The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry

[Illusion, or the Trances of Nourjahad, a melodrama founded on The History of Nourjahad, By the Editor of Sidney Bidulph (Mrs. Frances Sheridan, née Chamberlaine, 1724-1766), was played for the first time at Drury Lane Theatre, November 25, 1813. Byron was exceedingly indignant at being credited with the authorship or adaptation. (See Letter to Murray, November 27, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 288, note 1.) Miss Sophia Lee, who wrote some of the Canterbury Tales, "made a very elegant musical drama of it" (Memoirs of Mrs. F. Sheridan, by Alicia Lefanu, 1824, p. 296); but this was not the Nourjahad of Drury Lane.]

54

[Millbank Penitentiary, which was built in the form of a pentagon, was finally taken in hand in the spring of 1813. Solitary confinement in the "cells" was, at first, reserved as a punishment for misconduct. —Memorials of Millbank, by Arthur Griffiths, 1875, i. 57.]

55

["I cannot conceive how the Vault has got about; but so it is. It is too farouche; but truth to say, my satires are not very playful." – Letter to Moore, March 12, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 57-58. Moore had written to him, "Your lines about the bodies of Charles and Henry are, I find, circulated with wonderful avidity; even some clods in this neighbourhood have had a copy sent to them by some 'young ladies in town.'" —Ibid., p. 57, note 3.

The discovery "that King Charles I. was buried in the vault of King Henry VIII.," was made on completing the mausoleum which George III. caused to be built in the tomb-house. The Prince Regent was informed of the circumstance, and on April 1, 1813, the day after the funeral of his mother-in-law, the Duchess of Brunswick, he superintended in person the opening of the leaden coffin, which bore the inscription, "King Charles, 1648" (sic). See An Account of what appeared on Opening the Coffin of King Charles the First, by Sir H. Halford, Bart., 1813, pp. 6, 7. Cornelia Knight, in her Autobiography (1861, i. 227), notes that the frolic prince, the "Adonis of fifty," who was in a good humour, and "had given to Princess Charlotte the centre sapphire of Charles's crown," acted "the manner of decapitation on my shoulders." He had "forgotten" Cromwell, who, as Lord Auchinleck reminded Dr. Johnson, had "gart kings ken that they had a lith in their neck!"]

56

[From an autograph MS. in the possession of the Hon. Mrs. Norbury.

The first wrapper has written upon it, "The original Impromptu within is in the handwriting of the noble author Lord Byron, given to Mr. Norbury [private secretary to Lord Granville] by Mr. Dallas, his Lordship's valued relative."

Second wrapper, "Autograph of Lord Byron – tres précieux."

Third (outside) wrapper, "Autographe célèbre de Lord Byron."]

57

Πηλὸν αἵματι πεφυραμἑνον"Clay kneaded with blood."

Suetonius, in Tiberium, cap. 57.

58

["The gentlemen of the Champion, and Perry, have got hold (I know not how) of the condolatory Address to Lady Jersey on the picture-abduction by our Regent, and have published them – with my name, too, smack – without even asking leave, or inquiring whether or no! Damn their impudence, and damn every thing. It has put me out of patience, and so, I shall say no more about it." – Letter to Moore, August 3, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 118. For Byron's letter to Lady Jersey, of May 29, 1814, and a note from her with reference to a lost(?) copy of the verses, vide ibid., p. 85. Mrs. Anne Mee (1775? -1851) was a miniature-painter, who was employed by the Prince Regent to take the portraits of fashionable beauties.]

59

[Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza lix. line 3, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 374, note 2.]

60

[See Conversations …with the Countess of Blessington, 1834, p. 50.]

61

[The two first stanzas of Southey's "Carmen Triumphale, for the Commencement of the Year 1814," end with the line —

"Glory to God – Deliverance for Mankind!"]

62

["The newspapers will tell you all that is to be told of emperors, etc. They have dined, and supped, and shown their flat faces in all thoroughfares and several saloons." – Letter to Moore, June 14, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 93, 94.

From June 6 to June 27, 1814, the Emperor of Russia, and the King of Prussia were in England. Huge crowds watched all day and night outside the Pulteney Hotel (105, Piccadilly), where the Emperor of Russia stayed. Among the foreigners in London were Nesselrode, Metternich, Blücher, and Platoff, Hetman of the Cossacks. The two latter were the heroes of the mob. Ibid., p. 93, note 1.]

