The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 118

"'Don Pedro.' What offence have these men done?

"'Dogberry.' Many, Sir; they have committed false reports; moreover they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixthly and lastly, they have belied a Lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things, and, to conclude, they are lying knaves."

'Much Ado about Nothing.'

We have already seen how scurvily Lord Byron has treated _three_ of the four persons to whom he has successively dedicated his Poems; but for the fourth he reserved a species of contumely, which we are confident our readers will think more degrading than all the rest. _He has uniformly praised him! and him alone!!!_--The exalted rank, the gentle manners, the polished taste of his guardian and relation, Lord Carlisle; the considerations due to Lord Holland, from his family, his personal character, and his love of letters; the amiability of Mr. Moore's society, the sweetness of his versification, and the vivacity of his imagination;--all these could not save their possessors from the _brutality_ of Lord Byron's personal satire.

It was, then, for a person only, who should have _none_ of these t.i.tles to his envy that his Lords.h.i.+p could be expected to reserve the fullness and steadiness of his friends.h.i.+p; and if we had any respect or regard for that small poet and very disagreeable person, Mr. Sam Rogers, we should heartily pity him for being "_d.a.m.ned_" to such "_fame_" as Lord Byron's uninterrupted praise can give.

But Mr. Sam Rogers has another cause of complaint against Lord Byron, and which he is of a taste to resent more. His Lords.h.i.+p has not deigned to call _him_ "the firmest of patriots," though we have heard that his claims to that t.i.tle are not much inferior to Mr. Moore's. Mr. Sam Rogers is reported to have clubb'd with the Irish Anacreon in that scurrilous collection of verses, which we have before mentioned, and which were published under the t.i.tle of the _Twopenny Post-bag_, and the a.s.sumed name of "Thomas Brown." The rumour may be unfounded; if it be, Messrs. Rogers and Moore will easily forgive us for saying that, much as we are astonished at the effrontery with which Lord Byron has acknowledged his lampoon, we infinitely prefer it to the cowardly prudence of the author or authors of the _Twopenny Post-bag_ lurking behind a fict.i.tious name, and "devising impossible slanders," which he or they have not the spirit to avow.

But, to return to the more immediate subject of our lucubrations: It seems almost like a fatality, that Lord Byron has hardly ever praised any thing that he has not at some other period censured, or censured any thing that he has not, by and bye, praised or _practised_.

It does not often happen that booksellers are a.s.sailed for their too great liberality to authors; yet, in Lord Byron's satire, while Mr.

Scott is abused, his publisher, Mr. Murray, is sneered at, in the following lines:

"And think'st them, Scott, by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance; Though _Murray_ with his Miller may combine, _To yield thy Muse just_ HALF-A-CROWN A LINE?

No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their former _laurels fade_.

Let such forego the poet's sacred name, Who _rack_ their _brains_ for _lucre_, not for fame: Low may they sink to _merited contempt_, And _scorn_ remunerate the _mean_ attempt."

Now, is it not almost incredible that this very Murray (the only remaining one of the booksellers whom his Lords.h.i.+p had attacked; Miller has left the trade)--is it not, we say, almost incredible that this very Murray should have been soon after selected, by this very Lord Byron, to be his own publisher? But what will our readers say, when we a.s.sure them, that not only was Murray so selected, but that this magnanimous young Lord has actually _sold_ his works to this same Murray? and, what is a yet more singular circ.u.mstance, has received and pocketted, for one of his own "stale romances," a sum amounting, not to "_half-a-crown_,"

but to _a whole crown, a line!!!_

This fact, monstrous as it seems in the author of the foregoing lines, is, we have the fullest reason to believe, accurately true. And the "_faded laurel_," "_the brains rac'd for lucre_," "_the merited contempt_," "_the scorn_," and the "_meanness_," which this impudent young man dared to attribute to Mr. Scott, appear to have been a mere antic.i.p.ation of his own future proceedings; and thus,

"--Even-handed Justice Commends the ingredients of his _poison'd_ chalice To his own lips."

How he now likes the taste of it we do not know; about as much, we suspect, as the "incestuous, murderous, d.a.m.ned Dane" did, when _Hamlet_ obliged him to "_drink off the potion_" which he had treacherously drugged for the destruction of others.

(8) BYRONIANA No. 5 ('The Courier', February 19, 1814).

"He professes no keeping oaths; in breaking them he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool."

'All's Well that ends Well'.

We have, we should hope, sufficiently exposed the audacious levity and waywardness of Lord Byron's mind, and yet there are a few touches which we think will give a finish to the portrait, and add, if it be at all wanting, to the strength of the resemblance.

It must be amusing to those who know anything of Lord Byron in the circles of London, to find him magnanimously defying in very stout heroics,

"--all the din of _Melbourne_ House And _Lambes'_ resentment--"

and adding that he is "_unscared_" even by "_Holland's spouse_."

To those who may be in the habit of hearing his Lords.h.i.+p's political descants, the following extract will appear equally curious:

"Mr. Brougham, in No. 25 of the 'Edinburgh Review', throughout the article concerning Don Pedro Cevallos, has displayed more politics than policy; many of the worthy burgesses of Edinburgh being so _incensed at the_ INFAMOUS _principles it evinces_, as to have withdrawn their subscriptions;" and in the text of this poem, to which the foregoing is a note, he advises the Editor of the Review to

"Beware, lest _blundering Brougham_ destroy the sale; Turn beef to bannacks, cauliflower to kail."

Those who have attended to his Lords.h.i.+p's progress as an author, and observed that he has published _four_ poems, in little more than two years, will start at the following lines:

"--Oh cease thy song!

A bard may chaunt too often and too long; As thou art strong in verse, in mercy spare; A FOURTH, alas, were more than we could bear."

And as the scene of each of these _four_ Poems is laid in the Levant, it is curious to recollect, that when his Lords.h.i.+p informed the world that he was about to visit "Afric's coast," and "Calpe's height," and "Stamboul's minarets," and "Beauty's native clime," he enters into a voluntary and solemn engagement with the public,

"That should he back return, no letter'd rage Shall drag _his_ common-place book on the stage; Of Dardan tours let Dilettanti tell, He'll leave topography to cla.s.sic Cell, And, _quite content_, no more shall interpose, To _stun_ mankind with _poetry or prose_."

And yet we have already had, growing out of this "Tour," four volumes of _poetry_, enriched with copious notes in _prose_, selected from his "_common-place book_." The whole interspersed every here and there with the most convincing proofs that instead of being "_quite content_," his Lords.h.i.+p has returned, as he went out, the most discontented and peevish thing that breathes.

But the pa.s.sage of all others which gives us the most delight is that in which his Lords.h.i.+p attacks his critics, and declares that

"Our men in buckram shall have blows enough, And feel they _too_ are penetrable stuff."

and adds,

"--I have-- Learn'd to deride the Critic's stern decree, And _break him on the wheel he meant for me_."

We should now, with all humility, ask his Lords.h.i.+p whether _he_ yet feels that "he _too_ is penetrable stuff;" and we should further wish to know how he likes being "_broken on the wheel he meant for others?_"

When his Lords.h.i.+p shall have sufficiently pondered on those questions, we may perhaps venture to propound one or two more.