Life of Lord Byron Volume III Part 11

"May 18. 1814.

"Thanks--and punctuality. _What_ has pa.s.sed at * * * *s House? I suppose that _I_ am to know, and 'pars fui' of the conference. I regret that your * * * *s will detain you so late, but I suppose you will be at Lady Jersey's. I am going earlier with Hobhouse. You recollect that to-morrow we sup and see Kean.

"P.S. _Two_ to-morrow is the hour of pugilism."

The supper, to which he here looks forward, took place at Watier's, of which club he had lately become a member; and, as it may convey some idea of his irregular mode of diet, and thus account, in part, for the frequent derangement of his health, I shall here attempt, from recollection, a description of his supper on this occasion. We were to have been joined by Lord R * *, who however did not arrive, and the party accordingly consisted but of ourselves. Having taken upon me to order the repast, and knowing that Lord Byron, for the last two days, had done nothing towards sustenance, beyond eating a few biscuits and (to appease appet.i.te) chewing mastic, I desired that we should have a good supply of, at least, two kinds of fish. My companion, however, confined himself to lobsters, and of these finished two or three, to his own share,--interposing, sometimes, a small liqueur-gla.s.s of strong white brandy, sometimes a tumbler of very hot water, and then pure brandy again, to the amount of near half a dozen small gla.s.ses of the latter, without which, alternately with the hot water, he appeared to think the lobster could not be digested. After this, we had claret, of which having despatched two bottles between us, at about four o'clock in the morning we parted.

As Pope has thought his "delicious lobster-nights" worth commemorating, these particulars of one in which Lord Byron was concerned may also have some interest.

Among other nights of the same description which I had the happiness of pa.s.sing with him, I remember once, in returning home from some a.s.sembly at rather a late hour, we saw lights in the windows of his old haunt Stevens's, in Bond Street, and agreed to stop there and sup. On entering, we found an old friend of his, Sir G * * W* *, who joined our party, and the lobsters and brandy and water being put in requisition, it was (as usual on such occasions) broad daylight before we separated.

LETTER 182. TO MR. MOORE.

"May 23. 1814.

"I must send you the Java government gazette of July 3d, 1813, just sent to me by Murray. Only think of _our_ (for it is you and I) setting paper warriors in array in the Indian seas. Does not this sound like fame--something almost like _posterity_? It is something to have scribblers squabbling about us 5000 miles off, while we are agreeing so well at home. Bring it with you in your pocket;--it will make you laugh, as it hath me. Ever yours,

"B.

"P.S. Oh the anecdote!"

To the circ.u.mstance mentioned in this letter he recurs more than once in the Journals which he kept abroad; as thus, in a pa.s.sage of his "Detached Thoughts,"--where it will be perceived that, by a trifling lapse of memory, he represents himself as having produced this gazette, for the first time, on our way to dinner.

"In the year 1814, as Moore and I were going to dine with Lord Grey in Portman Square, I pulled out a 'Java Gazette' (which Murray had sent to me), in which there was a controversy on our respective merits as poets.

It was amusing enough that we should be proceeding peaceably to the same table while they were squabbling about us in the Indian seas (to be sure the paper was dated six months before), and filling columns with Batavian criticism. But this is fame, I presume."

The following poem, written about this time, and, apparently, for the purpose of being recited at the Caledonian Meeting, I insert princ.i.p.ally on account of the warm feeling which it breathes towards Scotland and her sons:--

"Who hath not glow'd above the page where Fame Hath fix'd high Caledon's unconquer'd name; The mountain-land which spurn'd the Roman chain, And baffled back the fiery-crested Dane, Whose bright claymore and hardihood of hand No foe could tame--no tyrant could command.

"That race is gone--but still their children breathe, And glory crowns them with redoubled wreath: O'er Gael and Saxon mingling banners s.h.i.+ne, And, England! add their stubborn strength to thine.

The blood which flow'd with Wallace flows as free, But now 'tis only shed for fame and thee!

Oh! pa.s.s not by the Northern veteran's claim, But give support--the world hath given him fame!

"The humbler ranks, the lowly brave, who bled While cheerly following where the mighty led-- Who sleep beneath the undistinguish'd sod Where happier comrades in their triumph trod, To us bequeath--'tis all their fate allows-- The sireless offspring and the lonely spouse: She on high Albyn's dusky hills may raise The tearful eye in melancholy gaze, Or view, while shadowy auguries disclose The Highland seer's antic.i.p.ated woes, The bleeding phantom of each martial form Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm; While sad, she chants the solitary song, The soft lament for him who tarries long-- For him, whose distant relics vainly crave The coronach's wild requiem to the brave!

"'Tis Heaven--not man--must charm away the woe Which bursts when Nature's feelings newly flow; Yet tenderness and time may rob the tear Of half its bitterness for one so dear: A nation's grat.i.tude perchance may spread A thornless pillow for the widow'd head; May lighten well her heart's maternal care, And wean from penury the soldier's heir."

LETTER 183. TO MR. MOORE.

"May 31. 1814.

"As I shall probably not see you here to-day, I write to request that, if not inconvenient to yourself, you will stay in town till _Sunday_; if not to gratify me, yet to please a great many others, who will be very sorry to lose you. As for myself, I can only repeat that I wish you would either remain a long time with us, or not come at all; for these _s.n.a.t.c.hes_ of society make the subsequent separations bitterer than ever.