63

["The Emperor," says Lady Vernon (Journal of Mary Frampton, pp. 225, 226), "is fond of dancing… He waltzed with Lady Jersey, whom he admires, to the great discomposure of the Regent, who has quarrelled with her."]

64

[The phrase, "rotten borough," was used by Sir F. Burdett, Examiner, October 12, 1812.]

65

[It may be taken for granted that the "source" of this epigram was a paragraph in the Morning Chronicle of March 27, 1815: "In the Moniteur of Thursday we find the Emperor's own account of his jaunt from the Island of Elba to the palace of the Thuilleries. It seems certainly more like a jaunt of pleasure than the progress of an invader through a country to be gained."]

66

["A short time before Lord Byron quitted England, in 1816, he addressed these lines to an individual by whom he deemed himself injured; they are but little known." —Nicnac, March 25, 1823.]

67

[The term "Luddites" dates from 1811, and was applied first to frame-breakers, and then to the disaffected in general. It was derived from a half-witted lad named Ned Lud, who entered a house in a fit of passion, and destroyed a couple of stocking-frames. The song was an impromptu, enclosed in a letter to Moore of December 24, 1816. "I have written it principally," he says, "to shock your neighbour [Hodgson?] who is all clergy and loyalty – mirth and innocence – milk and water." See Letters, 1900, iv. 30; and for General Lud and "Luddites," see Letters, 1898, ii. 97, note 1.]

68

[Margaret of Anjou, by Margaret Holford, 1816.]

69

[Ilderim, a Syrian Tale, by H. Gaily Knight, 1816.]

70

[Christabel, etc., by S. T. Coleridge, 1816.]

71

[The Missionary of the Andes, a Poem, by W. L. Bowles, 1815.]

72

[Waterloo and other Poems, by J. Wedderburn Webster, 1816.]

73

[The White Doe of Rylstone, or the Fate of the Nortons, a Poem, by W. Wordsworth, 1815.]

74

[Glenarvon, a Novel [by Lady Caroline Lamb], 1816.]

75

[À propos of Maturin's tragedy, Manuel (vide post, p. 48, note 1), Byron "does into English" the Latin proverb by way of contrast to the text, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth; blessed be the Name of the Lord" (Letter to Murray, April 2, 1817).]

76

["This should have been written fifteen months ago; the first stanza was." – Letter to Moore, July 10, 1817.]

77

["By the way," writes Murray, Aug. 5, 1817 (Memoir, etc., i. 386), "Polidori has sent me his tragedy! Do me the kindness to send by return of post a delicate declension of it, which I engage faithfully to copy."

"I never," said Byron, "was much more disgusted with any human production than with the eternal nonsense, and tracasseries, and emptiness, and ill-humour, and vanity of this young person; but he has some talent, and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of amendment. Therefore use your interest for him, for he is improved and improvable;" and, in a letter to Murray, Aug. 21, 1817, "You want a 'civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedy? Take it." – For J. W. Polidori (1795-1821), see Letters, 1899, iii, 284 note I.]

78

[Maturin's second tragedy, Manuel, produced at Drury Lane, March 8, 1817, with Kean as "Manuel Count Valdis, failed, and after five nights was withdrawn." It was published in 1817. "It is," says Byron (letter to Murray, June 14, 1817), "the absurd work of a clever man." —Letters, 1900, iv. 134, and note I.]

79

[Sotheby published, in 1814, Five Tragedies, viz. "The Confession," "Orestes," "Ivan," "The Death of Darnley," and "Zamorin and Zama."]

80

[Ina, A Tragedy, by Mrs. Wilmot [Barberina Ogle (1768-1854), daughter of Sir Chaloner Ogle], afterwards Lady Dacre, was produced at Drury Lane, April 22, 1815. Her "tragedy," writes Byron to Moore, April 23, 1815, "was last night damned." See Letters, 1898, ii. 332, note 3, etc.; ibid., 1899, iii. 195, note I.]

