost the unbalanced scale.”

‡ This passage also remains uncorrected.

A. D. 1818.

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

201

“In referring to the mistake in stanza 182, I take the opportunity to desire that in future, in all parts of my writings referring to religion, you will be more careful, and not forget that it is possible that in addressing the deity a blunder may become a blasphemy; and I do not choose to suffer such infamous perversions of my words or of my intentions.

“I saw the Canto by accident.”

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Francesco Aglietti (1757-1836) Venetian physician and man of letters; he edited the Opere of Algarotti (Venice, 1791-94).

Francesco Algarotti (1712-1764) Italian poet and man of letters; author of Neutonianismo per le dame (1737).

Father Pasquale Aucher (1774-1827) Of the Mekhitarist Convent in Venice; he tutored Byron in Armenian and collaborated with him on an Armenian grammar (1817).

William John Bankes (1786-1855) Byron's Cambridge friend; the son of Henry Bankes, MP, he was MP for Truro, Cambridge, Marlborough, and Dorset, and an Egyptian traveller who translated Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Giovanni Finati 2 vols (1830).

William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844) English novelist and aesthete, son of the Jamaica planter and Lord Mayor William Beckford (1709-1770), author of Vathek: An Arabian Tale, surreptitiously translated and published in 1786. He was MP for Wells (1784-90) and Hindon (1790-94, 1806-20).

Jacob Behmen (1575-1624) German mystic much read in England.

William Beloe (1758-1817) Educated under Samuel Parr and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, with Robert Nares he conducted of The British Critic, and was author of Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books (1806-12) and The Sexagenarian (1817), an autobiography containing portraits of his contemporaries under concealed names.

Countess Marina Querini Benzon [née Chiara] (1757-1839) Venetian hostess at whose conversazione Byron met Terese Guiccioli.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Irish politician and opposition leader in Parliament, author of On the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) and Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).

Ada King, countess of Lovelace [née Byron] (1815-1852) Byron's daughter by Lady Byron; in 1835 she married William King, eighth Baron King of Ockham (1805-1893), afterwards earl of Lovelace.

Allegra Byron (1817-1822) Byron's illegitimate daughter by Claire Clairmont.

Anne Isabella Noel Byron [née Milbanke] [Annabella] (1792-1860) The only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke; married Byron in 1815, separating shortly after the birth of their daughter Ada in January 1816.

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).

Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (1798-1879) The illegitimate daughter of the second Mrs. William Godwin; she was part of the Shelley household in Italy and the mother of Byron's daughter Allegra, afterwards working as a governess in Russia.

Margarita Cogni [The Fornarina] (1819 fl.) A baker's wife, she was the most formidable of Byron's Venetian mistresses.

Madame Contarini (1818 fl.) One of Byron's Venetian acquaintances.

William Cowper (1731-1800) English poet, author of Olney Hymns (1779), John Gilpin (1782), and The Task (1785); Cowper's delicate mental health attracted as much sympathy from romantic readers as his letters, edited by William Hayley, did admiration.

George Crabbe (1754-1832) English poet renowned for his couplet verse and gloomy depictions of country persons and places; author of the The Village (1783), The Parish Register (1807), The Borough (1810), and Tales of the Hall (1819).

John Wilson Croker (1780-1857) Secretary of the Admiralty (1810) and writer for the Quarterly Review; he edited an elaborate edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson (1831).

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.

Sir William Drummond (1770 c.-1828) Scottish classical scholar and Tory MP; succeeded Lord Elgin as ambassador to the Ottoman Porte (1803); his Oedipus judaicus, in which he interpreted the Old Testament as an astrological allegory, was privately printed in 1811.

Louis Dutens (1730-1812) Huguenot diplomat and writer who edited Leibnitz (6 vols, Geneva, 1768). The author of Mémoires d'un voyageur qui se repose (1806), he was a book collector and historiographer to the king.

Eusebius (263 c.-339 c.) Greek historian, author of the Ecclesiastical History in ten books.

William Thomas Fitzgerald (1759-1829) A clerk in the Navy Office who for three decades supplied the newspapers and magazines with patriotic effusions, many first performed orally at Literary Fund banquets.

