Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to Samuel Rogers, 21 October 1821
“Ravenna, October 21st, 1821.
“I shall be (the gods willing) in Bologna on Saturday next.
This is a curious answer to your letter; but I have taken a house in Pisa for the
winter, to which all my chattels, furniture, horses, carriages, and live stock are
already removed, and I am preparing to follow.
“The cause of this removal is, shortly, the exile or
proscription of all my friends’ relations and connexions here into Tuscany, on
account of our late politics; and where they go, I accompany them. I merely remained
till now to settle some arrangements about my daughter, and to give time for my furniture, &c. to precede me. I
have not here a seat or a bed hardly, except some jury chairs, and tables and a mattress
for the week to come.
“If you will go on with me to Pisa, I can lodge you for as
long as you like (they write that the house, the Palazzo Lanfranchi, is spacious: it is
on the Arno); and I have four carriages, and as many saddle horses (such as they are in
these parts), with all other conveniences at your command, as also their owner. If you
could do this, we may, at least, cross the Apennines together; or if you are going by
another road, we shall meet at Bologna, I hope. I address this to the post-office (as
you desire), and you will probably find me at the Albergo di San
Marco. If you arrive first, wait till I come up, which will be (barring
accidents) on Saturday or Sunday at farthest.
“I presume you are alone in your voyages. Moore is in London incog.
according to my latest advices from those climates.
“It is better than a lustre (five years
and six months and some days, more or less) since we met; and, like the man from
Tadcaster in ![]()
| A. D. 1821. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 547 |
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the farce (’Love laughs at Locksmiths’) whose acquaintances,
including the cat, and the terrier, ‘who caught a halfpenny in his mouth,’
were all ‘gone dead,’ but too many of our acquaintances have taken the same
path. Lady Melbourne, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, &c. &c. almost every body of much name
of the old school. But ‘so am not I, said the foolish fat scullion,’
therefore let us make the most of our remainder.
“Let me find two lines from you at the hostel or
inn.’
“Yours ever, &c.
B.”
Allegra Byron (1817-1822)
Byron's illegitimate daughter by Claire Clairmont.
John Philpot Curran (1750-1817)
Irish statesman and orator; as a Whig MP (from 1783) he defended the United Irishmen in
Parliament (1798).
Henry Grattan (1746-1820)
Irish statesman and patriot; as MP for Dublin he supported Catholic emancipation and
opposed the Union.
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.
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.
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).
Sarah Rogers (1772-1855)
Of Regent's Park. the younger sister of the poet Samuel Rogers; she lived with her
brother Henry in Highbury Terrace.
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).
