Part 25
"We are all looking at one another, like wolves on their prey in pursuit, only waiting for the first falling on to do unutterable things. They are a great world in chaos, or angels in hell, which you please; but out of chaos came Paradise, and out of hell--I don't know what; but the devil went _in_ there, and he was a fine fellow once, you know.
"You need never favour me with any periodical publication, except the Edinburgh Quarterly, and an occasional Blackwood; or now and then a Monthly Review; for the rest I do not feel curiosity enough to look beyond their covers.
"To be sure I took in the British finely. He fell precisely into the glaring trap laid for him. It was inconceivable how he could be so absurd as to imagine us serious with him.
"Recollect, that if you put my name to 'Don Juan' in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian right of my daughter in Chancery, on the plea of its containing the _parody_;--such are the perils of a foolish jest. I was not aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct, I believe; and you may be sure that the Noels would not let it slip. Now I prefer my child to a poem at any time, and so should you, as having half a dozen.
"Let me know your notions.
"If you turn over the earlier pages of the Huntingdon peerage story, you will see how common a name Ada was in the early Plantagenet days. I found it in my own pedigree in the reign of John and Henry, and gave it to my daughter. It was also the name of Charlemagne's sister. It is in an early chapter of Genesis, as the name of the wife of Lamech; and I suppose Ada is the feminine of _Adam_. It is short, ancient, vocalic, and had been in my family; for which reason I gave it to my daughter."
[Footnote 82: The paragraph is left thus imperfect in the original.]
* * * * *
LETTER 391. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, 8bre 12°, 1820.
"By land and sea carriage a considerable quantity of books have arrived; and I am obliged and grateful: but 'medio de fonte leporum, surgit amari aliquid,' &c. &c.; which, being interpreted, means,
"I'm thankful for your books, dear Murray; But why not send Scott's Monast_ery_?
the only book in four _living_ volumes I would give a baioccolo to see--'bating the rest of the same author, and an occasional Edinburgh and Quarterly, as brief chroniclers of the times. Instead of this, here are Johnny Keats's * * poetry, and three novels by God knows whom, except that there is Peg * * *'s name to one of them--a spinster whom I thought we had sent back to her spinning. Crayon is very good; Hogg's Tales rough, but RACY, and welcome.
"Books of travels are expensive, and I don't want them, having travelled already; besides, they lie. Thank the author of 'The Profligate' for his (or her) present. Pray send me _no more_ poetry but what is rare and decidedly good. There is such a trash of Keats and the like upon my tables that I am ashamed to look at them. I say nothing against your parsons, your S * *s and your C * *s--it is all very fine--but pray dispense me from the pleasure. Instead of poetry, if you will favour me with a few soda-powders, I shall be delighted: but all prose ('bating _travels_ and novels NOT by Scott) is welcome, especially Scott's Tales of my Landlord, and so on.
"In the notes to Marino Faliero, it may be as well to say that '_Benintende_' was not really of _the Ten_, but merely _Grand Chancellor_, a separate office (although important): it was an arbitrary alteration of mine. The Doges too were all _buried_ in St. _Mark's before_ Faliero. It is singular that when his predecessor, Andrea Dandolo, died, _the Ten_ made a law that _all_ the _future Doges_ should be _buried with their families, in their own churches,--one would think by a kind of presentiment_. So that all that is said of his _ancestral Doges_, as buried at St. John's and Paul's, is altered from the fact, _they being in St. Mark's. Make a note_ of this, and put _Editor_ as the subscription to it.
"As I make such pretensions to accuracy, I should not like to be _twitted_ even with such trifles on that score. Of the play they may say what they please, but not so of my costume and _dram. pers._ they having been real existences.
"I omitted Foscolo in my list of living _Venetian worthies, in the notes_, considering him as an _Italian_ in general, and not a mere provincial like the rest; and as an Italian I have spoken of him in the preface to Canto 4th of Childe Harold.
"The French translation of us!!! _oimè! oimè!_--the German; but I don't understand the latter and his long dissertation at the end about the Fausts. Excuse haste. Of politics it is not safe to speak, but nothing is decided as yet.
"I am in a very fierce humour at not having Scott's Monastery. You are _too liberal_ in quantity, and somewhat careless of the quality, of your missives. All the _Quarterlies_ (four in number) I had had before from you, and _two_ of the Edinburgh; but no matter; we shall have new ones by and by. No more Keats, I entreat:--flay him alive; if some of you don't, I must skin him myself. There is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the manikin.
"I don't feel inclined to care further about 'Don Juan.' What do you think a very pretty Italian lady said to me the other day? She had read it in the French, and paid me some compliments, with due DRAWBACKS, upon it. I answered that what she said was true, but that I suspected it would live longer than Childe Harold. '_Ah but_' (said she). '_I would rather have the fame of Childe Harold for three years than an_ IMMORTALITY _of Don Juan!_' The truth is that _it is_ TOO TRUE, and the women hate many things which strip off the tinsel of _sentiment_; and they are right, as it would rob them of their weapons. I never knew a woman who did not hate _De Grammont's Memoirs_ for the same reason: even Lady * * used to abuse them.
"Rose's work I never received. It was seized at Venice. Such is the liberality of the Huns, with their two hundred thousand men, that they dare not let such a volume as his circulate."
* * * * *
LETTER 392. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, 8bre 16°, 1820.
"The Abbot has just arrived; many thanks; as also for the _Monastery--when you send it!!!_
"The Abbot will have a more than ordinary interest for me, for an ancestor of mine by the mother's side, Sir J. Gordon of Gight, the handsomest of his day, died on a scaffold at Aberdeen for his loyalty to Mary, of whom he was an imputed paramour as well as her relation. His fate was much commented on in the Chronicles of the times. If I mistake not, he had something to do with her escape from Loch Leven, or with her captivity there. But this you will know better than I.
