between the whole room and the fire? I, who bear cold no better than an antelope, and never yet found a sun quite done to my taste, was absolutely petrified, and could not even shiver. All the rest, too, looked as if they were just unpacked, like salmon from an ice-basket, and set down to table for that day only. When she retired, I watched their looks as I dismissed the screen, and every cheek thawed, and every nose reddened with the anticipated glow. Saturday, I went with Harry Fox to Nourjahad; and, I believe, convinced him, by incessant yawning, that it was not mine. I wish the precious author would own it, and release me from his fame. The dresses are pretty, but not in costume ;-Mrs. Horn's, all but the turban, and the want of a small dagger (if she is a sultana), perfect. I never saw a Turkish woman with a turban in my life-nor did any one else. The sultanas have a small poniard at the waist. The dialogue is drowsy-the action heavy-the scenery fine-the actors tolerable. I can't say much for their seraglio-Teresa, Phannio, or were worth them all. Sunday, a very handsome note from Mackintosh, who is a rare instance of the union of very transcendent talent and great good nature. To-day (Tuesday) a very pretty billet from M. la Baronne de Stael Holstein.1 She is 1. In a note to The Bride of Abydos (Canto I. stanza vi.), Byron had written, "For an eloquent passage in the latest work of the first "female writer of this, perhaps of any, age, on the analogy (and the "immediate comparison excited by that analogy) between 'painting "and music,' see vol. iii. cap. 10, De Allemagne." The passage is as follows (Part III. chap. x.): "Sans cesse nous comparons la "peinture à la musique, et la musique à la peinture, parceque les "émotions que nous éprouvons nous révèlent des analogies où l'ob"servation froide ne verroit que des différences," etc., etc. The following is Madame de Staël's "very pretty billet :"Argyll St., No. 31. Je ne saurais vous exprimer, my lord, à quel point je me 1813.] BYRON IN CONVERSATION. 355 pleased to be much pleased with my mention of her and her last work in my notes. I spoke as I thought. Her works are my delight, and so is she herself, for-half an hour. I don't like her politics-at least, her having changed them; had she been qualis ab incepto, it were nothing. But she is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually ;she ought to have been a man. She flatters me very prettily in her note;-but I know it. The reason that adulation is not 'displeasing is, that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie, to make us their friend :that is their concern. ** is, I hear, thriving on the repute of a pun which was mine (at Mackintosh's dinner some time back), on Ward, who was asking, "how much it would take to "re-whig him?" I answered that, probably, "he must "first, before he was re-whigged, be re-warded." This "trouve honorée d'être dans une note de votre poëme, et de quel "poëme ! il me semble que pour la première fois je me crois certaine "d'un nom d'avenir et que vous avez disposé pour moi de cet empire "de reputation qui vous sera tous les jours plus soumis. Je voudrais "vous parler de ce poëme que tout le monde admire, mais j'avouerai "que je suis trop suspecte en le louant, et je ne cache pas qu' une "louage de vous m'a fait épreuver un sentiment de fierté et de "réconaissance qui me rendrait incapable de vous juger; mais "heureusement vous êtes au dessus du jugement. "Donnez moi quelquefois le plaisir de vous voir; il-y-a un "proverbe français qui dit qu'un bonheur ne va jamais sans d'autre. "DE STAËL." 1. "Byron," writes Sir Walter Scott, in a hitherto unpublished note, "occasionally said what are called good things, but never "studied for them. They came naturally and easily, and mixed "with the comic or serious, as it happened. A professed wit is of "all earthly companions the most intolerable. He is like a school"boy with his pockets stuffed with crackers. "No first-rate author was ever what is understood by a great "conversational wit. Swift's wit in common society was either the "strong sense of a wonderful man unconsciously exerting his powers, or that of the same being wilfully unbending, wilfully, in fact, 66 foolish quibble, before the Stael and Mackintosh, and a number of conversationers, has been mouthed about, and at last settled on the head of * *, where long may it remain ! George' is returned from afloat to get a new ship. He looks thin, but better than I expected. I like George much more than most people like their heirs. He is a fine fellow, and every inch a sailor. I would do any thing, but apostatise, to get him on in his profession. Lewis called. It is a good and good-humoured man, but pestilently prolix and paradoxical and personal. If he would but talk half, and reduce his visits to an hour, he would add to his popularity. As an author he is very "degrading himself. Who ever heard of any fame for conversational "wit lingering over the memory of a Shakespeare, a Milton, even "of a Dryden or a Pope? "Johnson is, perhaps, a solitary exception. More shame to him. "He was the most indolent great man that ever lived, and threw away in his talk more than he ever took pains to embalm in his "writings. 