THIS ADDITIONAL QUARREL AND CALAMITY IS INSCRIBED BY ONE OF THE NUMBER.

Ravenna, March 15, 1820. I have never shrunk from the responsibility of what I have written, and have more than once incurred obloquy by neglecting to disavow what was attributed to my pen without foundation.

THE life of a writer" has been said, by Pope, I believe, to be "a warfare upon_earth." As far as my own experience has gone, I have nothing to say against the proposition; and, like the rest, having The greater part, however, of the "Remarks on once plunged into this state of hostility, must, Don Juan" contain but little on the work itself, however reluctantly, carry it on. An article has which receives an extraordinary portion of praise as appeared in a periodical work, entitled "Remarks a composition. With the exception of some quotaon Don Juan," which has been so full of this spirit tions, and a few incidental remarks, the rest of the on the part of the writer, as to require some observations on mine.

article is neither more nor less than a personal attack upon the imputed author. It is not the first In the first place, I am not aware by what right in the same publication: for I recollect to have the writer assumes this work, which is anonymous, read, some time ago, similar remarks upon "Bepto be my production. He will answer, that there is po" (said to have been written by a celebrated internal evidence; that is to say, that there are pas- northern preacher); in which the conclusion drawn sages which appear to be written in my name, or in was, that "Childe Harold, Byron, and the Count my manner. But might not this have been done on in Beppo, were one and the same person; " thereby purpose by another? He will say, why not then making me turn out to be, as Mrs. Malaprop says, deny it? To this I could answer, that of all the "like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once." That arti things attributed to me within the last five years, cle was signed "Presbyter Anglicanus;" which, I -Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Deaths upon Pale presume, being interpreted, means Scotch PresbyHorses, Odes to the Land of the Gaul, Adieus to terian. I must here observe,-and it is at once luEngland, Songs to Madame La Valette, Odes to St. dicrous and vexatious to be compelled so frequently Helena, Vampires, and what not, of which, God to repeat the same thing,-that my case, as an knows, I never composed nor read a syllable beyond author, is peculiarly hard, in being everlastingly their titles in advertisements,-I never thought it taken, or mistaken for my own protagonist. It is worth while to disavow any, except one which came unjust and particular. I never heard that my friend linked with an account of my "residence in the isle Moore was set down for a fire-worshipper on account of Mitylene," where I never resided, and appeared of his Guebre; that Scott was identified with Rodto be carrying the amusement of those persons, who erick Dhu, or with Balfour of Burley; or that, notthink my name can be of any use to them, a little withstanding all the magicians in Thalaba, any body has ever taken Mr. Southey for a conjuror;

too far.

I should hardly, therefore, if I did not take the whereas I have had some difficulty in extricating trouble to disavow these things published in my me even from Manfred, who, as Mr. Southey slily name, and yet not mine, go out of my way to deny observes in one of his articles in the Quarterly, an anonymous work; which might appear an act of "met the devil on the Jungfrau, and bullied him;" supererogation. With regard to Don Juan, I neither and I answer Mr. Southey, who has apparently, in deny nor admit it to be mine-every body may form his poetical life, not been so successful against the their own opinion; but, if there be any who now, or great enemy, that, in this, Manfred exactly followed in the progress of that poem, if it is to be continued, the sacred precept," Resist the devil, and he will feel, or should feel themselves so aggrieved as to flee from you." I shall have more to say on the require a more explicit answer, privately and per-subject of this person-not the devil, but his most senally, they shall have it. humble servant Mr. Southey-before I conclude;

but, for the present, I must return to the article in Cave of Montesinos, "Patience, and shuffle the the Edinburgh Magazine. cards."

In the course of this article, amidst some extra

I bitterly feel the ostentation of this statement, ordinary observations, there occur the following the first of the kind I have ever made: I feel the words"It appears, in short, as if this miserable degradation of being compelled to make it; but I man, having exhausted every species of sensual also feel its truth, and I trust to feel it on my deathgratification, having drained the cup of sin even bed, should it be my lot to die there. I am not less to its bitterest dregs, were resolved to show us that sensible of the egotism of all this; but, alas! who he is no longer a human being even in his frailties, have made me thus egotistical in my own defence, -but a cold, unconcerned fiend, laughing with a if not they, who, by perversely persisting in referdetestable glee over the whole of the better and ring fiction to truth, and tracing poetry to life, and worse elements of which human life is composed." regarding characters of imagination as creatures of In another place there appears, "the lurking-place existence, have made me personally responsible for of his selfish and polluted exile."-"By my troth, almost every poetical delineation which fancy and a these be bitter words!"-With regard to the first particular bias of thought, may have tended to prosentence, I shall content myself with observing, duce?

