1817.]

ODD COINCIDENCES.

39

written on the roth of Decr., my daughter's birth-day (and relative chiefly to my daughter), and arriving on the day of the date of my marriage, this present 2d of January, the month of my birth,—and various other Astrologous matters, which I have no time to enumerate.

By the way, you might as well write to Hentsch, my Genevese banker, and enquire whether the two packets consigned to his care were or were not delivered to Mr. St. Aubyn,1 or if they are still in his keeping. One contains papers, letters, and all the original MS. of your 3d canto, as first conceived; and the other, some bones from the field of Morat.2 Many thanks for your news, and the good spirits in which your letter is written.

Venice and I agree very well; but I do not know that I have any thing new to say, except of the last new opera, which I sent in my late letter. The Carnival is commencing, and there is a good deal of fun here and there-besides business; for all the world are making up their intrigues for the season-changing, or going on upon a renewed lease. I am very well off with Marianna, who is not at all a person to tire me; firstly, because I

1. Of the St. Aubyn entries in Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, p. 1242, three are possible. But James (No. 20) was at Lincoln's Inn in 1817; Robert Thomas (No. 24) was in orders. Possibly, therefore, this is No. 28, William John St. Aubyn, who matriculated at Christ Church in 1814, at. 19, became Rector of Stoke Damerel in 1828, and died July 30, 1877.

2. At Morat, on the lake of the same name, the Swiss defeated Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, June 22, 1476 (see Childe Harold, Canto III. stanzas lxiii., lxiv.). The bones of the slain Burgundians were deposited in a building near the village of Meyriez. Three centuries later, when Switzerland was occupied by the armies of the French Republic, a regiment of Burgundians "tore down "the bone-house,'" covered the bones with earth, and planted a tree of Liberty on the mound. The tree died; the rain washed away the soil; the bones were again uncovered. In 1882 the remains were again buried, and the victory commemorated by a marble obelisk (Kirk's History of Charles the Bold, vol. iii. pp. 404, 405). The relics are now in the possession of Mr. Murray.

do not tire of a woman personally, but because they are generally bores in their disposition; and, secondly, because she is amiable, and has a tact which is not always the portion of the fair creation; and, thirdly, she is very pretty; and, fourthly-but there is no occasion for further specification. I have passed a great deal of my time with her since my arrival at Venice,

*

* *

* * So far we have gone on very well; as to the future, I never anticipate-" Carpe diem"-the past at least is one's own, which is one reason for making sure of the present. So much for my proper liaison.

The general state of morals here is much the same as in the Doges' time; a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or more, are a little wild; but it is only those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low connection, such as the Princess of Wales with her courier,1 (who, by the way, is made a knight of Malta,) who are considered as overstepping the modesty of marriage. In Venice, the Nobility have

1. The Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, left England in 1814. At Milan, in October of that year, Bartolommeo Bergami was engaged as her courier. In the Queen's trial before the House of Lords (August-November, 1820), evidence was offered in support of the charge of her having committed adultery with Bergami, who was undoubtedly treated by her with great favour. From October, 1814, till she returned to England in 1820, he was her constant companion; she procured him a Sicilian barony, and a knighthood of Malta; and she surrounded herself with his relations. In September, 1816, the Princess returned with Bergami from Jerusalem, and lived at the Villa d'Este, near Como. From August, 1817, to 1820, she lived at Pesaro, where Bergami acted as her chamberlain, and nine of his relations held places in her household. Byron had met her in London. Raikes, in his Journal for April 6, 1841 (vol. iv. p. 140), has this entry: "The papers "mention that Bergami, the courier, whose name was so prominent "in Queen Caroline's trial, and who, it appears, had acquired the "title of Marquis, died lately of an apoplectic fit in a public-house "at Fossombroni, in the delegation of Urbino."

1817.]

THE MORALS OF VENICE.

41

a trick of marrying with dancers or singers: and, truth to say, the women of their own order are by no means handsome; but the general race-the women of the 24 and other orders, the wives of the Advocates, merchants, and proprietors, and untitled gentry, are mostly beľ sangue, and it is with these that the more amatory connections are usually formed: there are also instances of stupendous constancy. I know a woman of fifty who never had but one lover, who dying early, she became devout, renouncing all but her husband: she piques herself, as may be presumed, upon this miraculous fidelity, talking of it occasionally with a species of misplaced morality, which is rather amusing. There is no convincing a woman here, that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of right or the fitness of things, in having an Amoroso: the great sin seems to lie in concealing it, or in having more than one; that is, unless such an extension of the prerogative is understood and approved of by the prior claimant.