66 "It is true that Boswell has in great measure counteracted all "this. But here is no defence. Few great men can expect to have "a Boswell, and none ought to wish to have one, far less to trust "to having one. A man should not keep fine clothes locked up in "his chest only that his valet may occasionally show off in them; no, nor yet strut about in them in his chamber, only that his valet may puff him and his finery abroad. 66 "What might not he have done, who wrote Rasselas in the even"ings of eight days to get money enough for his mother's funeral expenses? As it is, what has Johnson done? Is it nothing to be "the first intellect of an age? and who seriously talks even of Burke "as having been more than a clever boy in the presence of old "Samuel?" 1. George Anson Byron, R.N., afterwards Lord Byron. 2. Scott has this additional note on Lewis: "Nothing was more "tiresome than Lewis when he began to harp upon any extravagant "proposition. He would tinker at it for hours without mercy, and "repeat the same thing in four hundred different ways. If you assented "in despair, he resumed his reasoning in triumph, and you had only "for your pains the disgrace of giving in. If you disputed, day"light and candle-light could not bring the discussion to an end, "and Mat's arguments were always ditto repeated." 1813.] LETTER FROM MISS MILBANKE. 357 good, and his vanity is ouverte, like Erskine's, and yet not offending. Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella,1 which I answered. What an odd situation and friendship is ours!-without one spark of love on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general lead to coldness on one side, and aversion on the other. She is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress-a girl of twenty-a peeress that is to be, in her own right-an only child, and a savante, who has always had her own way. She is a poetess—a mathematician-a metaphysician, and yet, withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension. Any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions, and a tenth of her advantages. Wednesday, December 1, 1813. To-day responded to La Baronne de Stael Holstein, and sent to Leigh Hunt (an acquisition to my acquaintance-through Moore-of last summer) a copy of the two Turkish tales. Hunt is an extraordinary character, and not exactly of the present age. He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times-much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, aspect. If he goes on qualis ab incepto, I know few men who will deserve more praise or obtain it. I must go and see him again;-the rapid succession of adventure, since last summer, added to some serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our acquaintance; but he is a man worth knowing; and though, for his own sake, I wish him out of prison, I like to study character in such situations. He has been unshaken, and will 1. Miss Milbanke, afterwards Lady Byron. continue so. I don't think him deeply versed in life;-he is the bigot of virtue (not religion), and enamoured of the beauty of that" empty name," as the last breath of Brutus pronounced,1 and every day proves it. He is, perhaps, a little opinionated, as all men who are the centre of circles, wide or narrow-the Sir Oracles, in whose name two or three are gathered together - must be, and as even Johnson was; but, withal, a valuable man, and less vain than success and even the consciousness of preferring "the right to the expedient" might excuse. To-morrow there is a party of purple at the "blue" Miss Berry's. Shall I go? um !-I don't much affect your blue-bottles ;-but one ought to be civil. There will be, "I guess now" (as the Americans say), the Staels and Mackintoshes-good-the * * *s and * * *s --not so good-the ***s, etc., etc.-good for nothing. Perhaps that blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of booklearning, Lady Charlemont, will be there. I hope so; it is a pleasure to look upon that most beautiful of faces. 2 Wrote to H.-he has been telling that I 3 I am sure, at least, I did not mention it, and I wish he had not. He is a good fellow, and I obliged myself ten I. "Strato. For Brutus only overcame himself, "Octavius. According to his virtue let us use him, Julius Cæsar, act v. sc. 5. 2. In The Giaour (lines 388-392) occurs the following passage :"As rising on its purple wing The insect-queen of Eastern spring To line 389 is appended this note: "The blue-winged butterfly "of Kashmeer, the most rare and beautiful of the species." 3. See letter to Francis Hodgson, p. 294. |