that it appears to have been composed for Sardana- The writer continues:-" Those who are acpalus, Tiberius, the Regent Duke of Orleans, or quainted, as who is not? with the main incidents of Louis XV.; and that I have copied it with as much the private life of Lord B.," &c. Assuredly, whoindifference as I would a passage from Suetonius, or ever may be acquainted with these "main incifrom any of the private memoirs of the regency, dents," the writer of the "Remarks on Don Juan' conceiving it to be amply refuted by the terms in is not, or he would use a very different language. which it is expressed, and to be utterly inapplicable That which I believe he alludes to as a "main incito any private individual. On the words, lurking-dent," happened to be a very subordinate one, and place, and selfish and polluted exile," I have the natural and almost inevitable consequence of something more to say.-How far the capital city events and circumstances long prior to the period of a government, which survived the vicissitudes of at which it occurred. It is the last drop which thirteen hundred years, and might still have existed makes the cup run over, and mine was already full. but for the treachery of Bonaparte, and the iniquity But, to return to this man's charge: he accuses of his imitators,-a city which was the emporium Lord B. of "an elaborate satire on the character of Europe, when London and Edinburgh were dens and manners of his wife." From what parts of of barbarians, may be termed a "lurking-place," Don Juan the writer has inferred this, he himself I leave to those who have seen or heard of Venice, best knows. As far as I recollect of the female to decide. How far my exile may have been "pol-characters in that production, there is but one who luted," it is not for me to say, because the word is is depicted in ridiculous colors, or that could be ina wide one, and, with some of its branches, may terpreted as a satire upon any body. But here my chance to overshadow the actions of most men; poetical sins are again visited upon me, supposing but that it has been "selfish" I deny. If, to the that the poem be mine. If I depict a corsair, a extent of my means and my power, and my infor- misanthrope, a libertine, a chief of insurgents, or mation of their calamities, to have assisted many an infidel, he is set down to the author; and if, in miserable beings, reduced by the decay of the place a poem by no means ascertained to be my production, of their birth, and their consequent loss of sub- there appears a disagreeable, casuistical, and by no stance if to have never rejected an application means respectable female pedant, it is set down for which appeared founded on truth-if to have ex- my wife. Is there any resemblance? If there be, pended in this manner sums far out of proportion to it is in those who make it. I can see none. In my my fortune, there and elsewhere, be selfish, then writings I have rarely described any character under have I been selfish. To have done such things I do a fictitious name: those of whom I have spoken not deem much: but it is hard indeed to be com- have had their own-in many cases a stronger satire pelled to recapitulate them in my own defence, by in itself than any which could be appended to it. such accusations as that before me, like a panel be- But of real circumstances I have availed myself fore a jury calling testimonies to his character, or plentifully, both in the serious and the ludicrousa soldier recording his services to obtain his dis- they are to poetry what landscapes are to the paincharge. If the person who has made the charge of ter; but my figures are not portraits. It may even "selfishness" wishes to inform himself further on have happened, that I have seized on some events the subject, he may acquire, not what he would that have occurred under my own observation, or in wish to find, but what will silence and shame him, my own family, as I would paint a view from my by applying to the Consul-General of our nation, grounds, did it harmonize with my picture; but I resident in the place, who will be in the case either never would introduce the likenesses of its living to confirm or deny what I have asserted. members, unless their features could be made as faI neither make, nor have ever made, pretensions vorable to themselves as to the effect; which, in the to sanctity of demeanor, nor regularity of conduct; above instance, would be extremely difficult. but my means have been expended principally on My learned brother proceeds to observe, that “it my own gratification, neither now nor heretofore, is in vain for Lord B. to attempt in any way to neither in England nor out of it; and it wants but justify his own behavior in that affair; and now a word from me, if I thought that word decent or that he has so openly and audaciously invited innecessary, to call forth the most willing witnesses, quiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason and at once witnesses and proofs, in England itself, why he should not be plainly told so by the voice of to show that there are those who have derived, not his countrymen. How far the "openness" of an the mere temporary relief of a wretched boon, but anonymous poem, and the "audacity" of an imagthe means which led them to immediate happiness inary character, which the writer supposes to be and ultimate independence, by my want of that meant for Lady B., may be deemed to merit this "ery selfishness," as grossly and falsely now im- formidable denunciation from their "most sweet puted to my conduct. voices," I neither know nor care; but when he tells Had I been a selfish man-had I been a grasping me that I cannot "in any way justify my own be man-had I been, in the worldly sense of the word, havior in that affair," I acquiesce, because no man even a prudent man,-I should not be where I now can "justify" himself until he knows of what be am: I should not have taken the step which was is accused; and I have never had-and, God knows, the first that led to the events which have sunk and my whole desire has ever been to obtain it--any swoln a gulf between me and mine; but in this re- specific charge, in a tangible shape, submitted to spect the truth will one day be made known: in me by the adversary, nor by others, unless the atrothe mean time, as Durandearte says, in the cities of public rumor and the mysterious silence of

