"I still think Mr Hogg and yourself might make out an alliance. Dodsley's was, I believe, the last decent thing of the kind, and his had great success in its day, and lasted several years; but then he had the double advantage of editing and publishing. The Spleen, and several of Gray's odes, much of Shenstone, and many others of good repute, made their first appearance in his collection. Now, with the support of Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, &c., I see little reason why you should not do as well; and if once fairly established, you would have assistance from the youngsters, I dare say. Stratford Canning (whose 'Buonaparte' is excellent), and many others, and Moore, and Hobhouse, and I, would try a fall now and then (if permitted), and you might coax Campbell, too, into it. By the by, he has an unpublished (though printed) poem on a scene in Germany (Bavaria, I think), which I saw last year, that is perfectly magnificent, and equal to himself. I wonder he don't publish it.

"If you were not going to Paris or Scotland, I could send you some game: if you remain, let me know.

"P.S.-A word or two of Lara,' which your enclosure brings before me. It is of no great promise separately; but, as connected with the other tales, it will do very well for the volumes you mean to publish. I would recommend this arrangement-Childe Harold, the smaller Poems, Giaour, Bride, Corsair, Lara; the last completes the series, and its very likeness renders it necessary to the others. Cawthorne writes that they are publishing English Bards in Ireland: pray inquire into this; because it must be stopped."

LETTER CXCVIII.

TO MR MURRAY.

Newstead Abbey, September 7th, 1814.

"I should think Mr Hogg, for his own sake as well as yours, would be 'critical as Iago himself in his editorial capacity; and that such a publication would answer his purpose, and yours too, with tolerable management. You should, however, have a good number to start with-I mean, good in quality; in these days, there can be little fear of not coming up to the mark in quantity. There must be many fine things' in Wordsworth; but I should think it difficult to make six quartos (the amount of the whole) all fine, particularly the pedlar's portion of the poem; but there can be no doubt of his powers to do almost any thing.

"I am " very idle.' I have read the few books I had with me, and been forced to fish, for lack of argument. I have caught a great many perch and some carp, which is a comfort, as one would not lose one's labour willingly.

"Oh!-do you recollect S**, the engraver's, mad letter about not engraving Phillip's picture of Lord "Pray, who corrects the press of your volumes? Foley? (as he blundered it); well, I have traced it, I hope The Corsair' is printed from the copy I corI think. It seems, by the papers, a preacher of Jo-rected with the additional lines in the first Canto, and hanna Southcote's is named Foley; and I can no way account for the said S**'s confusion of words and ideas, but by that of his head's running on Johanna and her apostles. It was a mercy he did not say Lord Tozer. You know, of course, that S is a believer in this new (old) virgin of spiritual impreg

nation.

"I long to know what she will produce: † her being with child at sixty-five is indeed a miracle, but her getting any one to beget it, a greater.

some notes from Sismondi and Lavater, which I gave you to add thereto. The arrangement is very well. "My cursed people have not sent my papers since Sunday, and I have lost Johanna's divorce from Jupiter. Who hath gotten her with prophet? Is it Sharpe? and how?

*

*

I should like to buy one of her seals: if salvation can be had at half-a-guinea a head, the landlord.of the Crown and Anchor should be ashamed of himself for charging double for tickets to a mere terrestrial banquet. I am afraid, seriously, that these matters will

and which he thus describes, from the recollection perhaps lend a sad handle to your profane scoffers, and give of his own fantasy, in Don Juan:

It was no mouse, but, lo! a monk, array'd

In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard:
His garments only a slight murmur made;
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
But slowly; and as he pass'd Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye."

It is said, that the Newstead ghost appeared, also, to Lord Byron's cousin, Miss Fanny Parkins, and that she made a sketch of him from memory.

The reviews and magazines of the month.

* The following characteristic note, in reference to this passage, appears, in Mr Gifford's handwriting, on the copy of the above letter:-" It is a pity that Lord B. was ignorant of Jonson. The old poet has a Satire on the Court Pucelle that would have supplied him with some pleasantry on Joanna's pregnancy."

a loose to much damnable laughter.

"I have not seen Hunt's Sonnets nor Descent of Liberty he has chosen a pretty place wherein to compose the last. Let me hear from you before you embark. Ever, &c."

LETTER CXCIX.

TO MR MOORE.