In my case, I do not know that I had any predecessor, and am pretty sure that there is no participator; and am inclined to think, from the youth of the party, and from the frank undisguised way in which every body avows everything in this part of the world, when there is anything to avow, as well as from some other circumstances, such as the marriage being recent, etc., etc., etc., that this is the premier pas: it does not much signify.

In another sheet, I send you some sheets of a grammar, English and Armenian,1 for the use of the

66

1. This volume is entitled "Grammar, English and Armenian, "by Father Paschal Aucher, D.D., Member of the Armenian 'Academy of St. Lazarus," and bears for epigraph the saying of Charles the Fifth, "By as many languages as a man can speak, so many times more is he a man" (Moore). "I will most willingly "take fifty copies," writes Murray (Memoir, vol. i. p. 370).

66

Armenians, of which I promoted, and indeed induced, the publication: (it cost me but a thousand francsFrench livres.) I still pursue my lessons in the language, without any rapid progress, but advancing a little daily. Padre Paschal, with some little help from me, as translator of his Italian into English, is also proceeding in an MS. Grammar for the English acquisition of Armenian, which will be printed also, when finished.

We want to know if there are any Armenian types1 or letterpress in England-at Oxford, Cambridge, or elsewhere? You know, I suppose, that, many years ago, the two Whistons published in England an original text of a history of Armenia, with their own Latin translation? Do those types still exist? and where? Pray enquire among your learned acquaintance.

When this grammar (I mean the one now printing) is done, will you have any objection to take 40 or fifty copies, which will not cost in all above five or ten guineas, and try the curiosity of the learned with a sale of them? Say yes or no, as you like. I can assure you that they have some very curious books and MS., chiefly translations from Greek originals now lost. They are, besides, a much respected and learned community, and the study of their language was taken up with great

66

1. Murray, January 22, 1817 (Memoir of John Murray, vol. i. p. 371), says, "I forgot to mention above that I have as yet ascertained only that there are no Armenian types at Cambridge." In Talbot Reed's History of the Old English Letter Foundries (p. 68) occurs the following passage: "In England the first Armenian types were those presented by Dr. Fell to Oxford in 1667. In "the prolegomena of Walton's Polyglot, the alphabet there given "had been cut in wood. In 1736 Caslon cut a neat Armenian (pica) for Whiston's edition of Moses Chorenensis; and these two 66 were the only founts in England before 1820." The work of the two Whistons, to which Byron refers, was the Mosis Chorenensis Historia Armeniaca Lib. III. Accedit ejusdem Scriptoris Epitome Geographia.. Armenice et Latine, cum notis Gulielmi et

...

Georgii, Gul. Whistoni filii, London, 1736, 4°.

1817.]

THE DREAM OF SLEEPING PASSION.

43

ardour by some literary Frenchmen1 in Buonaparte's time.

I have not done a stitch of poetry since I left Switzerland, and have not, at present, the estro upon me: the truth is, that you are afraid of having a 4" canto before September, and of another copyright; but I have at present no thoughts of resuming that poem nor of beginning any other. If I write, I think of trying prose; but I dread introducing living people, or applications which might be made to living people: perhaps one day or other, I may attempt some work of fancy in prose, descriptive of Italian manners and of human passions; but at present I am preoccupied. As for poesy, mine is the dream of my sleeping Passions; when they are awake, I cannot speak their language, only in their Somnambulism, and just now they are not dormant.

If Mr. G[ifford] wants Carte blanche as to The Siege of Corinth, he has it, and may do as he likes with it.

I sent you a letter contradictory of the Cheapside man (who invented the story you speak of) the other day. My best respects to Mr. Gifford, and such of my friends as you may see at your house. I wish you all prosperity and new year's gratulation, and am

Yours, ever and truly,

B.

To the Armenian Grammar, the following fragment, found among Byron's papers, seems to have been intended as a Preface. Accord ing to Mackay (Lord Byron at the Armenian Convent, p. 79), Pasquale Aucher did not approve of the Preface, because it contained an attack on the Turkish Government. Byron retorted,

1. Especially by Jean Antoine Saint Martin (1791-1832), whose Mémoires sur Arménie were published in 1818; Louis Matthieu Langlès (1763-1824), Professor of Persian at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris, and Keeper of Oriental MSS. at the Bibliothèque royale; and others.