6 There the deuce is in it, if that is not an improvement to Whitbread's content. Recollect, it is the name,' and not the magic,' that has a noble contempt for those same weapons. If it were the magic,' my metaphor would be somewhat of the maddest so the name' is the antecedent. But, my dear Lord, your patience is not quite so immortal-therefore, with many and sincere thanks, I am "Yours ever most affectionately. "P. S.-I foresee there will be charges of partiality in the papers; but you know I sent in no Address; and glad both you and I must be that I did not, for, in that case, their plea had been plausible. I doubt the Pit will be testy; but conscious innocence (a novel and pleasing sensation) makes me bold." LETTER 102. TO LORD HOLLAND. 66 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 you. 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. I wish much to see you, and will be at Tetbury by twelve on Saturday; and from 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 cudgelled my brains with the greatest willingness, and only wish I had more time to have done better. 66 You will find a sort of clap-trap laudatory couplet inserted for the quiet of the Committee, 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." "Far be that hour that vainly asks in turn crown'd his Such verse for him as wept o'er Garrick's urn. "September 30. 1812. "Will you choose between these added to the lines on Sheridan ? 1 I think they will wind up the panegyric, and agree with the train of thought preceding them. "Now, one word as to the Committee how could they resolve on a rough copy of an Address never sent in, unless you had been good enough to retain in memory, or on paper, the thing they have been good enough to adopt? By the by, the circumstances of the case should make the Committee less ' avidus gloriæ,' for all praise of them would look plaguy suspicious. If necessary to be stated at all, the simple facts bear them out. They surely had a right to act as they pleased. My sole object is one which, I trust, my whole conduct has shown; viz. that I did nothing insidious- sent in no Address whatever-but, when applied to, did my best for them and myself; but, above all, that there was no undue partiality, which will be what the rejected will endeavour to make out. Fortunately most fortunately - I sent in no lines on the occasion. For I am sure that had they, in that case, been preferred, it would have been asserted that I was known, and owed the preference to private friendship. This is what we shall probably have to encounter; but, if once spoken and approved, we sha'n't be much embarrassed by their brilliant conjectures; and, as to criticism, an old author, like an old bull, grows cooler (or ought) at every baiting. - THE CHELTENHAM.-LETTERS TO MR. MURRAY, MR. WILLIAM BANKES, LORD HOLLAND, AND MR. ROGERS. — GRANVILLE PENN'S CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, AND Bioscope, OR DIAL OF LIFE EXPLAINED. REJECTED ADDRESSES. DR. BUSBY. JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. PUBLICATION OF THE WALTZ AND OF THE GIAOUR. GROUND-WORK OF THE FICTION. LETTER FROM LORD SLIGO.SUCCESS OF THE POEM. NEW EDITIONS -AND ADDITIONAL PASSAGES. A SUPPER AT MR. ROGERS'S.-LORD THURLOW'S POEMS. ANECDOTES OF SHERIDAN. — GEORGE COLMAN. ACQUAINTANCE WITH MR. LEIGH HUNT-VISIT TO MR. HUNT IN HORSEMONGER-LANE GAOL. THIRD AND LAST SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS. PARLIAMENTARY RECOLLECTIONS. -GRATTAN. FOX. GREY. CANNING.-WINDHAM.-WHITBREAD.HOLLAND. - LANSDOWne. GRENVILLE. -BURDETT. WARD. PEEL. -WILERSKINE. LAUDERDALE. -SHERIDAN.-HORNE TOOKE.-FLOOD. BERFORCE. COURTENAY. THE time comprised in the series of letters to Lord Holland, which, as being exclusively ten. on one subject, I have thought it right to whom I know not, but evidently the comgive without interruption, Lord Byron position of some one in the habit of writing, passed, for the most part, at Cheltenham; and of writing well. I do not know if he be and during the same period, the following the author of the Bioscope' which accomletters to other correspondents were writ-panied them; but whoever he is, if you can discover him, thank him from me most heartily. The other letters were from ladies, who are welcome to convert me when they please; and if I can discover them, and they be young, as they say they are, I could convince them perhaps of my devotion. I had also a letter from Mr. Walpole on matters of this world, which I have answered. LETTER 107. TO MR. MURRAY. 