William Fletcher (1831 fl.) Byron's valet, the son of a Newstead tenant; he continued in service to the end of the poet's life, after which he was pensioned by the family. He married Anne Rood, formerly maid to Augusta Leigh, and was living in London in 1831.

Charles James Fox (1749-1806) Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out with Edmund Burke.

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.

Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818) Son of the translator of the same name, and the likely author of the Junius letters; he was first clerk at the war office (1762-72), made a fortune in India, and served in Parliament as a Whig MP.

David Garrick (1717-1779) English actor, friend of Samuel Johnson, and manager of Drury Lane Theater.

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).

Thomas Gordon of Cairness (1788-1841) Educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford; he was a member of the London Greek Committee and major-general in the Greek Army; he published History of the Greek Revolution (1832).

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).

Charles Grey, second earl Grey (1764-1845) Whig statesman and lover of the Duchess of Devonshire; the second son of the first earl (d. 1807), he was prime minister (1831-34).

George Edward Griffiths (1772-1828) In 1803 he succeeded his father Ralph Griffiths as editor of the Monthly Review, continuing until 1825.

Count Gritti (1818 fl.) Not identified; he failed to come to terms with Byron over the lease of a palazzo on the Grand Canal.

Captain Basil Hall (1788-1844) Scottish seaman and traveler; after education at Edinburgh high school he entered the Navy in 1802; he published Fragments of Voyages and Travels (1831-33) and other works.

John Hanson (1755-1841) Byron's solicitor and business agent.

George Henry Harlowe (1787-1819) English painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy and visited Byron at the Palazzo Mocenigo in 1818 shortly before his early death. He was a friend of William Jerdan.

John Hervey, second baron Hervey [Lord Fanny] (1696-1743) Courtier, wit, and friend of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who was pilloried by Pope and returned the favor. He Memoirs were published in 1848.

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).

James Holmes (1777-1860) English miniature painter who studied at the Royal Academy and assisted Richard Westall; he was a family friend of Augusta Leigh.

John William Rizzo Hoppner (1818-1834 fl.) The son of Richard Belgrave and Isabella Hoppner; he was a student at Heidelberg in 1834.

Marie Isabelle Hoppner [née May] (d. 1870) The daughter of Beat Lois May, seigneur d'Oron et de Brandis of Bern, Switzerland; in 1814 she married Richard Belgrave Hoppner.

Richard Belgrave Hoppner (1786-1872) The son of John Hoppner, R.A. (1758-1810) and likewise a painter; he was English consul at Venice (1814-25). He married Marie Isabella May, of Bern, in 1814.

Charles Howard, eleventh duke of Norfolk (1746-1815) The son of the tenth duke (d. 1786); educated by Roman Catholic tutors, he was a supporter of Charles James Fox and friend of the Prince of Wales.

David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish philosopher and historian; author of Essays Moral and Political (1741-42), Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) and History of Great Britain (1754-62).

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of The Examiner and The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and Shelley.

Marianne Hunt [née Kent] (1787-1857) The daughter of Anne Kent and wife of Leigh Hunt; they were married in 1809. Charles MacFarlane, who knew her in the 1830s, described her as “his mismanaging, unthrifty wife, the most barefaced, persevering, pertinacious of mendicants.”

Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821) English actress and playwright; author of two popular novels, A Simple Story (1791) and Nature and Art (1796).

Junius (1773 fl.) Anonymous political writer who attacked the king and Tory party in the Public Advertiser, 1769-1772. There is persuasive evidence that he was Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818).

Douglas James William Kinnaird (1788-1830) Whig MP (1819-20) and banker; he introduced Byron to Isaac Nathan and managed Byron's finances.

Richard Payne Knight (1751-1824) MP and writer on taste; in 1786 he published An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus for the Society of Dilettanti; he was author of The Landscape: a Didactic Poem (1794), An Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste (1805) and other works.

Elizabeth Lamb, viscountess Melbourne [née Milbanke] (1751-1818) Whig hostess married to Peniston Lamb, first Viscount Melbourne (1744-1828); she was the confidant of Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire, the mother of William Lamb (1779-1848), and mother-in-law of Lady Caroline Lamb.

Bernard Lintot (1675-1736) London bookseller who published Alexander Pope and John Gay.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Florentine statesman and political theorist, author of The Prince (1513).

Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832) Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).

