Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 4 September 1821
“Ravenna, September 4th, 1821.
“By Saturday’s post, I sent you a fierce and furibund
letter upon the subject of the printer’s blunders in Don Juan. I must solicit your attention to the topic,
though my wrath hath subsided into sullenness.
“Yesterday I received Mr.
——, a friend of yours, and because he is a friend of yours; and
that’s more than I would do in an English case, except for
those whom I honour. I was as civil as I could be among packages even to the very chairs
and tables, for I am going to Pisa in a few weeks, and have sent
and am sending off my chattels. It regretted me* that, my books and every thing being
packed, I could
* It will be observed, from this and a few other instances,
that notwithstanding the wonderful purity of English he was able to preserve in
his writings, while living constantly with persons speaking a different language,
he had already begun so far to feel the influence of |
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| 524 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1821. |
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not send you a few things I meant for you; but they were
all sealed and baggaged, so as to have made it a month’s work to get at them
again. I gave him an envelope, with the Italian scrap in it*, alluded to in my Gilchrist defence. Hobhouse will make it out for you, and it will make you
laugh, and him too, the spelling particularly. The ‘Mericani,’ of whom they call me the ‘Capo’ (or
Chief), mean ‘Americans,’ which is the name given in Romagna to a part of the Carbonari; that is to say, to the popular part, the troops of the Carbonari. They are
originally a society of hunters in the forest, who took the name of Americans, but at
present comprise some thousands, &c.; but I sha’n’t let you further into
the secret, which may be participated with the postmasters. Why they thought me their
Chief, I know not: their Chiefs are like ‘Legion, being many.’
However, it is a post of more honour than profit, for, now that they are persecuted, it
is fit that I should aid them; and so I have done, as far as my means would permit. They
will rise again some day, for these fools of the government are blundering: they
actually seem to know nothing, for they have arrested and
banished many of their own party, and let others escape who are not their friends.
“What think’st thou of Greece?
“Address to me here as usual, till you hear further from me.
“By Mawman I have
sent a Journal to Moore; but it won’t do
for the public,—at least a great deal of it won’t;—parts
may.
“I read over the Juans, which are excellent. Your squad are quite wrong; and so you will find
by and by. I regret that I do not go on with it, for I had all the plan for several
cantos, and different countries and climes. You say nothing of the note I enclosed to you†, which will explain why I agreed to discontinue
it (at Madame
this habit to fall occasionally into
Italianisms in his familiar letters.—“I am in the case to
know”—“I have caused write”—“It regrets
me,” &c. |
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* An anonymous letter which he had received, threatening him
with assassination. |
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† In this note, so highly honourable to the fair
writer, she says, “Remember, my
Byron, the promise you have made me. Never shall I be able to tell you the
satisfaction I feel from it, so great are the sentiments of pleasure and
confidence with which the sacrifice you have made has inspired me.” In a
postscript to the note she adds, “I am only sorry that Don Juan was not left in the infernal
regions.”—“Ricordati, mio Byron, della promessa che mi hai fatta.
Non potrei mai dirti la satisfazione ch’ io ne provo!—sono tanti i
sentimenti di piacere e di |
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| A. D. 1821. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 525 |
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G——’s request); but you are so grand, and
sublime, and occupied, that one would think, instead of publishing for ‘the Board
of Longitude,’ that you were trying to discover it.
“Let me hear that Gifford is better. He can’t be spared either
by you or me.”
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).
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).
Joseph Mawman (1760 c.-1827)
Bookseller of York (1788) and London, where he purchased the business of Charles Dilly in
1800; he was an acquaintance of Samuel Parr.
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.
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.
