money:" They say that "Knowledge is Power: "-I used to think so; but I now know that they meant " and when Socrates declared, "that all he knew was, that "he knew nothing," he merely intended to declare, that he had not a drachm in the Athenian world. The circulars are arrived, and circulating like the vortices (or vortexes) of Descartes. Still I have a due care of the needful, and keep a look-out ahead, as my notions upon the score of moneys coincide with yours, and with all men's who have lived to see that every guinea is a philosopher's stone, or at least his touch-stone. You will doubt me the less, when I pronounce my firm belief that Cash is Virtue.3 I cannot reproach myself with much expenditure: my only extra expense (and it is more than I have spent upon myself) being a loan of two hundred and fifty pounds to Hunt; and fifty pounds' worth of furniture, 4 1. Εμαυτῷ γὰρ ξυνῄδειν οὐδὲν ἐπισταμένῳ.-Plato, Apolog., 22 D. "Socrates said, our only knowledge was 'To know that nothing could be known ;' a pleasant Science enough, which levels to an ass Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present." Don Juan, Canto VII. stanza v. 2. I.e. Kinnaird transmitted to Byron circular notes on Murray's bills. To explain the motions of the heavenly bodies, Descartes devised the theory of vortices, which held the field till it was superseded by the Newtonian theory of gravitation. 3. See Don Juan, Canto XII. stanza xiv. 4. For Leigh Hunt, see Letters, vol. ii. p. 205, note 1. Leigh Hunt, his wife, and seven children had sailed from England November 16, 1821 (Lord Byron and his Contemporaries, 2nd ed., vol. ii. p. 273). Beaten back by storms, he set sail again Decem. ber 11 (ibid., p. 284). Again driven into harbour, December 22, he gave up the idea of a winter voyage. Finally, May 13, 1822 (ibid., p. 321), he embarked at Plymouth, reached Genoa June 13, and thence sailed for Leghorn June 28 (ibid., p. 367). In Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for February, 1822 (vol. xi. p. 237), the literary alliance between Byron and Hunt is thus noticed "You must be careful how you wreak your disdain on the prin "ciples of Lord Byron's later poetry, as he will soon have it in his which I have bought for him; and a boat which I am building for myself at Genoa, which will cost about a hundred pounds more. But to return. I am determined to have all the moneys I can, whether by my own funds, or succession, or lawsuit, or MSS., or any lawful means whatever. I will pay (though with the sincerest reluctance) my remaining creditors, and every man of law, by instalments from the award of the arbitrators. I recommend to you the notice in Mr. Hanson's letter, on the demands of moneys for the Rochdale tolls. "power to make fierce reprisals on you and the other dissenters. "You have, perhaps, heard of the Journal which is to be written "by him at Pisa, and sent over here for publication, in order that "the balance of critical power may be restored, which has prepon"derated lately too much on the Tory side. In this great under"taking he has called to himself two allies, namely, Mr. Bysshe "Shelley and Mr. Leigh Hunt, the latter of whom has abandoned "his suburban villa (No. 13, Lisson Grove North) to brave, with "his wife and 'little Johnnys,' a perilous voyage on the un-cockney 66 ocean. The sphere of this poet's experience will now be nobly "enlarged. No one must twit him any more about 'poplar rows "and back gardens.' He and his companions will now, like his 66 own Nereids, .. turn And toss upon the ocean's lifting billows Upon whose springiness they lean and ride; Foliage, p. xix. "His lordship of Newstead has sent Leigh a subsidy, and has "likewise prepared, in a costly way, the lower part of his Pisan "residence for the reception of his London ally. This is certainly "very noble on the part of Byron; and if the story be true about "the deception he had recourse to the other day, in order to serve "a celebrated brother poet who was invincibly punctilious, it is "impossible to extol too highly his munificence and delicacy. I "am glad to behold him arming himself, and I hope we shall see a "good fight.' Southey does not go the right way to work with "him. I have better confidence in your judgment and mettle." Above all, I recommend my interests to your honourable worship. Recollect, too, that I expect some moneys for the various MSS. (no matter what); and, in short, "Rem“quocunque modo, Rem!"—the noble feeling of cupidity grows upon us with our years. Yours ever and truly, 974.