Sir Horace Mann (1706-1786) The friend and correspondent of Horace Walpole; he was the British envoy at Florence 1740-86.

Queen Mary of Scotland (1542-1587) The controversial queen of Scotland (1561-1567) who found a number of champions in the romantic era; Sir Walter Scott treats her sympathetically in The Abbott (1820).

William Mason (1725-1797) English poet, the friend and biographer of Thomas Gray; author of Odes (1756), Elfrida (1752), and The English Garden (4 books, 1772-81).

Giovanni Battista Missiaglia (1838 fl.) Bookseller and proprietor of the Apollo Library in Venice.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [née Pierrepont] (1689-1762) English poet and epistolary writer, daughter of the first duke of Kingston; she quarreled with Alexander Pope and after living in Constantinople (1716-18) introduced inoculation to Britain.

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.

Lady Sydney Morgan [née Owenson] (1778 c.-1859) Anglo-Irish novelist and socialite, author of The Wild Irish Girl (1806).

Sir Thomas Charles Morgan (1780-1843) English physician and philosophical essayist who married the novelist Sydney Owenson in 1812; he was the author of Sketches of the Philosophy of Morals (1822). He corresponded with Cyrus Redding.

Mossi (1818 fl.) Not identified; he made an unauthorized translation of Manfred which he was persuaded not to print.

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.

Amelia Opie [née Alderson] (1769-1853) Quaker poet and novelist; in 1798 she married the painter John Opie (1761-1807); author of Father and Daughter (1801) and other novels and moral fables.

Samuel Parr (1747-1825) English schoolmaster, scholar, and book collector whose strident politics and assertive personality involved him in a long series of quarrels.

William Pitt the elder, first earl of Chatham (1708-1778) English statesman whose prudent management was often politically unpopular.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet and satirist; author of The Rape of the Lock (1714) and The Dunciad (1728).

Richard Porson (1759-1808) Classical scholar and Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge (1792); he edited four plays of Euripides.

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).

William Stewart Rose (1775-1843) Second son of George Rose, treasurer of the navy (1744-1818); he introduced Byron to Frere's Whistlecraft poems and translated Casti's Animale parlante (1819).

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) Italian composer of the Barber of Seville and other popular operatic works.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Swiss-born man of letters; author of, among others, Julie ou la Nouvelle Heloïse (1761), Émile (1762) and Les Confessions (1782).

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Scottish poet, novelist, antiquary, biographer, editor, and sheriff.

Marianna Segati (1816 fl.) Byron's first mistress in Venice, the wife of his landlord, a draper near the Piazza San Marco.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) English poet, with Byron in Switzerland in 1816; author of Queen Mab (1813), The Revolt of Islam (1817), The Cenci and Prometheus Unbound (1820), and Adonais (1821).

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).

Sarah Siddons [née Kemble] (1755-1831) English tragic actress, sister of John Philip Kemble, famous roles as Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and Ophelia. She retired from the stage in 1812.

William Sotheby (1757-1833) English man of letters; after Harrow he joined the dragoons, married well, and published Poems (1790) and became a prolific poet and translator, prominent in literary society.

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).

Joseph Spence [Sir Harry Beaumont] (1699-1768) English essayist, friend of Pope, Oxford Professor of Poetry, and patron of Stephen Duck and Thomas Blacklock; author of Polymetis: or, An Enquiry concerning the Agreement between the Works of the Roman Poets, and the Remains of the Antient Artists (1747).

William Strahan (1715-1785) Anglo-Scottish printer and publisher in partnership with Thomas Cadell, hew was the friend of David Hume and Samuel Johnson.

Isabella Teotochi, Countess Albrizzi (1760-1836) A native of Corfu, in 1796 she married her second husband, Giuseppe Albrizzi; author of a volume of pen-portraits, Ritratti, scritti da Isabella Teotchi Albrizzi (1807).

Jacob Tonson (1655-1736) London bookseller and member of the Kit-Kat Club; the elder Tonson published Dryden; his son, also Jacob Tonson (1682-1735), published Pope.

Voltaire (1694-1778) French historian and man of letters; author of, among many other works, The Age of Louis XIV (1751) and Candide (1759).

John Waite (d. 1820) Byron's dentist, who supplied him with the tooth-powders he so often requested from Murray.