"I believe you think that I have not been quite fair with that Alpha and Omega of beauty, &c. with whom you would willingly have united me. But if you consider what her sister said on the subject, you will less wonder that my pride should have taken the alarm; particularly as nothing but the every-day flirtation of every-day people ever occurred between your heroine and myself. Had Lady * *

appeared to wish it--or even not to oppose it--I would have gone on, and very possibly married (that is, _if_ the other had been equally accordant) with the same indifference which has frozen over the 'Black Sea' of almost all my pa.s.sions. It is that very indifference which makes me so uncertain and apparently capricious.

It is not eagerness of new pursuits, but that nothing impresses me sufficiently to _fix_; neither do I feel disgusted, but simply indifferent to almost all excitements. The proof of this is, that obstacles, the slightest even, _stop_ me. This can hardly be _timidity_, for I have done some impudent things too, in my time; and in almost all cases, opposition is a stimulus. In mine, it is not; if a straw were in my way, I could not stoop to pick it up.

"I have sent this long tirade, because I would not have you suppose that I have been _trifling_ designedly with you or others. If you think so, in the name of St. Hubert (the patron of antlers and hunters) let me be married out of hand--I don't care to whom, so it amuses any body else, and don't interfere with me much in the daytime. Ever," &c.

LETTER 184. TO MR. MOORE.

"June 14. 1814.

"I _could_ be very sentimental now, but I won't. The truth is, that I have been all my life trying to harden my heart, and have not yet quite succeeded--though there are great hopes--and you do not know how it sunk with your departure. What adds to my regret is having seen so little of you during your stay in this crowded desert, where one ought to be able to bear thirst like a camel,--the springs are so few, and most of them so muddy.

"The newspapers will tell you all that is to be told of emperors, &c.[34] They have dined, and supped, and shown their flat faces in all thoroughfares, and several saloons. Their uniforms are very becoming, but rather short in the skirts; and their conversation is a catechism, for which and the answers I refer you to those who have heard it.

"I think of leaving town for Newstead soon. If so, I shall not be remote from your recess, and (unless Mrs. M. detains you at home over the caudle-cup and a new cradle,) we will meet. You shall come to me, or I to you, as you like it;--but _meet_ we will. An invitation from Aston has reached me, but I do not think I shall go. I have also heard of * * *--I should like to see her again, for I have not met her for years; and though 'the light that ne'er can s.h.i.+ne again' is set, I do not know that 'one dear smile like those of old' might not make me for a moment forget the 'dulness' of 'life's stream.'

"I am going to R * *'s to-night--to one of those suppers which '_ought_ to be dinners.' I have hardly seen her, and never _him_, since you set out. I told you, you were the last link of that chain. As for * *, we have not syllabled one another's names since.

The post will not permit me to continue my scrawl. More anon.

"Ever, dear Moore, &c.

"P.S. Keep the Journal[35]; I care not what becomes of it; and if it has amused you I am glad that I kept it. 'Lara' is finished, and I am copying him for my third vol., now collecting;--but _no separate_ publication."

[Footnote 34: In a few days after this, he sent me a long rhyming epistle full of jokes and pleasantries upon every thing and every one around him, of which the following are the only parts producible:--

'What say _I_?'--not a syllable further in prose; I'm your man 'of all measures,' dear Tom,--so, here goes!

Here goes, for a swim on the stream of old Time, On those buoyant supporters the bladders of rhyme.

If our weight breaks them down, and we sink in the flood, We are smother'd, at least, in respectable mud, Where the divers of bathos lie drown'd in a heap, And S * * 's last paean has pillow'd his sleep;-- That 'felo de se' who, half drunk with his malmsey, Walk'd out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea, Singing 'Glory to G.o.d' in a spick-and-span stanza, The like (since Tom Sternhold was choked) never man saw.

"The papers have told you, no doubt, of the fusses, The fetes, and the gapings to get at these Russes,-- Of his Majesty's suite, up from coachman to Hetman,-- And what dignity decks the flat face of the great man.

I saw him, last week, at two b.a.l.l.s and a party,-- For a prince, his demeanour was rather too hearty.

You know, _we_ are used to quite different graces, * * * * *

The Czar's look, I own, was much brighter and brisker, But then he is sadly deficient in whisker; And wore but a starless blue coat, and in kersey- mere breeches whisk'd round in a waltz with the J * *, Who, lovely as ever, seem'd just as delighted With majesty's presence as those she invited."

[Footnote 35: The Journal from which I have given extracts in the preceding pages.]

TO MR. MURRAY.

"June 14. 1814.

"I return your packet of this morning. Have you heard that Bertrand has returned to Paris with the account of Napoleon's having lost his senses? It is a _report_; but, if true, I must, like Mr.

Fitzgerald and Jeremiah (of lamentable memory), lay claim to prophecy; that is to say, of saying, that he _ought_ to go out of his senses, in the penultimate stanza of a certain Ode,--the which, having been p.r.o.nounced _nonsense_ by several profound critics, has a still further pretension, by its unintelligibility, to inspiration. Ever," &c.