"Newstead Abbey, September 15, 1914. "This is the fourth letter I have begun to you within the month. Whether I shall finish or not, or burn it like the rest, I know not. When we meet, I will explain why I have not written-why I have not asked you here, as I wished—with a great many

other whys and wherefores, which will keep cold. In short, you must excuse all my seeming omissions and commissions, and grant me more remission than St Athanasius will to yourself, if you lop off a single shred of mystery from his pious puzzle. It is my creed (and it may be St Athanasius's too) that your article on T ** will get somebody killed, and that, on the Saints, get him d-d afterwards, which will be quite enow for one number. Oons, Tom! you must not meddle just now with the incomprehensible; for if Johanna Southcote turns out to be

-as a sa

"Now for a little egotism. My affairs stand thus. To-morrow, I shall know whether a circumstance of importance enough to change many of my plans will occur or not. If it does not, I am off for Italy next month, and London, in the mean time, next week. I have got back Newstead and twenty-five thousand pounds (out of twenty-eight paid already),— crifice,' the late purchaser calls it, and he may choose his own name. I have paid some of my debts, and contracted others; but I have a few thousand pounds, which I can't spend after my own heart in this climate, and so, I shall go back to the south. Hobhouse, I think and hope, will go with me; but whether he will or not, I shall. I want to see Venice, and the Alps, and Parmesan cheeses, and look at the coast of Greece, or rather Epirus, from Italy, as I once did-or fancied I did—that of Italy, when off Corfu. All this, however, depends upon an event, which may, or may not, happen. Whether it will, I shall know probably to-morrow, and, if it does, I can't well go abroad at present.

"Pray pardon this parenthetical scrawl. You shall hear from me again soon; I don't call this an

answer.

"Ever most affectionately, &c. ",

over, observed, "Well, really, this is a very pretty letter ;-it is a pity it should not go. I never read a prettier on." "Then it shall go," said Lord Byron, and in so saying, sealed and sent off, on the instant, this fiat of his fate.

LETTER CC.

TO MR MOORE.

"Nd., September 15th, 1814. "I have written to you one letter to-night, but must send you this much more, as I have not franked my number, to say that I rejoice in my god-daughter, and will send her a coral and bells, which I hope she will accept, the moment I get back to London.

"My head is at this moment in a state of confusion, from various causes, which I can neither describe nor explain-but let that pass. My employments have been very rural-fishing, shooting, bathing, and boating. Books I have but few here, and those I have read ten times over, till sick of them. So, I have taken to breaking soda water bottles with my pistols, and jumping into the water, and rowing over it, and firing at the fowls of the air. But why should I monster my nothings' to you, who are well employed, and happily too, I should hope. For my part, I am happy too, in my way— but, as usual, have contrived to get into three or four perplexities, which I do not see my way through. But a few days, perhaps a day, will determine one of them.

6

"You do not say a word to me of your Poem. I wish I could see or hear it. I neither could, nor would, do it or its author any harm. I believe I told you of Larry and Jacquy. A friend of mine was reading at least a friend of his was reading-said Larry and Jacquy in a Brighton coach. A passenger took up the book and queried as to the author. The proprietor said 'there were two'—to which the answer of the unknown was, 'Ay, ay-a joint concern, I suppose, summot like Sternhold and Hop

"Is not this excellent? I would not have missed the vile comparison' to have scaped being one of the Arcades ambo et cantare pares.' Good night. Again yours."

The "circumstance of importance," to which he alludes in this letter, was his second proposal for Miss Milbanke, of which he was now waiting the result. His own account, in his Memoranda, of the circum-kins.' stances that led to this step is, in substance, as far as I can trust my recollection, as follows. A person, who had for some time stood high in his affection and confidence, observing how cheerless and unsettled was the state both of his mind and prospects, advised him strenuously to marry ; and, after much discussion, he consented. The next point for consideration was-who was to be the object of his choice; and while his friend mentioned one lady, he himself named Miss Milbanke. To this, however, his adviser strongly objected, remarking to him, that Miss Milbanke had at present no fortune, and that his embarrassed affairs would not allow him to marry without one; that she was, moreover, a learned lady, which would not at all suit him. In consequence of these representations, he agreed that his friend should write a proposal for him to the other lady named, which was accordingly done;-and an answer, containing a refusal, arrived as they were, one morning, sitting together. "You see," said Lord Byron, "that, after all, Miss Milbanke is to be the person ;-I will write to her." He accordingly wrote on the moment, and, as soon as he had finished, his friend, remonstrating still strongly against his choice, took up the letter,-but, on reading it

LETTER CCI.

TO MR. MOORE.

"Newstead Abbey, Sept. 20th, 1814.

"Here's to her who long

Hath waked the poet's sigh!

The girl who gave to song

What gold could never buy.-My dear Moore, I am going to be married-that is 'I am accepted, and one usually hopes the rest will

* On the day of the arrival of the lady's answer, he was sitting at dinner, when his gardener came in and presented him with his mother's wedding ring, which she had lost many years before, and which the gardener had just found in digging up the mould under her window. Almost at the same moment, the letter from Miss Milbanke arrived, and Lord Byron exclaimed, "If it contains a consent, I will be married with this very ring." It did contain a very flattering acceptance of his proposal, and a duplicate of the letter had been sent to London, in case this should have missed

him.-Memoranda.