Horace Walpole, fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797) English biographer, letter-writer, and antiquary; son of Sir Robert Walpole; author of The Castle of Otranto (1764).

Joseph Warton (1722-1800) English poet and literary critic; headmaster of Winchester School (1766-1800); author of An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756, 1782).

Alexander Wedderburn, first earl of Rosslyn (1733-1805) Scottish advocate and peer as Baron Loughborough (1780); he was lord chancellor (1793-1801), created earl of Rosslyn (1801).

Lydia White (d. 1827) Born in Wales, the “Miss Diddle” of Byron's “Blues” held literary conversazione at her house in Park Street; Walter Scott and Samuel Rogers were among her admirers.

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) British statesman, evangelical Christian, and humanitarian who worked for the abolition of slavery. He was an MP for Yorkshire aligned with Fox and Sheridan.

William IV, king of Great Britain (1765-1837) Son of George III, who succeeded his brother as King of England (1830-37).

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.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. (1817-1980). Begun as the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, Blackwood's assumed the name of its proprietor, William Blackwood after the sixth number. Blackwood was the nominal editor until 1834.

The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal. (1802-1929). Founded by Francis Jeffery, Sydney Smith, and Henry Brougham, the Edinburgh Review was for decades a principal organ of Whig opinion in Britain.

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 Post. (1772-1937). A large-circulation London daily that published verse by many of the prominent poets of the romantic era. John Taylor (1750–1826), Daniel Stuart (1766-1846), and Nicholas Byrne (d. 1833) were among its editors.

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.

William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844) An Arabian Tale, from an unpublished Manuscript: with Notes critical and explanatory [Vathek]. (London: J. Johnson, 1786). Anonymously published in the translation by Samuel Henley who contributed the notes; first published in the original French in 1791 as Les caprices et les malheurs du calife Vathek, traduit de l’arabe.

William Beloe (1758-1817) The Sexagenarian; or, the Recollections of a Literary Life. 2 vols (London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1817). An autobiography with characters of the writer's contemporaries.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) Beppo a Venetian Story. (London: Murray, 1818). A comic Venetian story in the ottava rima Byron adopted after reading Frere's Whistlecraft poems.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: a Romaunt. (London: John Murray, 1812-1818). A burlesque topographical poem in Spenserian stanzas; Cantos I-II were published in 1812, III in 1816, and IV in 1818.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto the Fourth. (London: John Murray, 1818). Harold's travels in Italy.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) Don Juan. (London: 1819-1824). A burlesque poem in ottava rima published in installments: Cantos I and II published in 1819, III, IV and V in 1821, VI, VII, and VIII in 1823, IX, X, and XI in 1823, XII, XIII, and XIV in 1823, and XV and XVI in 1824.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “Epistle to Mr. Murray” in Moore, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron. (John Murray, 1830). Sent in a letter of January 8th, 1818.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) Manfred, a Dramatic Poem. (London: J. Murray, 1817). The moody hero mourns the loss of his lover Astarte amid spectacular Alpine scenery.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “Marino Faliero” in Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice: An Historical Tragedy, in Five Acts. With Notes. The Prophecy of Dante, a Poem. (London: Murray, 1821). A tale of revenge involving the forty-ninth doge of Venice, who had been elected in 1354.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) Mazeppa: A Poem. (London: John Murray, 1819). A tale of the Cossacks, published with "Venice. An Ode."

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) Memoir. (1824: destroyed). The autobiographical memoranda begun in 1818 and given to Thomas Moore in 1819; after Byron's death it was suppressed with the encouragement of John Cam Hobhouse and John Murray.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “On the Birth of John William Rizzo Hoppner” in Moore, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron. (John Murray, 1830). First printed in a small pamphlet at Padua in 1818.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “To Mr. Murray” in Moore, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron. (John Murray, 1830). Six stanzas sent in a letter of 11 April 1818.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “Venice. An Ode” in Mazeppa: A Poem. (London: John Murray, 1819). Written in 1818.

George Chalmers (1742-1825) The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots; drawn from the State Papers. With six subsidiary Memoirs. Illustrated with ten Plates of Medals, Portraits, and Prospects. 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1818). The late work of a Scottish antiquary.