81

[George Hammond (1763-1853) was a distinguished diplomatist, who twice (1795-1806 and 1807-1809) held the office of Under-secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He is associated with the foundation of the Anti-Jacobin and the Quarterly Review. In the drawing-room of Albemarle Street, he was Murray's "chief 4-o'clock man," until his official duties compelled him to settle at Paris. —Letters, 1900, iv. 160, note 1.

John Dent, M.P., a banker, was nicknamed "Dog Dent" because he was concerned in the introduction of the Dog-tax Bill in 1796. In 1802 he introduced a Bill to abolish bull-baiting. —Ibid]

82

[Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833), soldier, administrator, and diplomatist, published (January, 1815) his History of Persia. – Letters, 1899, iii. 113, note 1.]

83

[For "Dark Hamilton," W. R. Hamilton (1777-1859), see Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xiii. var. I, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 108, note 1. Lines 61, 62 were added October 12, 1817.]

84

[Madame de Staël's Considérations sur la Révolution Française was offered to Murray in June, 1816 (Memoir, etc., 1891, i. 316), and the sum of £4000 asked for the work. During the negotiations, Madame de Staël died (July 14, 1817), and the book was eventually published by Messrs. Baldwin and Cradock. —Letters, 1900, iv. 94, note.]

85

[Byron and the elder Schlegel met at Copet, in 1816, but they did not take to each other. Byron "would not flatter him," perhaps because he did not appreciate or flatter Byron.]

86

[The Fourth Canto of Childe Harold.]

87

[Murray bought a half-share in Blackwood's Edinburgh Monthly Magazine in August, 1818, and remained its joint proprietor till December, 1819, when it became the property of William Blackwood. But perhaps the reference is to Byron's Swiss Journal of September, 1816.]

88

[Henry Gaily Knight (1786-1846), who was a contemporary of Byron at Trinity College, Cambridge, was a poetaster, and, afterwards, a writer of works on architecture. His Oriental verses supplied Byron with a subject for more than one indifferent jeu d'esprit.]

89

[Phrosyne, a Grecian tale, and Alashtar, an Arabian tale, were published in 1817. In a letter to Murray, September 4, 1817, Byron writes, "I have received safely, though tardily, the magnesia and tooth-powder, Phrosine and Alashtar. I shall clean my teeth with one, and wipe my shoes with the other." —Letters, 1901, iv.]

90

[Sotheby's Farewell to Italy and Occasional Poems were published in 1818, as the record of a tour which he had taken in 1816-17 with his family, Professor Elmsley, and Dr. Playfair. For Byron's unfinished skit on Sotheby's Tour, see Letters, 1900, iv. Appendix V. pp. 452, 453.]

91

[Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, by the Rev. Joseph Spence, arranged, with notes, by the late Edmund Malone, Esq., 1 vol. 8vo, 1820.]

92

[The Life of Mary Queen of Scots, by George Chalmers, 2 vols. 4to, 1819.]

93

[Thomas Gordon (1788-1841) entered the Scots Greys in 1808. Two years later he visited Ali Pasha (see Letters, 1898, i. 246, note 1) in Albania, and travelled in Persia and Turkey in the East. From 1813 to 1815 he served in the Russian Army. He wrote a History of the Greek Revolution, 1832, 2 vols., but it does not appear that he was negotiating with Murray for the publication of any work at this period.]

94

Vide your letter.

95

[Probably Sir Robert John Wilmot (1784-1841) (afterwards Wilmot Horton), Byron's first cousin, who took a prominent part in the destruction of the "Memoirs," May 17, 1824. (For Lady Wilmot Horton, the original of "She walks in beauty," see Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 381, note 1.)]

96

[Stanzas 12, 13, 14 cannot be published.]

97

[Richard Belgrave Hoppner (1786-1872), second son of John Hoppner, R.A., was appointed English Consul at Venice, October, 1814. (See Letters, 1900, iv. 83, note 1.) The quatrain was translated (see the following poem) into eleven different languages – Greek, Latin, Italian (also the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan, and printed "in a small neat volume in the seminary of Padua." For nine of these translations see Works, 1832, xi. pp. 324-326, and 1891, p. 571. Rizzo was a Venetian surname. See W. Stewart Rose's verses to Byron, "Grinanis, Mocenijas, Baltis, Rizzi, Compassionate our cruel case," etc., Letters, iv. 212.]