the lady's legal advisers may be deemed such. But that of a crowd, I should probably have been enis not the writer content with what has been already abled to defend myself, with the assistance of others, said and done? Has not "the general voice of his as has been done on similar occasions. countrymen" long ago pronounced upon the sub- I retired from the country, perceiving that I was ject-sentence without trial, and condemnation the object of general obloquy; I did not indeed without a charge? Have I not been exiled by imagine, like Jean Jacques Rousseau, that all manostracism, except that the shells which proscribed kind was in a conspiracy against me, though I had me were anonymous? Is the writer ignorant of the perhaps as good grounds for such a chimera as ever public opinion and the public conduct upon that he had: but I perceived that I had to a great extent occasion? If he is, I am not: the public will for- become personally obnoxious in England, perhaps get both, long before I shall cease to remember through my own fault, but the fact was indisputaeither. ble; the public in general would hardly have been

The man who is exiled by a faction has the con- so much excited against a more popular character, solation of thinking that he is a martyr; he is without at least an accusation or a charge of some upheld by hope and the dignity of his cause, real kind actually expressed or substantiated, for I can or imaginary he who withdraws from the pressure hardly conceive that the common and every-day of debt may indulge in the thought that time and occurrence of a separation between man and wife prudence will retrieve his circumstances: he who is could in itself produce so great a ferment. I shall condemned by the law, has a term to his banish-say nothing of the usual complaints of "being prement, or a dream of its abbreviation; or, it may be, judged," condemned unheard," "unfairness," the knowledge or the belief of some injustice of the "partiality," and so forth, the usual charges rung law, or of its administration in his own particular; by parties who have had, or are to have, a trial; but but he who is outlawed by general opinion, without I was a little surprised to find myself condemned the intervention of hostile politics, illegal judgment, without being favored with the act of accusation, or embarrassed circumstances, whether he be inno- and to perceive in the absence of this portentous cent or guilty, must undergo all the bitterness of charge or charges, whatever it or they were to be, exile, without hope, without pride, without allevia- that every possible or impossible crime was rumored tion. This case was mine. Upon what grounds to supply its place, and taken for granted. This the public founded their opinion, I am not aware; could only occur in the case of a person very much but it was general, and it was decisive. Of me or disliked, and I knew no remedy, having already of mine they knew little, except that I had written used to their extent whatever little powers I might what is called poetry, was a nobleman, had married, possess of pleasing in society. I had no party in became a father, and was involved in differences fashion, though I was afterwards told that there with my wife and her relatives, no one knew why, was one-but it was not of my formation, nor did I because the persons complaining refused to state then know of its existence-none in literature; and their grievances. The fashionable world was divided in politics I had voted with the whigs, with preciseinto parties, mine consisting of a very small minor-ly that importance which a whig vote possesses in ity the reasonable world was naturally on the these Tory days, and with such personal acquaintstronger side, which happened to be the lady's, as ance with the leaders in both houses as the society was most proper and polite. The press was active in which I lived sanctioned, but without claim or and scurrilous; and such was the rage of the day, expectation of any thing like friendship from any that the unfortunate publication of two copies of one, except a few young men of my own age and verses, rather complimentary than otherwise to the standing, and a few others more advanced in life, subjects of both, was tortured into a species of which last it had been my fortune to serve in circrime, or constructive petty treason. I was accused cumstances of difficulty. This was, in fact, to stand of every monstrous vice by public rumor and private alone: and I recollect, some time after, Madame de rancor: my name, which had been a knightly or a Staël said to me in Switzerland, "You should not noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the have warred with the world-it will not do-it is too kingdom for William the Norman, was tainted. I strong always for any individual: I myself once felt that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and tried it in early life, but it will not do." I perfectly murmured, was true, I was unfit for England; if acquiesce in the truth of this remark; but the world false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew: but had done me the honor to begin the war; and, this was not enough. In other countries, in Swit-assuredly, if peace is only to be obtained by courtzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by the blue ing and paying tribute to it, I am not qualified to depth of the lakes, I was pursued and breathed obtain its countenance. I thought, in the words of upon by the same blight. I crossed the mountains, Campbell, but it was the same; so I went a little farther, and settled myself by the waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters. If I may judge by the statements of the few friends I recollect, however, that, having been much hurt who gathered round me, the outcry of the period to by Romilly's conduct, (he, having a general retainer which I allude was beyond all precedent, all parallel, for me, had acted as adviser to the adversary, alleg even in those cases where political motives have ing, on being reminded of his retainer, that he had sharpened slander and doubled enmity. I was forgotten it, as his clerk had so many,) I observed advised not to go to the theatres, lest I should that some of those who were now eagerly laying the be hissed, nor to my duty in parliament, lest I axe to my roof-tree, might see their own shaken, should be insulted by the way; even on the day of and feel a portion of what they had inflicted.-His my departure, my most intimate friend told me fell, and crushed him.