John Wilson Croker (1780-1857) “France, by Lady Morgan” in Quarterly Review. Vol. 17 No. 33 (April 1817): 260-86. A famously acerbic review by Croker and William Gifford. Lady Morgan retaliated by satirizing Croker as “Crawley” in Florence Macarthy (1818).

John Hookham Frere (1769-1846) Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft. 2 vols (London: Murray, 1817-1818). Given its impossible title, Frere's ottava-rima burlesque is sometimes referred to, more conveniently, as “The Monks and the Giants.”

John Hookham Frere (1769-1846) Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work. By William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stow-Market, in Suffolk, Harness, and Collar-Makers. Intended to Comprise the most interesting Particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table. Cantos III. and IV. (London: Murray, 1818). The sequel, in which little is concluded.

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) Foliage, or: Poems original and translated. (London: C. and J. Ollier, 1818). Hunt's sylva of miscellaneous verse was much ridiculed in the course of the controversy over “Cockney Poetry.”

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries; with Recollections of the Author's Life, and of his Visit to Italy. (London: Colburn, 1828). Hunt's scathing portrait of Lord Byron won him few friends.

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) The Story of Rimini, a Poem. (London: Murray, 1816). Hunt's Italian tale of illicit love, despite or because of the storm of criticism it aroused, was several times reprinted in Britain and the United States.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) An Account of the Life of Mr Richard Savage, son of the Earl Rivers. (London: J. Roberts, 1744). Later reprinted in Lives of the Poets (1779-81).

Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868) Fazio, a Tragedy. (Oxford: Samuel Collingwood, 1815). The author's first published work.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852) The Fudge Family in Paris. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818). A collection of satirical verse epistles ridiculing English parvenu abroad.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852) Lalla Rookh, an Oriental Romance. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817). A collection of four oriental tales in verse: “The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,” “Paradise and the Peri,” “The Fire-Worshippers,” and “The Light of the Harem.”

Thomas Moore (1779-1852) Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 2 vols (London: Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1825). Moore's first venture into biography was successful enough that he was elected to produce the authorized life of Byron.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) The Dunciad. (London: A. Dodd, 1728). Pope's mock-heroic satire on the abuse of literature unfolded over time, appearing as The Dunciad: an Heroic Poem in Three Books (1728), The Dunciad Variorum (1729), The New Dunciad (1742), and The Dunciad in Four Books (1743). The original hero, Lewis Theobald, was replaced by Colley Cibber in 1743.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) An Essay on Man. (London: J. Wilford, 1733). In four epistles; the first publication was anonymous.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) The Rape of the Lock. An Heroi-Comical Poem. (London: Bernard Lintott, 1714). Pope's satire on fashionable manners was frequently brought into evidence in romantic debates over the nature of “true” poetry.

William Stewart Rose (1775-1843) The Court and Parliament of Beasts. (London: J. Murray, 1819). Translated in ottava rima from the Animale parlante of Giovanni Battista Casti (1724-1803).

William Stewart Rose (1775-1843) “Verses to Byron” in Moore, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron. (John Murray, 1830). Thomas Moore quotes a passage from Byron's papers.

Maria Eliza Rundell [née Ketelby] (1745-1828) A New System of Domestic Cookery: formed upon Principles of Economy, and adapted to the use of Private Families. (London: J. Murray and J. Harding, 1806). Enlarged and embellished in successive editions.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Rob Roy. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co., 1818). Published anonymously, as the rest of the Waverley novels.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Hamlet. (London: 1603). First published in a “bad” quarto in 1603.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Othello. (London: 1622). First printed in quarto.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) “Julian and Maddalo” in Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley. (London: John and Henry L. Hunt, 1824). “Julian” and “Maddalo” are Byron and Shelley.

Joseph Spence [Sir Harry Beaumont] (1699-1768) Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters, of Books and Men. (London: J. Murray, 1820). Edited by Edmond Malone; a rival edition was published at the same time.

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Source Description:

Author: Moore, Thomas, 1779-1852

Title:  Letters and Journals of Lord Byron 2 Vols (London: John Murray, 1830).

Electronic Edition:

Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

Encoding Description: Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.   Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.

Markup and editing by:  David Hill Radcliffe

Completed September 2008

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Publisher: Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, Virginia Tech

Availability: Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

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