64 High Street, Cheltenham, Sept. 5. 1812. "Pray have the goodness to send those despatches, and a No. of the Edinburgh Review with the rest. I hope you have written to Mr. Thompson, thanked him in my name for his present, and told him that I shall be truly happy to comply with his request. How do you go on? and when is the graven image, with bays and wicked rhyme upon't, to grace, or disgrace, some of our tardy editions? "Send me Rokeby. Who the deuce is he? no matter, he has good connections, and will be well introduced. I thank you for your inquiries: I am so so, but my thermometer is sadly below the poetical point. What will you give me or mine for a poem of six cantos, (when complete -no rhyme, no recompense,) as like the last two as I can make them? I have some ideas that one day may be embodied, and till winter I shall have much leisure. "P. S. - My last question is in the true style of Grub Street; but, like Jeremy Diddler, I only ask for information.'Send me Adair on Diet and Regimen, just republished by Ridgway." "Cheltenham, Sept. 14. 1812. "The parcels contained some letters and verses, all (but one) anonymous and complimentary, and very anxious for my conversion from certain infidelities into which my good-natured correspondents conceive me to have fallen. The books were presents of a convertible kind also,— Christian Knowledge' and the Bioscope,' a religious Dial of Life explained: to the author of the former (Cadeil, publisher,) I beg you will forward my best thanks for his letter, his present, and, above all, his good intentions. The 'Bioscope' contained a MS. copy of very excellent verses 3, from 2 "So you are Lucien's publisher! I am promised an interview with him, and think I shall ask you for a letter of introduction, as the gods have made him poetical.' From whom could it come with a better grace than from his publisher and mine? Is it not somewhat treasonable in you to have to do with a relative of the direful foe,' as the Morning Post calls his brother? "But my book on 'Diet and Regimen,' where is it? I thirst for Scott's Rokeby; let me have your first-begotten copy. The Anti-jacobin Review is all very well, and not a bit worse than the Quarterly, and at least less harmless. By the by, have you secured my books? I want all the Reviews, at least the critiques, quarterly, monthly, &c., Portuguese and English, extracted, and bound up and pray, sort my Romaic books, and get the in one volume for my old age; had them now a long time. If any thing occurs, you will favour me with a line, and in winter we shall be nearer neighbours. Yours, &c. volumes lent to Mr. Hobhouse- he has 66 "BYRON." "P. S.-I was applied to to write the Address for Drury Lane, but the moment I heard of the contest, I gave up the idea of contending against all Grub Street, and threw a few thoughts on the subject into the fire. I did this out of respect to you, being sure you would have turned off any of your authors who had entered the lists with such scurvy competitors. To triumph would have been no glory; and to have been defeated 'sdeath! I would have choked myself, like Otway, with a quartern loaf: so, remember I had, and have, nothing to do with it, upon my honour!" [In Kenney's farce of " Raising the Wind."] 2 [The author of both works was Granville Penn, Esq., a gentleman descended from the family of Penn of Pennsylvania, and much distinguished for his learning and piety.] 3 [See BYRONIANA.] 4 [This is recorded by one of his biographers; but Pope, in Spence's Anecdotes, relates that Otway died of a fever caught by violent pursuit of an assassin who had fired at one of his friends.] LETTER 109. TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES. "Cheltenham, September 28. 