Professorship. On this occasion, a circumstance occurred which could not but be gratifying to him. As he was delivering in his vote to the Vice-Chancellor, in the Senate House, the under-graduates in the gallery ventured to testify their admiration of him by a general murmur of applause and stamping of the feet. For this breach of order, the gallery was immediately cleared by order of the Vice-Chancellor. At the beginning of the month of December, being called up to town by business, I had opportunities, from being a good deal in my noble friend's society, of observing the state of his mind and feelings, under the prospect of the important change he was now about to undergo; and it was with pain I found that those sanguine hopes with which I had sometimes looked forward to the happy influence of marriage, in winning him over to the brighter and better side of life, were, by a view of all the circumstances of his present destiny, considerably diminished; while, at the same time, not a few doubts and misgivings, which had never before so strongly occurred to me, with regard to his own fitness, under any circumstances, for the matrimonial tie, filled me altogether with a degree of foreboding anxiety as to his fate, which the unfortunate events that followed but too fully justified.

The truth is, I fear, that rarely, if ever, have men of the higher order of genius shown themselves fitted for the calm affections and comforts that form the cement of domestic life. "One misfortune (says Pope) of extraordinary geniuses is, that their very friends are more apt to admire than love them." To this remark there have, no doubt, been exceptions, -and I should pronounce Lord Byron, from my own experience, to be one of them,-but it would not be difficult, perhaps, to show, from the very nature and pursuits of genius, that such must generally be the lot of all pre-eminently gifted with it; and that the same qualities which enable them to command admiration are also those that too often incapacitate them from conciliating love.

is the necessity of commerce with other minds less felt by such persons, but, from that fastidiousness which the opulence of their own resources generates, the society of those less gifted with intellectual means than themselves, becomes often a restraint and burden, to which not all the charms of friendship, or even love, can reconcile them. Nothing is so tiresome (says the poet of Vaucluse, in assigning a reason for not living with some of his dearest friends) as to converse with persons who have not the same information as oneself."

66

But it is the cultivation and exercise of the imaginative faculty that, more than any thing, tends to.wean the man of genius from actual life, and, by substituting the sensibilities of the imagination for those of the heart, to render, at last, the medium through which he feels no less unreal than that through which he thinks. Those images of ideal good and beauty that surround him in his musings soon accustom him to consider all that is beneath this high standard unworthy of his care; till, at length, the heart becoming chilled as the fancy warms, it too often happens that, in proportion as he has refined and elevated his theory of all the social affections, he has unfitted himself for the practice of them. Hence so frequently it arises that, in persons of this temperament, we see some bright but artificial idol of the brain usurp the place of all real and natural objects of tenderness. The poet Dante, a wanderer away from wife and children, passed the whole of a restless and detached life in nursing his immortal dream of Beatrice; while Petrarch, who would not suffer his only daughter to reside beneath his roof, expended thirtytwo years of poetry and passion on an idealized love.

It is, indeed, in the very nature and essence of genius to be for ever occupied intensely with Self, as the great centre and source of its strength. Like the sister Rachel, in Dante, sitting all day before her mirror,

mai non si smaga

Del suo ammiraglio, e siede tutto giorno.

The very habits, indeed, of abstraction and selfstudy to which the occupations of men of genius lead, To this power of self-concentration, by which alone are, in themselves, necessarily, of an unsocial and de- all the other powers of genius are made available, taching tendency, and require a large portion of althere is, of course, no such disturbing and fatal lowance and tolerance not to be set down as unamiable. One of the chief sources, too, of sympathy the mind out actively towards others; † and, accordenemy as those sympathies and affections that draw and society between ordinary mortals being their de-ingly, it will be found that, among those who have pendance on each other's intellectual resources, the operation of this social principle must naturally be weakest in those, whose own mental stores are most abundant and self-sufficing, and who, rich in such materials for thinking within themselves, are rendered so far independent of the external world. It was this solitary luxury (which Plato called "banqueting his own thoughts") that led Pope, as well as Lord Byron, to prefer the silence and seclusion of his library to the most agreeable conversation.—And not only, too,

* I had frequently, both in earnest and in jest, expressed these hopes to him; and, in one of my letters, after touching upon some matters relative to my own little domestic circle, 1 added, "This will all be unintelligible to you;though I sometimes cannot help thinking it within the range of possibility, that even you, volcano as you are, may, one day, cool down into something of the same habitable state. Indeed, when one thinks of lava having been converted into buttons for Isaac Hawkins Browne, there is no saying what such fiery things may be brought to at last."

felt within themselves a call to immortality, the greater number have, by a sort of instinct, kept aloof from such ties, and, instead of the softer duties and

Of the lamentable contrast between sentiments and

conduct, which this transfer of the seat of sensibility from the heart to the fancy produces, the annals of literary men afford unluckily too many examples. Alfieri, though he could write a sonnet full of tenderness to his mother, never saw her (says Mr W. Rose) but once after their early separation, though he frequently passed within a few miles of her residence. The poet Young, with all his parade of domestic sorrows, was, it appears, a neglectful husband and harsh father; and Sterne (to use the words already employed by Lord Byron) preferred" whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother."

† It is the opinion of Diderot, in his Treatise on Acting, that not only-in the art of which he treats, but in all those which are called Imitative, the possession of real sensibility is a bar to eminence;-sensibility being, according to his view, "le caractère de la bonté de l'ame et de la médiocrité du génie."