ÆT. 24.

66

better judges have admired, and may again; but I venture to prognosticate a prophecy' (see the Courier), that he will not succeed. So, poor dear Rogers has stuck fast on 'the brow of the mighty Helvellyn' — I hope not for ever. My best respects to Lady H.:- her departure, with that of my other friends, was a sad event for me, now reduced to a state of the most cynical solitude. By the waters of Cheltenham I sat down and drank, when I remembered thee, oh Georgiana Cottage! As for our harps, we hanged them up upon the willows that grew thereby. Then they said, Sing us a song of Drury Lane,' &c.;- but I am dumb and dreary as the Israelites. The waters have disordered me to my heart's content you were right, as you always are. Believe me ever your obliged and affectionate servant,

"BYRON."

The request of the Committee for his aid having been, still more urgently, repeated, he, at length, notwithstanding the difficulty and invidiousness of the task, from his strong wish to oblige Lord Holland, consented to undertake it; and the quick succeeding notes and letters, which he addressed, during the completion of the Address, to his noble friend, afford a proof (in conjunction with others of still more interest, yet to be cited) of the pains he, at this time, took in improving and polishing his first conceptions, and the importance he wisely attached to a judicious choice of epithets as a means of enriching both the music and the meaning of his verse. They also show,-what, as an illustration of his character, is even still more valuable, the exceeding pliancy and good humour with which he could yield to friendly suggestions and criticisms; nor can it be questioned, I think, but that the docility thus invariably exhibited by him, on points where most poets are found to be tenacious and irritable, was a quality natural to his disposition, and such as might have been turned to account in far more important matters, had he been fortunate enough to meet with persons capable of understanding and guiding him.

The following are a few of those hasty notes, on the subject of the Address, which I allude to :

167

Cheltenham, September 23. 1812. "Ecco!-I have marked some passages with double readings-choose between them — cut—add— reject—or destroy—do with them as you will-I leave it to you and the Committee-you cannot say so called a non committendo.' What will they do (and I do) with the hundred and one rejected Troubadours? With trumpets, yea, and

with shawms,' will you be assailed in the most diabolical doggerel. I wish my name not to transpire till the day is decided. I shall not be in town, so it won't much think Elliston should be the man, or Pope; matter; but let us have a good deliverer. I not Raymond, I implore you, by the love of

Rhythmus!

September 24. "I send a recast of the four first lines of the concluding paragraph.

"This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd,
The drama's homage by her Herald paid,
Receive our welcome too, whose every tone
Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own.
The curtain rises, &c. &c.

And do forgive all this trouble. See what it is to have to do even with the genteelest of us. Ever, &c."

LETTER 98. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"Cheltenham, Sept. 25. 1812. "Still more matter for a May morning.' Having patched the middle and end of the Address, I send one more couplet for a part Ꮇ Ꮞ

&c. &c.

I think thousands' less flat than crowds collected'—but don't let me plunge into the bathos, or rise into Nat. Lee's Bedlam metaphors. By the by, the best view of the said fire (which I myself saw from a housetop in Covent-garden) was at Westminster Bridge, from the reflection on the Thames. "Perhaps the present couplet had better come in after 'trembled for their homes,' the two lines after; as otherwise the image certainly sinks, and it will run just as well.

"The lines themselves, perhaps, may be better thus-('choose,' or 'refuse' but please yourself, and don't mind Sir Fretful')

Garden market on the night of conflagration, instead of the audience or the discerning public at large, all of whom are intended to be comprised in that comprehensive and, I hope, comprehensible pronoun.

"By the by, one of my corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom

"When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write. Ceasing to live is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first; therefore I will let the old couplet stand, with its half rhymes 'sought' and 'wrote.' Second thoughts in every thing are best, but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss. I am very anxious on this business, and I do hope that the very trouble I occasion you will plead its own excuse, and that it will tend to show my endeavour to make the

most of the time allotted. I wish I had known it months ago, for in that case I had not left one line standing on another. I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as much as I can, but never sufficiently; and, latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning. When I began 'Childe Harold,' I had never tried Spenser's measure, and now I cannot scribble in any other.

66

After all, my dear Lord, if you can get a decent Address elsewhere, don't hesitate to put this aside. Why did you not trust your own Muse? I am very sure she would have been triumphant, and saved the Committee their trouble-'tis a joyful one' to me, but I fear I shall not satisfy even myself. After the account you sent me, 'tis no compliment to say you would have beaten your candidates; but I mean that, in that case, there would have been no occasion for their being beaten at all.

"There are but two decent prologues in our tongue-Pope's to Cato-Johnson's to Drury-Lane. These, with the epilogue to the Distrest Mother,' and, I think, one of Goldsmith's, and a prologue of old Colman's to Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, are the best things of the kind we have.

"P. S.- I am diluted to the throat with medicine for the stone; and Boisragon wants me to try a warm climate for the winter but I won't."

"Dear are the days that made our annals bright, Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to write."

2 [To Charlotte Lennox's comedy of "The Sister." See Goldsmith's Misc. Works, vol. iv. p. 130. ed. 1837.]

ÆT. 24.

169

LETTER 100. TO LORD HOLLAND.

September 27. 1812.

