Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 1 August 1819
“Ravenna, August 1st, 1819.
[Address your answer to Venice,
however.]
“Don’t be alarmed. You will see me defend myself
gaily—that is, if I happen to be in spirits; and by spirits, I
don’t mean your meaning of the word, but the spirit of a bull-dog when pinched, or
a bull when pinned; it is then that they make best sport; and as my sensations under an
attack are probably a happy compound of the united energies of these amiable animals,
you may perhaps see what Marrall calls
‘rare sport,’ and some good tossing and goring, in the course of
the controversy. But I must be in the right cue first, and I doubt I am almost too far
off to be in a sufficient fury for the purpose. And then I have effeminated and
enervated myself with love and the summer in these last two months.
![]()
| A. D. 1819. |
LIFE OF LORD BYRON. |
229 |
![]()
“I wrote to Mr.
Hobhouse the other day, and foretold that Juan would either fall entirely or succeed completely;
there will be no medium. Appearances are not favourable; but as you write the day after
publication, it can hardly be decided what opinion will predominate. You seem in a
fright, and doubtless with cause. Come what may, I never will flatter the
million’s canting in any shape. Circumstances may or may not have placed me at
times in a situation to lead the public opinion, but the public opinion never led, nor
ever shall lead, me. I will not sit on a degraded throne; so pray put Messrs. * * or * *, or Tom Moore, or
* * upon it; they will all of them be
transported with their coronation.
* * * * * *
*
“P.S. The Countess
Guiccioli is much better than she was. I sent you, before leaving
Venice, the real original sketch which gave rise to the ‘Vampire,’
&c.—Did you get it?”
Teresa Guiccioli (1800-1873)
Byron's lover, who in 1818 married Alessandro Guiccioli. She composed a memoir of Byron,
Lord Byron,
Jugé par les Témoines de sa Vie (1868).
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).
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.
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).
Horace Twiss (1787-1849)
Lawyer, poet, and biographer; he was MP for Wootton Basset (1820-30) and Newport
(1830-31) and author of
St Stephens Chapel: a Satirical Poem
(1807).
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.