-To John Murray.2 N. B. Pisa, Fy 8th 1822. DEAR SIR,-Attacks upon me were to be expected; but I perceive one upon you in the papers, which I 1. Horace, Epist., I. i. 65, 66. See Letters, vol. v. p. 70, note 2. "Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp." Don Juan, Canto XII. stanza xii. 2. In No. I of the "Noctes Ambrosianæ" (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, for March, 1822, pp. 375, 376) appears Ensign O'Doherty's version of Byron's letter: "Attacks on me were what I look'd for, Murray, But why the devil do they badger you? These godly newspapers seem hot as curry, I mean those canting Quacks of your Review- Of being more than accoucheur to Cain; I dig the mine-you only fire the train! Here stands the murderer-that's the old one there- Should Fratricides discourse like Doctor Blair? The puritanic Milton freedom took, Which now-a-days would make a Bishop stare; I only bring your angels on the stage. confess that I did not expect. How, or in what manner, you can be considered responsible for what I publish, I am at a loss to conceive. To bully You-yet shrink from battling Me,— Is baseness. Nothing baser stains 'The Times.' While no one talks of priestly Playfair's crimes, "If this goes on, I wish you'd plainly tell 'em, Is it less sin to write such books than sell 'em? In me, great Sharpe, in me converte telum! Come, Doctor Sewell, shew you have been knighted! The copyright, in part, I will refund. They shall not touch a hair, man, in your head. 1. Murray was attacked, as the publisher of Cain, in the Remonstrance of "Oxoniensis," and, according to the Memoir of John Murray (vol. i. p. 427), it is to this attack that Byron refers. Oxoniensis (Remonstrance, pp. 19, 20) closes his pamphlet thus 66 "In conclusion, Mr. Murray, I would bid you ask yourself, are you prepared to go all lengths with him? It is not to be supposed "that the author of Cain will stop there; he already resembles the "wretched Carlile in so many points, that we reasonably expect he "will imitate him in his pertinacity also will he find in you a "willing instrument, a publisher ready to disseminate all the moral "poisons he may think fit to prepare ? Deliberate, Sir, before you "decide this question in the affirmative, for be assured that you "challenge a heavy responsibility; I speak not of the responsibility "to which the actions of every one of us shall be liable; on the "deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad, let no "mortal be so presumptuous as to pronounce a judgment, or so "deceived as to hope to escape one. But you are responsible to "that society whose institutions you contribute to destroy; and to "those individuals whose dearest hopes you insult, and would anni"hilate. Hone, it is true, escaped with legal impunity; but If Cain be "blasphemous," Paradise Lost is blasphemous; and the very words of the Oxford Gentleman, "Carlile and his miserable associates are in gaol. I trust you will "not persevere; but if you do, neither your courtly locality and connections, nor the demi-official character with which you are "invested, will avail to protect you. 66 "I make no apology for the freedom with which I have addressed "you. Do not, however, suppose that the sentiments I have "delivered are those of an anonymous individual only; they are "cherished by every real friend to religion and morals, and to those "institutions by which morality and religion are most effectually "supported-the Constitution in Church and State. "I am, etc., "OXONIENSIS." Cain was at once pirated. To protect the copyright, Murray, through his solicitor, Sharon Turner, consulted an eminent King's Counsel, Lancelot Shadwell, afterwards Vice-Chancellor. "Mr. 'Shadwell, whom I have just seen," writes Turner to Murray, January 31, 1822 (Memoir of John Murray, vol. i. p. 428), "has "told me that he had read Cain some time ago,-that he thinks it ❝contains nothing but what a bookseller can be fairly justified in "publishing, that it is not worse than many parts in Paradise "Regained and in Paradise Lost. It is a dramatic exhibition of "Lucifer speaking as Lucifer-often very absurdly. . . . He is "King's Counsel and a religious man. He thinks it can hurt no "reasonable mind. He will lead the case." On February 9, 1822, in the case of Murray v. Benbow, Mr. Shad. well, on behalf of the plaintiff, " moved, ex parte, for an injunction "to restrain the defendant from publishing a pirated edition of "Lord Byron's poem of Cain. The Lord Chancellor, after reading "the work, refused the motion" (Jacob's Reports, p. 474, note). In giving judgment, the Lord Chancellor said (Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vii. p. 660, note)— "Now, the real question is, looking at the work before me, its "preface, the poem, its manner of treating the subject, particularly "with reference to the Fall and the Atonement,-whether its intent "be innocent, or whether it be to traduce and bring into discredit "that part of Sacred History. This question I have no right to "try, because it has been settled, after great difference of opinion "among the learned, that it is for a jury to determine that point: "and where, therefore, a reasonable doubt is entertained as to the "character of the work (and it is impossible for me to say I have "not a doubt, I hope it is a reasonable one), another course must "be taken for determining what is its true nature and character. "The singularity of the case in this instance is, that here is a defend"ant who has multiplied this work by piracy, and does not think "fit to appear." The injunction was eventually granted. I. This sentence serves as the motto to A Vindication of "The |