Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 31 August 1820
“Ravenna, August 31st, 1820.
“I have ‘put my soul’
into the tragedy (as you if it); but you know that there are d—d souls as well as
tragedies. Recollect that it is not a political play, though it may look like it; it is
strictly historical. Read the history and judge.
“Ada’s picture
is her mother’s. I am glad of it—the mother made a good daughter. Send me
Gifford’s opinion, and never mind the
Archbishop. I can neither send you away, nor give you a hundred pistoles, nor a better
taste: I send you a tragedy, and you ask for ‘facetious epistles;’ a little
like your predecessor, who advised Dr. Prideaux
to ‘put some more humour into his Life of Mahomet.’
“Bankes is a
wonderful fellow. There is hardly one of my school or college contemporaries that has
not turned out more or less celebrated. Peel,
Palmerstone, Bankes, Hobhouse, Tavistock, Bob
Mills, Douglas Kinnaird, &c.
&c. have all talked and been talked about.
* * * * * *
“We are here going to fight a little next month, if the Huns
don’t cross the Po, and probably if they do. I can’t say more now. If any
thing happens, you have matter for a posthumous work in MS.; so pray be civil. Depend
upon it, there will be savage work, if once they begin here. The French courage proceeds
from vanity, the German from phlegm, the Turkish from fanaticism and opium, the Spanish
from pride, ![]()
| A. D. 1820. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 341 |
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the English from coolness, the Dutch from
obstinacy, the Russian from insensibility, but the Italian from
anger; so you’ll see that they will spare
nothing.”
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 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).
Robert Pemberton Milnes (1784-1858)
Fellow-commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge who took his degree before Byron arrived;
he was MP for Pontefract (1806-18), friend of Theodore Hook, and the father of Richard
Monckton Milnes.
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.
Humphrey Prideaux (1648-1724)
Dean of Norwich; author of a
Life of Mahomet (1697) and works of
ecclesiastical history.
Francis Russell, seventh duke of Bedford (1788-1861)
Son of the sixth Duke (d. 1839); he took an MA from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1808
and served as Whig MP for Peterborough between 1809 and 1812 and for Bedfordshire between
1812 and 1832. He succeeded to the title in 1833.
Henry John Temple, third viscount Palmerston (1784-1865)
After education at Harrow and Edinburgh University he was MP for Newport (1807-11) and
Cambridge University (1811-31), foreign minister (1830-41), and prime minister (1855-58,
1859-65).