"Then wed thee to an exiled lot,

And if the world hath loved thee not,

Its absence may be borne."

afterwards, that he was under apprehensions of vio- I have heard of, and believe, that there are human lence from the people who might be assembled at beings so constituted as to be insensible to injuries; the door of the carriage. However, I was not de- but I believe that the best mode to avoid taking terred by these counsels from seeing Kean in his vengeance is to get out of the way of temptation. best characters, nor from voting according to my I hope that I may never have the opportunity, for principles; and with regard to the third and last I am not quite sure that I could resist it, having apprehensions of my friends, I could not share in derived from my mother something of the "perfer them, not being made acquainted with their extent, vidum ingenium Scotorum." I have not sought, till some time after I had crossed the Channel. and shall not seek it, and perhaps it may never Even if I had been so, I am not of a nature to be come in my path. I do not in this allude to the much affected be men's anger, though I may feel party who might be right or wrong; but to many hurt by their aversion. Against all individual out- who made her cause the pretext of their own bitterrage. I could protect or redress myself; and against ness. She, indeed, must have long avenged me in

her own feelings; for whatever her reasons may can equal; " meaning, I humbly presume, the nohave been (and she never abduced them to me at torious triumvirate known by the name of "Lake least), she probably neither contemplated nor con- Poets" in their aggregate capacity, and by Southey, ceived to what she became the means of conducting Wordsworth, and Coleridge, when taken singly. I the father of her child, and the husband of her wish to say a word or two upon the virtues of one choice. of those persons, public and private, for reasons So much for "the general voice of his country- which will soon appear. men: "I will now speak of some in particular.

When I left England in April, 1816, ill in mind, In the beginning of the year 1817, an article ap-in body, and in circumstances, I took up my resi peared in the Quarterly Review, written, I believe, dence at Coligny, by the lake of Geneva. The sole by Walter Scott, doing great honor to him, and no companion of my journey was a young physician,* disgrace to me, though both poetically and person- who had to make his way in the world, and having ally more than sufficiently favorable to the work seen very little of it, was naturally and laudably and the author of whom it treated. It was written desirous of seeing more society than suited my presat a time when a selfish man would not, and a timid ent habits or my past experience. I therefore preone dared not, have said a word in favor of either; sented him to those gentlemen of Geneva for whom it was written by one to whom temporary public I had letters of introduction; and having thus seen opinion had elevated me to the rank of a rival-a him in a situation to make his own way, retired for proud distinction, and unmerited; but which has my own part entirely from society, with the excepnot prevented me from feeling as a friend, nor him tion of one English family, living at about a quarfrom more than corresponding to that sentiment. ter of a mile's distance from Diodati, and with the The article in question was written upon the third further exception of some occasional intercourse canto of Childe Harold; and after many observa- with Coppet, at the wish of Madame de Staël. The tions, which it would as ill become me to repeat as English family to which I allude consisted of two to forget, concluded with "a hope that I might yet ladies, a gentleman and his son, a boy of a year return to England." How this expression was re-old.t