1812. "My dear Bankes, "When you point out to one how people can be intimate at the distance of some seventy leagues, I will plead guilty to your charge, and accept your farewell, but not wittingly, till you give me some better reason than my silence, which merely proceeded from a notion founded on your own declaration of old, that you hated writing and receiving letters. Besides, how was I to find out a man of many residences? If I had addressed you now, it had been to your borough, where I must have conjectured you were amongst your constituents. in despite of Mr. N. and Lady W., you shall be as much better' as the Hexham postoffice will allow me to make you. I do assure you I am much indebted to you for thinking of me at all, and can't spare you even from amongst the superabundance of friends with whom you suppose me surrounded. So now, are "You heard that Newstead is sold the sum 140,000/.; sixty to remain in mortgage on the estate for three years, paying interest, of course. Rochdale is also likely to do well- - so my worldly matters mending. I have been here some time drinking the waters, simply because there are waters to drink, and they are very medicinal, and sufficiently disgusting. In a few days I set out for Lord Jersey's, but return here, where I am quite alone, go out very little, and enjoy in its fullest extent the 'dolce far niente.' What you are about I cannot guess, even from your date; ;- not dauncing to the sound of the gitourney in the Halls of the Lowthers? one of whom is here, ill, poor thing, with a phthisic. I heard that you passed through here (at the sordid inn where I first alighted) the very day before I arrived in these parts. We "Early in the autumn of 1812," says Mr. Dallas, “ he told me that he was urged by his man of business, and that Newstead must be sold." It was accordingly brought to the hammer at Garraway's, but not, at that time, sold, only 90,000. being offered for it The private sale to which he alludes in this letter took place soon after, Mr. Claughton, the agent for Mr. Leigh, being the purchaser. It was never, however, for reasons which we shall see, completed. 2 [The party were returning from Tintern Abbey in a pleasure boat, and were preparing to land below the bridge at Chepstow, when, on coming through the centre arch, where a barge was moored across, the rope taking the bottom of the boat, upset it. Out of the twelve of which the party consisted, seven actually perished.] 3 A mode of signature he frequently adopted at this time. ^ [" Three-and-forty addresses, properly folded, sealed, had a very pleasant set here; at first the Jerseys, Melbournes, Cowpers, and Hollands, but all gone; and the only persons I know are the Rawdons and Oxfords, with some later acquaintances of less brilliant descent. But I do not trouble them much; and as for your rooms and your assemblies, they are not dreamed of in our philosophy!!'- Did you read of a sad accident in the Wye t' other day? A dozen drowned; and Mr. Rossoe, a corpulent gentleman, preserved by a boat-hook or an eel-spear, begged, when he heard his wife was saved- no- ·lost to be thrown in again!! as if he could not have thrown himself in, had he wished it; but this passes for a trait of sensibility. What strange beings men are, in and out of the Wye!? "I have to ask you a thousand pardons for not fulfilling some orders before I left town; but if you knew all the cursed entanglements I had to wade through, it would be unnecessary to beg your forgiveness. When will Parliament (the new one) meet? marked and directed, reached the committee. The builders of the lofty pile were totally at a loss to know how to dispose of the builders of the lofty rhyme: the latter all spoke different languages, and all, to the former, equally unintelligible. The committee were alike confounded with the number of addresses, and their own debates. No such confusion of tongues had accompanied any erection since the building of Babel; nor could matters have been set to rights (unless by a miracle), if the convenient though not very candid plan of rejecting all the addresses had not occurred as a mezzotermine in which the whole committee might safely agree; and the addresses were rejected accordingly. We do not think that they deserved, in true poetical justice, a better fate: not one was excellent, two or three only were tolerable, and the rest so execrable that we wonder this committee of taste did not agree upon one of them. But, as the several bards were induced to expend their precious time their subsequent application to me, I have written a prologue, which has been received, and will be spoken. The MS. is now in the hands of Lord Holland. "I write this merely to say, that (however it is received by the audience) you will publish it in the next edition of Childe Harold; and I only beg you at present to keep my name secret till you hear further from me, and as soon as possible I wish you to have a correct copy, to do with as you think proper. "P. S.-I should wish a few copies printed off before, that the newspaper copies may be correct after the delivery." LETTER 111. TO MR. MURRAY. "Cheltenham, Oct. 12. 