98

[Byron must have added the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold to the complete edition of the Poetical Works in six volumes. See Murray's list, dated "Albemarle Street, London, January, 1818." The seventh volume of the Collected Works was not issued till 1819.]

99

[A French translation of the Bride of Abydos appeared in 1816, an Italian translation of the Lament of Tasso in 1817. Goethe (see Letters, 1901, v. 503-521) translated fragments of Manfred in 1817, 1818, but the earliest German translation of the entire text of Manfred was issued in 1819.]

100

[See the last line of the Italian translation of the quatrain.]

101

[William Strahan (1715-1785) published Johnson's Dictionary, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Cook's Voyages, etc. He was great-grandfather of the mathematician William Spottiswoode (1825-1883).

Jacob Tonson (1656? -1736) published for Otway, Dryden, Addison, etc. He was secretary of the Kit-Cat Club, 1700. He was the publisher (1712, etc.) of the Spectator.

Barnaby Bernard Lintot (1675-1736) was at one time (1718) in partnership with Tonson. He published Pope's Iliad in 1715, and the Odyssey, 1725-26.]

102

[See note 2, p. 51.]

103

[Mrs. Rundell's Domestic Cookery, published in 1806, was one of Murray's most successful books. In 1822 he purchased the copyright from Mrs. Rundell for £2000 (see Letters, 1898, ii. 375; and Memoir of John Murray, 1891, ii. 124).]

104

[The sixth edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1813) was "printed by T. Davison, Whitefriars, for John Murray, Bookseller to the Admiralty, and the Board of Longitude." Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 259) attributes to Byron a statement that Murray had to choose between continuing to be his publisher and printing the "Navy Lists," and "that there was no hesitation which way he should decide: the Admiralty carried the day." In his "Notes" to the Conversations (November 2, 1824) Murray characterized "the passage about the Admiralty" as "unfounded in fact, and no otherwise deserving of notice than to mark its absurdity."]

105

[For Fop's Alley, see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 410, note 2.]

106

[H. Gally Knight (1786-1846) was at Cambridge with Byron.]

107

[William Upton was the author of Poems on Several Occasions, 1788, and of the Words of the most Favourite Songs, Duets, etc., sung at the Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, etc. In the dedication to Mrs. Astley he speaks of himself as the author of the Black Cattle, Fair Rosamond, etc. He has also been credited with the words of James Hook's famous song, A Lass of Richmond Hill, but this has been disputed. (See Notes and Queries, 1878, Series V. vol. ix. p. 495.)]

108

[Compare —

"Th' unloaded camel, pacing slow.Crops the rough herbage or the tamarisk spray."

Alashtar (by H. G. Knight), 1817, Canto I, stanza viii, lines 5, 6.]

109

[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed. For stanzas 3, 4, 6, see Letters, 1900, iv. 219, 220. For stanzas 1, 2, 3 of "Another Simple Ballat. To the tune of Tally i.o. the Grinder" (probably a variant of Dibdin's song, "The Grinders, or more Grist to the Mill"), vide ibid., pp. 220, 221.]

110

["Would you like an epigram – a translation? It was written on some Frenchwoman, by Rulhières, I believe." – Letter to Murray, August 12, 1819, Letters, 1900, iv. 346.

Claude Carloman de Rulhière (1718-1791), historian, poet, and epigrammatist, was the author of Anecdotes sur la revolution de Russie en l'anneé 1762, Histoire de l'anarchie de Pologne (1807), etc. His epigrams are included in "Poésies Diverses," which are appended to Les jeux de Mains, a poem in three cantos, published in 1808, and were collected in his Oeuvres Posthumes, 1819; but there is no trace of the original of Byron's translation. Perhaps it is after de Rulhière, who more than once epigrammatizes "Une Vieille Femme."]

111

[The MS. of the "Epilogue" is inscribed on the margin of a copy of Wordsworth's Peter Bell, inserted in a set of Byron's Works presented by George W. Childs to the Drexel Institute. (From information kindly supplied by Mr. John H. Bewley, of Buffalo, New York.)

The first edition of Peter Bell appeared early in 1819, and a second edition followed in May, 1819. In Byron's Dedication of Marino Faliero, "To Baron Goethe," dated October 20, 1820 (Poetical Works, 1891, iv. 341), the same allusions to Sir George Beaumont, to Wordsworth's "place in the Excise," and to his admission that Peter Bell had been withheld "for one and twenty years," occur in an omitted paragraph first published, Letters, 1891, v. 101. So close a correspondence of an unpublished fragment with a genuine document leaves little doubt as to the composition of the "Epilogue."]