ceived in England itself I am not acquainted, but it One of "these lofty-minded and virtuous men," in gave great offence at Rome to the respectable ten the words of the Edinburgh Magazine, made, I unor twenty thousand English travellers then and derstand, about this time, or soon after, a tour in there assembled. I did not visit Rome till some Switzerland. On his return to England, he circatime after, so that I had no opportunity of knowing lated-and for any thing I know, invented-a report, the fact; but I was informed, long afterwards, that that the gentleman to whom I have alluded and the greatest indignation had been manifested in the myself were living in promiscuous intercourse with enlightened Anglo-circle of that year, which hap- two sisters, "having formed a league of incest" (I pened to comprise within it-amidst a considerable quote the words as they were stated to me), and feaven of Welbeck street and Devonshire Place, indulged himself on the natural comments upon broken loose upon their travels-several really well-such a conjunction, which are said to have been born and well-bred families, who did not the less repeated publicly, with great complacency, by an participate in the feeling of the hour. "Why other of that poetical fraternity, of whom I shall should he return to England?" was the general say only, that even had the story been true, he exclamation-I answer why? It is a question I should not have repeated it, as far as it regarded have occasionally asked myself, and I never yet myself, except in sorrow. The tale itself requires could give it a satisfactory reply. I had then no but a word in answer-the ladies were not sisters, thoughts of returning, and if I have any now, they nor in any degree connected, except by the second are of business, and not of pleasure. Amidst the marriage of their respective parents, a widower with ties that have been dashed to pieces, there are links a widow, both being the offspring of former maryet entire, though the chain itself be broken. There riages; neither of them were, in 1816, nineteen are duties, and connections, which may one day re- years old. "Promiscuous intercourse" could hardquire my presence-and I am a father. I have still ly have disgusted the great patron of pantisocracy, some friends whom I wish to meet again, and it (does Mr. Southey remember such a scheme?) but may be an enemy. These things, and those min- there was none. uter details of business, which time accumulates How far this man, who, as author of Wat Tyler, during absence, in every man's affairs and property, has been proclaimed by the Lord Chancellor guilty may, and probably will, recall me to England; but of a treasonable and blasphemous libel, and deI shall return with the same feelings with which I nounced in the House of Commons, by the upright left it, in respect to itself, though altered with re- and able member for Norwich, as a "rancorous rengard to individuals, as I have been more or less egado," be fit for sitting as a judge upon others, let informed of their conduct since my departure; for others judge. He has said that for this expression it was only a considerable time after it that I was "he brands William Smith on the forehead as a made acquainted with the real facts and full extent calumniator," and that "the mark will outlast his of some of their proceedings and language. My epitaph." How long William Smith's epitaph will friends, like other friends, from conciliatory mo- last, and in what words it will be written, I know tives, withheld from me much that they could, and not; but William Smith's words form the epitaph some things which they should have unfolded; how- itself of Robert Southey. He has written Wat ever, that which is deferred is not lost-but it has Tyler, and taken the office of poet laureate-he been no fault of mine that it has been deferred at has, in the Life of Henry Kirke White, denomiall. nated reviewing "the ungentle craft," and has beI have alluded to what is said to have passed at come a reviewer-he was one of the projectors of a Rome merely to show that the sentiment which I scheme, called "pantisocracy," for having all things. have described was not confined to the English in including women, in common, (query, common woEngland, and as forming part of my answer to the men?) and he sits up as a moralist-he denounced reproach cast upon what has been called my "selfish the battle of Blenheim, and he praised the battle of exile," and my "voluntary exile." "Voluntary" it Waterloo-he loved Mary Wollstoncraft, and he has been; for who would dwell among a people en- tried to blast the character of her daughter (one of tertaining strong hostility against him? How far the young females mentioned)-he wrote treason, it has been "selfish" has been already explained. and serves the king-he was the butt of the AntiI have now arrived at a passage describing me as jacobin, and he is the prop of the Quarterly Review, having vented my "spleen against the lofty-minded licking the hands that smote him, eating the bread and virtuous men," men "whose virtues few indeed

See Quarterly Review, vol. xvi., p. 172.

• Dr. Polidori-author of the " Vampire."

↑ Mr. and Mrs. Shelley, Miss Clermont, and Master Marler.