Read Ebook: Life of Lord Byron Vol. 3 With His Letters and Journals by Moore Thomas

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"I have been sparring with Jackson for exercise this morning; and mean to continue and renew my acquaintance with the muffles. My chest, and arms, and wind are in very good plight, and I am not in flesh. I used to be a hard hitter, and my arms are very long for my height . At any rate, exercise is good, and this the severest of all; fencing and the broad-sword never fatigued me half so much.

"Redde the 'Quarrels of Authors' --a new work, by that most entertaining and researching writer, Israeli. They seem to be an irritable set, and I wish myself well out of it. 'I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat.' What the devil had I to do with scribbling? It is too late to enquire, and all regret is useless. But, an' it were to do again,--I should write again, I suppose. Such is human nature, at least my share of it;--though I shall think better of myself, if I have sense to stop now. If I have a wife, and that wife has a son--by any body--I will bring up mine heir in the most anti-poetical way--make him a lawyer, or a pirate, or--any thing. But, if he writes too, I shall be sure he is none of mine, and cut him off with a Bank token. Must write a letter--three o'clock.

"Sunday, March 20.

"I intended to go to Lady Hardwicke's, but won't. I always begin the day with a bias towards going to parties; but, as the evening advances, my stimulus fails, and I hardly ever go out--and, when I do, always regret it. This might have been a pleasant one;--at least, the hostess is a very superior woman. Lady Lansdowne's to morrow--Lady Heathcote's Wednesday. Um!--I must spur myself into going to some of them, or it will look like rudeness, and it is better to do as other people do--confound them!

"Lord Erskine called to-day. He means to carry down his reflections on the war--or rather wars--to the present day. I trust that he will. Must send to Mr. Murray to get the binding of my copy of his pamphlet finished, as Lord E. has promised me to correct it, and add some marginal notes to it. Any thing in his handwriting will be a treasure, which will gather compound interest from years. Erskine has high expectations of Mackintosh's promised History. Undoubtedly it must be a classic, when finished.

"Sparred with Jackson again yesterday morning, and shall to-morrow. I feel all the better for it, in spirits, though my arms and shoulders are very stiff from it. Mem. to attend the pugilistic dinner:--Marquess Huntley is in the chair.

"Lord Erskine thinks that ministers must be in peril of going out. So much the better for him. To me it is the same who are in or out;--we want something more than a change of ministers, and some day we will have it.

"I remember, in riding from Chrisso to Castri , along the sides of Parnassus, I saw six eagles in the air. It is uncommon to see so many together; and it was the number--not the species, which is common enough--that excited my attention.

"Tuesday, March 22.

"The Princess of Wales has requested Fuseli to paint from 'The Corsair,'--leaving to him the choice of any passage for the subject: so Mr. Locke tells me. Tired, jaded, selfish, and supine--must go to bed.

"Albany, March 28.

"April 8.

"Saturday, April 9. 1814.

"I mark this day!

"Napoleon Buonaparte has abdicated the throne of the world. 'Excellent well.' Methinks Sylla did better; for he revenged and resigned in the height of his sway, red with the slaughter of his foes--the finest instance of glorious contempt of the rascals upon record. Dioclesian did well too--Amurath not amiss, had he become aught except a dervise--Charles the Fifth but so so--but Napoleon, worst of all. What! wait till they were in his capital, and then talk of his readiness to give up what is already gone!! 'What whining monk art thou--what holy cheat?' 'Sdeath!--Dionysius at Corinth was yet a king to this. The 'Isle of Elba' to retire to!--Well--if it had been Caprea, I should have marvelled less. 'I see men's minds are but a parcel of their fortunes.' I am utterly bewildered and confounded.

"Psha! 'something too much of this.' But I won't give him up even now; though all his admirers have, 'like the thanes, fallen from him.'

"April 10.

"April 19. 1814.

"There is ice at both poles, north and south--all extremes are the same--misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only,--to the emperor and the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. There is, to be sure, a damned insipid medium--an equinoctial line--no one knows where, except upon maps and measurement.

The perusal of this singular Journal having made the reader acquainted with the chief occurrences that marked the present period of his history--the publication of The Corsair, the attacks upon him in the newspapers, &c.--there only remains for me to add his correspondence at the same period, by which the moods and movements of his mind, during these events, will be still further illustrated.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Sunday, Jan. 2. 1814.

"Yours," &c.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"P.S. I shall answer this evening, and will set all right about Dallas. I thank you for your expressions of personal regard, which I can assure you I do not lightly value."

LETTER 155. TO MR. MOORE.

"January 6. 1814.

"However, we shall see. In the mean time, you may amuse yourself with my suspense, and put all the justices of peace in requisition, in case I come into your county with 'hackbut bent.'

"Thomas, thou art a happy fellow; but if you wish us to be so, you must come up to town, as you did last year: and we shall have a world to say, and to see, and to hear. Let me hear from you.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Jan. 7. 1814.

"Yours, BN.

LETTER 156. TO MR. MOORE.

"January 8. 1814.

"Take your choice;--no one, save he and Mr. Dallas, has seen either, and D. is quite on my side, and for the first. If I can but testify to you and the world how truly I admire and esteem you, I shall be quite satisfied. As to prose, I don't know Addison's from Johnson's; but I will try to mend my cacology. Pray perpend, pronounce, and don't be offended with either.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"January 11. 1814.

"Wednesday or Thursday.

"I do not love Madame de Sta?l; but, depend upon it, she beats all your natives hollow as an authoress, in my opinion; and I would not say this if I could help it.

TO MR. MOORE.

"January 13. 1814.

"I write in an agony of haste and confusion.--Perdonate."

LETTER 157. TO MR. MURRAY.

"January 15. 1814.

TO MR. MURRAY.

LETTER 158. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Newstead Abbey, January 22. 1814.

"B.

"I open my letter to thank you for yours just received. The 'Lines to a Lady Weeping' must go with The Corsair. I care nothing for consequence, on this point. My politics are to me like a young mistress to an old man--the worse they grow, the fonder I become of them. As Mr. Gilford likes the 'Portuguese Translation,' pray insert it as an addition to The Corsair.

LETTER 159. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Newstead Abbey, February 4. 1814.

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