112

[The missing line may be, "To permanently fill a station," see Preface to Peter Bell.]

113

[Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 156) prints an alternative —

"You may wish me returns of the season,Let us, prithee, have none of the day!"]

114

[Cobbett, by way of atonement for youthful vituperation (he called him "a ragamuffin deist") of Tom Paine, exhumed his bones from their first resting-place at New Rochelle, and brought them to Liverpool on his return to England in 1819. They were preserved by Cobbett at Normanby, Farnham, till his death in 1835, but were sold in consequence of his son's bankruptcy in 1836, and passed into the keeping of a Mr. Tilly, who was known to be their fortunate possessor as late as 1844. (See Notes and Queries, 1868, Series IV. vol. i. pp. 201-203.)]

115

[John Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869) (see Letters, 1898, i. 163, note 1) was committed to Newgate in December, 1819, for certain passages in a pamphlet entitled, A Trifling Mistake in Thomas Lord Erskine's recent Preface, which were voted (December 10) a breach of privilege. He remained in prison till the dissolution on the king's death, February 20, 1820, when he stood and was returned for Westminster. Byron's Liberalism was intermittent, and he felt, or, as Hobhouse thought, pretended to feel, as a Whig and an aristocrat with regard to the free lances of the Radical party. The sole charge in this "filthy ballad," which annoyed Hobhouse, was that he had founded a Whig Club when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge. He assured Murray (see his letter, November, 1820, Letters, vol. iv. Appendix XI. pp. 498-500) that he was not the founder of the club, and that Byron himself was a member. "As for his Lordship's vulgar notions about the mob" he adds, "they are very fit for the Poet of the Morning Post, and for nobody else." There is no reason to suppose that Byron was in any way responsible for the version as sent to the Morning Post.]

"MY BOY HOBBY O[Another Version.]To the Editor of the Morning Post

Sir, – A copy of verses, to the tune of 'My boy Tammy,' are repeated in literary circles, and said to be written by a Noble Lord of the highest poetical fame, upon his quondam friend and annotator. My memory does not enable me to repeat more than the first two verses quite accurately, but the humourous spirit of the Song may be gathered from these: —

1Why were you put in Lob's pond,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)For telling folks to pull the HouseBy the ears into the Lobby O!2Who are your grand Reformers now,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)There's me and Burdett, – gentlemen,And Blackguards Hunt and Cobby O!3Have you no other friends but these,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)Yes, Southwark's Knight,143 the County Byng,And in the City, Bobby O!4"How do you recreate yourselves,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)We spout with tavern Radicals,And drink with them hob-nobby O!5"What purpose can such folly work,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)It gives our partisans a chanceWatches to twitch from fob-by O!6"Have they no higher game in view,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)Oh yes; to stir the people up,And then to head the mob-by O.7"But sure they'll at their ruin pause,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)No! they'd see King and ParliamentBoth d – d without a sob-by O!8But, if they fail, they'll be hanged up,My boy, Hobby O? (bis)Why, then, they'll swing, like better men,And that will end the job-by O!Philo-Radicle."April 15, 1820."

116

["I send you 'a Song of Triumph,' by W. Botherby, Esqre price sixpence, on the election of J. C. H., Esqre., for Westminster (not for publication)." – Letter to Murray, April 9, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 6.]

117

[For Felicia Dorothea Browne (1793-1835), married in 1812 to Captain Hemans, see Letters, iii. 368, note 2. In the letter which contains these verses he writes, "I do not despise Mrs. Heman; but if she knit blue stockings instead of wearing them it would be better." Elsewhere he does despise her: "No more modern poesy, I pray, neither Mrs. Hewoman's nor any female or male Tadpole of poet Wordsworth's." —Ibid., v. 64.]

118

[The lines were sent in a letter to Moore (November 5, 1820) by way of Autoepitaphium, "if 'honour should come unlooked for' to any of your acquaintance;" i.e. if Byron should fall in the cause of Italian revolution, and Moore should not think him worthy of commemoration, here was a threnody "ready at hand."]