"I have just received your very kind letter, and hope you have met with a second copy corrected and addressed to Holland House, with some omissions and this new couplet,

As glared each rising flash 1, and ghastly shone
The skies with lightnings awful as their own.

As to remarks, I can only say I will alter and acquiesce in any thing. With regard to the part which Whitbread wishes to omit, I believe the Address will go off quicker without it, though, like the agility of the Hottentot, at the expense of its vigour. I leave to your choice entirely the different specimens of stucco-work; and a brick of your own will also much improve my Babylonish turret. I should like Elliston to have it, with your leave. Adorn' and 'mourn are lawful rhymes in Pope's Death of the unfortunate Lady.-Gray has 'forlorn' and 'mourn' and torn' and mourn' are in Smollett's

famous Tears of Scotland.

"As there will probably be an outcry amongst the rejected, I hope the Committee will testify (if it be needful) that I sent in nothing to the congress whatever, with or

without a name, as your Lordship well knows. All I have to do with it is with and through you; and though I, of course, wish to satisfy the audience, I do assure you my first object is to comply with your request, and in so doing to show the sense I have of

the many obligations you have conferred upon

me.

Yours ever,

LETTER 101. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"B."

lava of the

spent volcanic } wave,

"Till slowly ebb'd the
And blackening ashes mark'd the Muse's grave.

If not, we will say 'burning wave,' and instead of 'burning clime,' in the line some couplets back, have 'glowing.'

"Is Whitbread determined to castrate all

my cavalry lines ? 3 I don't see why t'other house should be spared; besides, it is the public, who ought to know better; and you recollect Johnson's was against similar buffooneries of Rich's-but, certes, I am not Johnson.

"Instead of effects,' say labours degenerate' will do, will it? Mr. Betty is no longer a babe, therefore the line cannot be personal.

"Will this do?

with glowing dome,' in case you prefer The word 'burning' added to this 'wave' metaphorical. the pillar of fire' in the book of Exodus, fiery pillar' was suggested by which went before the Israelites through the Red Sea. I once thought of saying like Israel's pillar,' and making it a simile, but I did not know, the great temptation was leaving the epithet fiery' for the supplementary wave.

I want to work up that passage, as it is the only new ground us prologuizers can go upon

"This is the place where, if a poet

Shined in description, he might show it.

If I part with the possibility of a future conflagration, we lessen the compliment to Shakspeare. However, we will e'en mend it thus

"Yes, it shall be the magic of that name,

That scorns the scythe of Time, the torch of Flame,
On the same spot, &c. &c.

Blame not our judgment should we acquiesce,
And gratify you more by showing less.

Oh, since your Fiat stamps the Drama's laws,
Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause;
That public praise be ne'er again disgraced,
brutes to man recall

From
a nation's taste;
Then pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers,
When Reason's voice is echoed back by ours."

{babes and brutes redeem

The last couplet but one was again altered in a subsequent copy, thus:

"The past reproach let present scenes refute,

Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute."

4 The form of this couplet, as printed, is as follows:

"Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall."

September 28. "I have altered the middle couplet, so as I hope partly to do away with W.'s objection. I do think, in the present state of the stage, it had been unpardonable to pass over the horses and Miss Mudie, &c. As Betty is no longer a boy, how can this be applied to him? He is now to be judged as a man. If he acts still like a boy, the public will but be more ashamed of their blunder. I have, you see, now taken it for granted that these things are reformed. I confess, I wish that part of the Address to stand; but if W. is inexorable, e'en let it go. I have also newcast the lines, and softened the hint of future combustion', and sent them off this morning. Will you have the goodness to add, or insert, the approved alterations as they arrive? They come like shadows, so depart ;' occupy me, and, I fear, disturb

Do not let Mr. W. put his Address into Elliston's hands till you have settled on these alterations. E. will think it too long: - much depends on the speaking. I fear it will not bear much curtailing, without

chasms in the sense.

September 29. 1812. "Shakspeare certainly ceased to reign in one of his kingdoms, as George III. did in America, and George IV. may in Ireland? Now, we have nothing to do out of our own realms, and when the monarchy was gone, his majesty had but a barren sceptre. I have cut away, you will see, and altered, but make it what you please; only I do implore, for my own gratification, one lash on those accursed quadrupeds 'a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love me.' I have altered wave,' &c., and the fire,' and so forth for the timid.

September 30. 1812. I am not so well as I was, and find I I send you the most I can make of it; 'pall in resolution.'

for

Tetbury by twelve on Saturday; and from “I wish much to see you, and will be at thence I go on to Lord Jersey's. It is impossible not to allude to the degraded state of the Stage, but I have lightened it, and endeavoured to obviate your other objections. There is a new couplet for Sheridan, allusive to his Monody. All the alterations I have marked thus, parison with the other copy. as you will see by comI have ingness, and only wish I had more time to cudgelled my brains with the greatest will

have done better.

couplet inserted for the quiet of the Com"You will find a sort of clap-trap laudatory mittee, and I have added, towards the end, the couplet you were pleased to like. The whole Address is seventy-three lines, still perhaps too long; and, if shortened, you will save time, but, I fear, a little of what I meant for sense also.

2 Some objection, it appears from this, had been made to the passage, "and Shakspeare ceased to reign.”