Life of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 34

You can easily make out the accuracy of this from Peel himself, who told it in detail. I suppose you will be of the opinion of Lucretius, who (denies the immortality of the soul, but) a.s.serts that from the 'flying off of the surfaces of bodies, these surfaces or cases, like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it, so that the shapes and shadows of both the dead and living are frequently beheld.'

"But if they are, are their coats and waistcoats also seen? I do not disbelieve that we may be two by some unconscious process, to a certain sign, but which of these two I happen at present to be, I leave you to decide. I only hope that _t'other me_ behaves like a gemman.

"I wish you would get Peel asked how far I am accurate in my recollection of what he told me; for I don't like to say such things without authority.

"I am not sure that I was _not spoken_ with; but this also you can ascertain. I have written to you such letters that I stop.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. Last year (in June, 1819), I met at Count Mosti's, at Ferrara, an Italian who asked me 'if I knew Lord Byron?' I told him _no_ (no one knows himself, _you_ know). 'Then,' says he, 'I do; I met him at Naples the other day.' I pulled out my card and asked him if that was the way he spelt his name: he answered, _yes_. I suspect that it was a blackguard navy surgeon, who attended a young travelling madam about, and pa.s.sed himself for a lord at the post-houses. He was a vulgar dog--quite of the c.o.c.k-pit order--and a precious representative I must have had of him, if it was even so; but I don't know. He pa.s.sed himself off as a gentleman, and squired about a Countess * * (of this place), then at Venice, an ugly battered woman, of bad morals even for Italy."

LETTER 390. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 8bre 8, 1820.

"Foscolo's letter is exactly the thing wanted; firstly, because he is a man of genius; and, next, because he is an Italian, and therefore the best judge of Italics. Besides,

"He's more an antique Roman than a Dane;

that is, he is more of the ancient Greek than of the modern Italian. Though 'somewhat,' as Dugald Dalgetty says, 'too wild and sa_l_vage' (like 'Ronald of the Mist'), 'tis a wonderful man, and my friends Hobhouse and Rose both swear by him; and they are good judges of men and of Italian humanity.

"Here are in all _two_ worthy voices gain'd:

Gifford says it is good 'sterling genuine English,' and Foscolo says that the characters are right Venetian. Shakspeare and Otway had a million of advantages over me, besides the incalculable one of being _dead_ from one to two centuries, and having been both born blackguards (which ARE such attractions to the gentle living reader); let me then preserve the only one which I could possibly have--that of having been at Venice, and entered more into the local spirit of it. I claim no more.

"I know what Foscolo means about Calendaro's _spitting_ at Bertram; _that's_ national--the objection, I mean. The Italians and French, with those 'flags of abomination,' their pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else--in your face almost, and therefore _object_ to it on the stage as _too familiar_. But we who _spit_ nowhere--but in a man's face when we grow savage--are not likely to feel this. Remember _Ma.s.singer_, and Kean's Sir Giles Overreach--

"Lord! _thus_ I _spit_ at thee and at thy counsel!

Besides, Calendaro does _not_ spit in Bertram's face; he spits _at_ him, as I have seen the Mussulmans do upon the ground when they are in a rage. Again, he _does not in fact despise_ Bertram, though he affects it--as we all do, when angry with one we think our inferior. He is angry at not being allowed to die in his own way (although not afraid of death); and recollect that he suspected and hated Bertram from the first. Israel Bertuccio, on the other hand, is a cooler and more concentrated fellow: he acts upon _principle and impulse_; Calendaro upon _impulse_ and _example_.

"So there's argument for you.

"The Doge _repeats_;--_true_, but it is from engrossing pa.s.sion, and because he sees _different_ persons, and is always obliged to recur to the _cause_ uppermost in his mind. His speeches are long:--true, but I wrote for the _closet_, and on the French and Italian model rather than yours, which I think not very highly of, for all your _old_ dramatists, who are long enough too, G.o.d knows:--_look_ into any of them.

"I return you Foscolo's letter, because it alludes also to his private affairs. I am sorry to see such a man in straits, because I know what they are, or what they were. I never met but three men who would have held out a finger to me: one was yourself, the other William Bankes, and the other a n.o.bleman long ago dead: but of these the first was the only one who offered it while I _really_ wanted it; the second from good will--but I was not in need of Bankes's aid, and would not have accepted it if I had (though I love and esteem him); and the _third_ --------.[82]

"So you see that I have seen some strange things in my time. As for your own offer, it was in 1815, when I was in actual uncertainty of five pounds. I rejected it; but I have not forgotten it, although you probably have.

"P.S. Foscolo's Ricciardo was lent, with the _leaves uncut_, to some Italians, now in villeggiatura, so that I have had no opportunity of hearing their decision, or of reading it. They seized on it as Foscolo's, and on account of the beauty of the paper and printing, directly. If I find it takes, I will reprint it _here_. The Italians think as highly of Foscolo as they can of any man, divided and miserable as they are, and with neither leisure at present to read, nor head nor heart to judge of any thing but extracts from French newspapers and the Lugano Gazette.

"We are all looking at one another, like wolves on their prey in pursuit, only waiting for the first falling on to do unutterable things. They are a great world in chaos, or angels in h.e.l.l, which you please; but out of chaos came Paradise, and out of h.e.l.l--I don't know what; but the devil went _in_ there, and he was a fine fellow once, you know.

"You need never favour me with any periodical publication, except the Edinburgh Quarterly, and an occasional Blackwood; or now and then a Monthly Review; for the rest I do not feel curiosity enough to look beyond their covers.

"To be sure I took in the British finely. He fell precisely into the glaring trap laid for him. It was inconceivable how he could be so absurd as to imagine us serious with him.