"I recollect Loch Leven as it were but yesterday. I saw it in my way to England in 1798, being then ten years of age. My mother, who was as haughty as Lucifer with her descent from the Stuarts, and her right line from the _old Gordons, not the Seyton Gordons_, as she disdainfully termed the ducal branch, told me the story, always reminding me how superior _her_ Gordons were to the southern Byrons, notwithstanding our Norman, and always masculine descent, which has never lapsed into a female, as my mother's Gordons had done in her own person.
"I have written to you so often lately, that the brevity of this will be welcome. Yours," &c.
* * * * *
LETTER 393. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, 8bre 17°, 1820.
"Enclosed is the Dedication of Marino Faliero to _Goethe_. Query,--is his title _Baron_ or not? I think yes. Let me know your opinion, and so forth.
"P.S. Let me know what Mr. Hobhouse and you have decided about the two prose letters and their publication.
"I enclose you an Italian abstract of the German translator of Manfred's Appendix, in which you will perceive quoted what Goethe says of the _whole body_ of English poetry (and _not_ of me in
## particular). On this the Dedication is founded, as you will
perceive, though I had thought of it before, for I look upon him as a great man."
* * * * *
The very singular Dedication transmitted with this letter has never before been published, nor, as far as I can learn, ever reached the hands of the illustrious German. It is written in the poet's most whimsical and mocking mood; and the unmeasured severity poured out in it upon the two favourite objects of his wrath and ridicule compels me to deprive the reader of some of its most amusing passages.
DEDICATION TO BARON GOETHE, &c. &c. &c.
"Sir,--In the Appendix to an English work lately translated into German and published at Leipsic, a judgment of yours upon English poetry is quoted as follows: 'That in English poetry, great genius, universal power, a feeling of profundity, with sufficient tenderness and force, are to be found; but that _altogether these do not constitute poets_,' &c. &c.
"I regret to see a great man falling into a great mistake. This opinion of yours only proves that the '_Dictionary of ten thousand living English Authors_' has not been translated into German. You will have read, in your friend Schlegel's version, the dialogue in Macbeth--
"'There are _ten thousand_! _Macbeth_. _Geese_, villain? _Answer_. _Authors_, sir.'
Now, of these 'ten thousand authors,' there are actually nineteen hundred and eighty-seven poets, all alive at this moment, whatever their works may be, as their booksellers well know; and amongst these there are several who possess a far greater reputation than mine, although considerably less than yours. It is owing to this neglect on the part of your German translators that you are not aware of the works of * * *.
"There is also another, named * * * *
"I mention these poets by way of sample to enlighten you. They form but two bricks of our Babel, (WINDSOR bricks, by the way,) but may serve for a specimen of the building.
"It is, moreover, asserted that 'the predominant character of the whole body of the present English poetry is a _disgust_ and _contempt_ for life.' But I rather suspect that, by one single work of _prose_, _you_ yourself have excited a greater contempt for life than all the English volumes of poesy that ever were written. Madame de Staël says, that 'Werther has occasioned more suicides than the most beautiful woman;' and I really believe that he has put more individuals out of this world than Napoleon himself, except in the way of his profession. Perhaps, Illustrious Sir, the acrimonious judgment passed by a celebrated northern journal upon you in particular, and the Germans in general, has rather indisposed you towards English poetry as well as criticism. But you must not regard our critics, who are at bottom good-natured fellows, considering their two professions,--taking up the law in court, and laying it down out of it. No one can more lament their hasty and unfair judgment, in your particular, than I do; and I so expressed myself to your friend Schlegel, in 1816, at Coppet.
"In behalf of my 'ten thousand' living brethren, and of myself, I have thus far taken notice of an opinion expressed with regard to 'English poetry' in general, and which merited notice, because it was YOURS.
"My principal object in addressing you was to testify my sincere respect and admiration of a man, who, for half a century, has led the literature of a great nation, and will go down to posterity as the first literary character of his age.
"You have been fortunate, Sir, not only in the writings which have illustrated your name, but in the name itself, as being sufficiently musical for the articulation of posterity. In this you have the advantage of some of your countrymen, whose names would perhaps be immortal also--if any body could pronounce them.
"It may, perhaps, be supposed, by this apparent tone of levity, that I am wanting in intentional respect towards you; but this will be a mistake: I am always flippant in prose. Considering you, as I really and warmly do, in common with all your own, and with most other nations, to be by far the first literary character which has existed in Europe since the death of Voltaire, I felt, and feel, desirous to inscribe to you the following work,--_not_ as being either a tragedy or a _poem_, (for I cannot pronounce upon its pretensions to be either one or the other, or both, or neither,) but as a mark of esteem and admiration from a foreigner to the man who has been hailed in Germany 'THE GREAT GOETHE.'
"I have the honour to be,
"With the truest respect,
"Your most obedient and
"Very humble servant,
"BYRON.
"Ravenna, 8bre 14°, 1820.
"P.S. I perceive that in Germany, as well as in Italy, there is a great struggle about what they call '_Classical_' and '_Romantic_,'--terms which were not subjects of classification in England, at least when I left it four or five years ago. Some of the English scribblers, it is true, abused Pope and Swift, but the reason was that they themselves did not know how to write either prose or verse; but nobody thought them worth making a sect of. Perhaps there may be something of the kind sprung up lately, but I have not heard much about it, and it would be such bad taste that I shall be very sorry to believe it."
END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.
End of Project Gutenberg's Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV, by Thomas Moore