Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 5 March 1820
“Ravenna, March 5th, 1820.
“In case, in your country, you should not readily lay hands
on the Morgante Maggiore, I send
you the original text of the First Canto, to correspond with the translation which I sent you a few days ago. It is from
the Naples edition in quarto of 1732,—dated Florence, however, by
a trick of the trade, which you, as one of the allied sovereigns
of the profession, will perfectly understand without any further spiegazione.
“It is strange that here nobody understands the real precise
meaning of ‘sbergo,’ or
‘usbergo*,’ an old Tuscan word, which I have rendered cuirass (but am not sure it is not helmet).
I have asked at least twenty people, learned and ignorant, male and female, including
poets, and officers civil and military. The dictionary says cuirass, but gives no authority; and a female friend of mine says positively cuirass, which makes me doubt the fact still more than
before. Ginguené says ‘bonnet de
fer,’ with the usual superficial decision of a Frenchman, so that I
* It has been suggested to me that usbergo
is obviously the same as hauberk, habergeon, &c all from the German
hals-berg, or covering of the neck. |
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| 308 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1820. |
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can’t believe him: and what between the dictionary,
the Italian woman, and the Frenchman, there’s no trusting to a word they say. The
context too, which should decide, admits equally of either meaning, as you will
perceive. Ask Rose, Hobhouse, Merivale, and Foscolo, and vote with the majority. Is Frere a good Tuscan? if he be, bother him too. I have
tried, you see, to be as accurate as I well could. This is my third or fourth letter, or
packet, within the last twenty days.”
Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827)
Italian poet and critic who settled in London in 1816 where he contributed essays on
Italian literature to the
Edinburgh and
Quarterly
Reviews.
John Hookham Frere (1769-1846)
English diplomat and poet; educated at Eton and Cambridge, he was envoy to Lisbon
(1800-02) and Madrid (1802-04, 1808-09); with Canning conducted the
The
Anti-Jacobin (1797-98); author of
Prospectus and Specimen of an
intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft (1817, 1818).
Pierre-Louis Ginguené (1748-1815)
French poet and critic, editor of the
Correspondence of Mirabeau
and Chamfort (1797).
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 Herman Merivale (1779-1844)
English poet and translator, friend of Francis Hodgson, author of
Orlando in Ronscevalles: a Poem (1814). He married Louisa Drury, daughter of the
headmaster at Harrow, and wrote for the
Monthly Review while
pursuing a career in the law.
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 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).