"Recollect, that if you put my name to 'Don Juan' in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian right of my daughter in Chancery, on the plea of its containing the _parody_;--such are the perils of a foolish jest. I was not aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct, I believe; and you may be sure that the Noels would not let it slip. Now I prefer my child to a poem at any time, and so should you, as having half a dozen.

"Let me know your notions.

"If you turn over the earlier pages of the Huntingdon peerage story, you will see how common a name Ada was in the early Plantagenet days. I found it in my own pedigree in the reign of John and Henry, and gave it to my daughter. It was also the name of Charlemagne's sister. It is in an early chapter of Genesis, as the name of the wife of Lamech; and I suppose Ada is the feminine of _Adam_. It is short, ancient, vocalic, and had been in my family; for which reason I gave it to my daughter."

[Footnote 82: The paragraph is left thus imperfect in the original.]

LETTER 391. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 8bre 12, 1820.

"By land and sea carriage a considerable quant.i.ty of books have arrived; and I am obliged and grateful: but 'medio de fonte leporum, surgit amari aliquid,' &c. &c.; which, being interpreted, means,

"I'm thankful for your books, dear Murray; But why not send Scott's Monast_ery_?

the only book in four _living_ volumes I would give a baioccolo to see--'bating the rest of the same author, and an occasional Edinburgh and Quarterly, as brief chroniclers of the times. Instead of this, here are Johnny Keats's * * poetry, and three novels by G.o.d knows whom, except that there is Peg * * *'s name to one of them--a spinster whom I thought we had sent back to her spinning.

Crayon is very good; Hogg's Tales rough, but RACY, and welcome.

"Books of travels are expensive, and I don't want them, having travelled already; besides, they lie. Thank the author of 'The Profligate' for his (or her) present. Pray send me _no more_ poetry but what is rare and decidedly good. There is such a trash of Keats and the like upon my tables that I am ashamed to look at them. I say nothing against your parsons, your S * *s and your C * *s--it is all very fine--but pray dispense me from the pleasure. Instead of poetry, if you will favour me with a few soda-powders, I shall be delighted: but all prose ('bating _travels_ and novels NOT by Scott) is welcome, especially Scott's Tales of my Landlord, and so on.

"In the notes to Marino Faliero, it may be as well to say that '_Benintende_' was not really of _the Ten_, but merely _Grand Chancellor_, a separate office (although important): it was an arbitrary alteration of mine. The Doges too were all _buried_ in St. _Mark's before_ Faliero. It is singular that when his predecessor, Andrea Dandolo, died, _the Ten_ made a law that _all_ the _future Doges_ should be _buried with their families, in their own churches,--one would think by a kind of presentiment_. So that all that is said of his _ancestral Doges_, as buried at St. John's and Paul's, is altered from the fact, _they being in St. Mark's.

Make a note_ of this, and put _Editor_ as the subscription to it.

"As I make such pretensions to accuracy, I should not like to be _twitted_ even with such trifles on that score. Of the play they may say what they please, but not so of my costume and _dram.

pers._ they having been real existences.

"I omitted Foscolo in my list of living _Venetian worthies, in the notes_, considering him as an _Italian_ in general, and not a mere provincial like the rest; and as an Italian I have spoken of him in the preface to Canto 4th of Childe Harold.

"The French translation of us!!! _oime! oime!_--the German; but I don't understand the latter and his long dissertation at the end about the Fausts. Excuse haste. Of politics it is not safe to speak, but nothing is decided as yet.

"I am in a very fierce humour at not having Scott's Monastery. You are _too liberal_ in quant.i.ty, and somewhat careless of the quality, of your missives. All the _Quarterlies_ (four in number) I had had before from you, and _two_ of the Edinburgh; but no matter; we shall have new ones by and by. No more Keats, I entreat:--flay him alive; if some of you don't, I must skin him myself. There is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the manikin.

"I don't feel inclined to care further about 'Don Juan.' What do you think a very pretty Italian lady said to me the other day? She had read it in the French, and paid me some compliments, with due DRAWBACKS, upon it. I answered that what she said was true, but that I suspected it would live longer than Childe Harold. '_Ah but_' (said she). '_I would rather have the fame of Childe Harold for three years than an_ IMMORTALITY _of Don Juan!_' The truth is that _it is_ TOO TRUE, and the women hate many things which strip off the tinsel of _sentiment_; and they are right, as it would rob them of their weapons. I never knew a woman who did not hate _De Grammont's Memoirs_ for the same reason: even Lady * * used to abuse them.

"Rose's work I never received. It was seized at Venice. Such is the liberality of the Huns, with their two hundred thousand men, that they dare not let such a volume as his circulate."

LETTER 392. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 8bre 16, 1820.

"The Abbot has just arrived; many thanks; as also for the _Monastery--when you send it!!!_

"The Abbot will have a more than ordinary interest for me, for an ancestor of mine by the mother's side, Sir J. Gordon of Gight, the handsomest of his day, died on a scaffold at Aberdeen for his loyalty to Mary, of whom he was an imputed paramour as well as her relation. His fate was much commented on in the Chronicles of the times. If I mistake not, he had something to do with her escape from Loch Leven, or with her captivity there. But this you will know better than I.

"I recollect Loch Leven as it were but yesterday. I saw it in my way to England in 1798, being then ten years of age. My mother, who was as haughty as Lucifer with her descent from the Stuarts, and her right line from the _old Gordons, not the Seyton Gordons_, as she disdainfully termed the ducal branch, told me the story, always reminding me how superior _her_ Gordons were to the southern Byrons, notwithstanding our Norman, and always masculine descent, which has never lapsed into a female, as my mother's Gordons had done in her own person.