1812. "I have a very strong objection to the engraving of the portrait, and request that it may, on no account, be prefixed; but let all the proofs be burnt, and the plate broken. I will be at the expense which has been incurred; it is but fair that I should, since I cannot permit the publication. I beg, as a particular favour, that you will lose no time in having this done, for which I have reasons that I will state when I see you. Forgive all the trouble I have occasioned you. "I have received no account of the reception of the Address, but see it is vituperated in the papers, which does not much embarrass an old author. I leave it to your own judgment to add it, or not, to your next edition when required. Pray comply strictly with my wishes as to the engraving, and believe me, &c. "P. S.-Favour me with an answer, as I shall not be easy till I hear that the proofs, &c. are destroyed. I hear that the Satirist has reviewed Childe Harold, in what manner I need not ask; but I wish to know if the old personalities are revived? I have a better reason for asking this than any that merely concerns myself; but in publica and more precious paper, by the implicit engagement on the part of the committee that the best bidder should have the contract, we think they have a right to protest against the injustice of this wholesale rejection. It was about as fair as it would be in Messrs. Bish and Carter, after they had disposed of all their lottery tickets, to acquaint the holders that there should be no drawing, but that they intended to transfer the twenty thousand pound prize to an acquaintance of their own. The committee, we readily admit, made an absurd engagement; but surely they were bound to keep it ! In the dilemma to which that learned body was reduced by the rejection of all the biddings, they put themselves under the care of Lord Byron, who prescribed in their case a composition which bears the honour of his name."- Quart. Rev. vol. iii. p. 175.] 1 A miniature by Sanders. Besides this miniature, Sanders had also painted a full-length of his Lordship, tions of that kind, others, particularly female names, are sometimes introduced." LETTER 112. TO LORD HOLLAND. "My dear Lord, "Cheltenham, Oct. 14. 1812. "I perceive that the papers, yea, even Perry's, are somewhat ruffled at the injudicious preference of the Committee. My friend Perry has, indeed, 'et tu Brute'-d me rather scurvily, for which I will send him, for the M. C., the next epigram I scribble, as a token of my full forgiveness. "Do the Committee mean to enter into no explanation of their proceedings? You must see there is a leaning towards a charge of partiality. You will, at least, acquit me of any great anxiety to push myself before so many elder and better anonymous, to whom the twenty guineas (which I take to be about two thousand pounds Bank currency) and the honour would have been equally welcome. Honour,' I see, 'hath skill in paragraph-writing.' 6 "I wish to know how it went off at the second reading, and whether any one has had the grace to give it a glance of approbation. I have seen no paper but Perry's and two Sunday ones. Perry is severe, and the others silent. If, however, you and your Committee are not now dissatisfied with your own judgments, I shall not much embarrass myself about the brilliant remarks of the journals. My own opinion upon it is what it always was, perhaps pretty near that of the public. "Believe me, my dear Lord, &c. &c. "P. S. My best respects to Lady H., whose smiles will be very consolatory, even at this distance." LETTER 113. TO MR. MURRAY. "Cheltenham, Oct. 18. 1811. "Will you have the goodness to get this Parody of a peculiar kind 2 (for all the first from which the portrait prefixed to the quarto edition of this work is engraved. In reference to the latter picture, Lord Byron says, in a note to Mr. Rogers, "If you think the picture you saw at Murray's worth your acceptance, it is yours; and you may put a glove or mask on it, if you like." 2 Among the Addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Committee was one by Dr. Busby, entitled a Monologue, of which the Parody was enclosed in this letter. A short specimen of this trifle will be sufficient. The four first lines of the Doctor's Address are as follows: "When energising objects men pursue, Which verses are thus ridiculed, unnecessarily, in the |