with the exception of English Bards, the Vision, the Hours, the Age of Bronse, and the last cantos (eleven) of Don Juan (all which he bought of the Executors at a cost of £3885); that, besides what he gave Dallas for the First and Second Harold and The Giaour (1125 in all), he paid to Byron nearly £15,000 in hard cash; that he purchased the Ms. Memoir of Moore for £2100, and had decided to destroy it, and to be at the loss of the purchase-money, when the matter was taken out of his hands; that in answer to Leigh Hunt's attack on Byron's memory (see post, p. 435, Note to Letter clxxiv.) he commissioned Moore to prepare the Life and Letters (1830), himself contributing a good half of the matter, agreed to pay him four thousand guineas for the work, and in the long-run paid him £600 more; and that in 1837 he produced the annotated edition of the Poems which, in one or other of its forms, has been hitherto the sole complete Byron to be had. Murray, in fact, was Byron's publisher, even as Byron was Murray's poet; and to disassociate their several names and fames would, now or ever, be impossible. Editor of one of the principal reviews :—To wit, The Quarterly. Some smaller poems (never published):-For the names of those included in the Quarto-fourteen in number-see post, vol. v. Bibliographical Note to the First and Second Harold. LETTER XC. p. 139. Sending the MS. to Juvenal:-That is, Hodgson, who had published a translation of the Roman four years before. Gasping for the press at Cawthorn's:-In an (unpublished) letter, dated Newstead, 1st September of this year, Mr. Cawthorn,' Byron writes, 'how does the printer proceed? Let the devil be attentive,' for 'you cannot expect a "votary of Apollo" to busy himself with proof-sheets.' Still, they must all be posted, 'as I am about to amend them,' so 'if you wish to see a radiant countenance,' etc. etc. Miss Milbanke's Cottage of Friendship':- As we have seen, Miss Milbanke patronised Blackett, set him up in a cottage, and had him buried in Seaham Churchyard. The newspapers seem much disappointed :—In the late autumn of 1810 the death of Princess Amelia, the old King's favourite daughter, had precipitated, if it had not determined, the mental illness from which he never recovered; so that the Prince of Wales was sworn in as Regent in the early February of the next year (1811). LETTER Xci. p. 141. Our heir, George Anson Byron, and his sister :-Julia-Maria, sister of the present Lord Byron; who married, in 1817, the Rev. Robert Heath, Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford.-MOORE. There is a sucking epic poet at Granta :-The Rev. George Townsend of Trinity, Cambridge. See Hints from Horace : For you, young bard, whom luckless fate may lead To tremble on the nod of all who read: and the long note attached to the passage :-'About two years ago a young man named Townsend was announced by Mr. Cumberland (in a review since deceased) as being engaged on an epic poem to be entitled Armageddon, etc. In 1815 Townsend published eight of the twelve books in which his epic was to have been contained. They were all he ever wrote; for, says he, in his introduction, "In the benevolence of his heart, Mr. Cumberland bestowed praise on me, certainly too abundantly and prematurely, but I hope that any deficiency on my part may be imputed to the true cause-my own inability to support a subject, under which the greatest mental powers must inevitably sink. My talents were ueither equal to my own ambition, nor his zeal to serve me." Townsend's Cumberland was the once popular dramatist and essayist (1732-1801). To the Goldsmith of Retaliation he was 'the Terence of England, the mender of hearts'; to Sheridan, the best character in the best of modern farces-the Sir Fretful Plagiary of The Critic. LETTER Xcii. p. 143. A or a Bonse:-The word is illegible in the original.— J. T. HODGSON, Memoir, etc., ut sup. LETTER Xciii. p. 145. Massena's retreat:-From the lines of Torres Vedras; for us, according to Napier, the most ticklish moment of the campaign. So you perceive I cannot alter the sentiments:-Writing 4th September 1811, Murray had asked Byron to reconsider his remarks on Spain and Portugal, together with certain expressions 'which may deprive me of some customers among the Orthodox': with the result that Sir Arthur Wellesley, Sir Hew Dalrymple, Lord Elgin (still the modern Pict'), and the rest were somewhat spared, and that in Canto ii. the existing Eighth Stanza took the place of this one :— Frown not upon me, churlish Priest! that I I am no sneerer at thy phantasy; Of happy isles and happier tenants there; I ask thee not to prove a Sadducee; Still dream of Paradise, thou know'st not where, But lov'st too well to bid thine erring brother share. Did you show the MS. to some of your corps :-Murray had, in fact, submitted the MS. to Gifford (among others), and Byron resented the proceeding, inasmuch as he thought it looked like currying favour with the editor of a popular and powerful review. To be done with the matter: Gifford & Co. approved, but Murray doubted, and Dallas's expectation-('that he would make a very liberal arrangement with me for it')-caused him to doubt still more. In the end he compromised, took the poem on the halfprofits system, and arranged to publish it in 'a handsome quarto edition,' thanks to which, Dallas netted £600. LETTER XCV. p. 147. Spin canzonettas for Vauxhall:-Vauxhall was still extremely popular, and the Popular Muse-when was she ever aught but imbecile? On the introduction of George Thomson of the Scottish Airs, she had long since corrupted and debilitated the Burns of those last years at Dumfries; and she was no whit better now than then. For a proof of Figaro's mot, indeed-If there's anything not worth saying, sing it!-see the three volumes of The Busy Bee, or Vocal Repository, published (with portraits of Mrs. Billington, Captain Morris, and Mrs. Martyr) some twenty years before this time. Your friend's Ode I have read :-'An Ode written by Mr. Walter Wright, on the occasion of the Duke of Gloucester's installation as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.'-MOORE. Wright is 'the author of Hora Ionice' of a few lines down the page; and in a Note [B.] to English Bards :— Blest is the man who dare approach the bower Hora Ionica-(A Poem, Descriptive of the Ionian Isles and Part of the Adjacent Coast of Greece)—is described as a very beautiful poem just published . . . descriptive of the adjacent isles of Greece.' A third edition, the only one in the British Museum, was published in 1816, and includes a Translation of Alfieri's Tragedy Orestes.' Murray's Editor notes that Wright-' late consul-general for the Seven Islands' [B.]-on his return to England was chosen Recorder for Bury St. Edmonds.' The Smythe of the sentence was William Smythe, M.A., Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, hero of two couplets (both expunged) in English Bards :— Though printers condescend the press to soil With odes by Smythe and epic songs by Hoyle; So sunk in dulness and so lost in shame That Smythe and Hodgson scarce redeem thy name. LETTER Xcvi. p. 149. 'Juvenal' and 'Lady Jane' :-See ante, p. 319, Note to Letter XXXV. Hal of Harrow:-The Rev. Henry Drury. LETTER Xcviii. p. 151. Anacreon Moore's new operatic farce :-This was M.P., or The Bluestocking, produced at the Lyceum, 9th September 1811. The author was far from proud of his work. But eight songs from it are included in his Works; and poor enough they are. Malthus on Population:-The famous Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) of the Rev. T. R. Malthus (1766-1834). LETTER cii. p. 155. A little French volume, a great favourite with me:-Fougeret de Monbron (171?-1761) was born at Péronne; served in the Gardes du Corps; and wrote a Henriade Travestie, with le Cosmopolite (1750), and Margot la Ravaudeuse (1750). An edition of le Cosmopolite, ou le Citoyen du Monde was published in London in 1761. LETTER ciii. p. 157. I wish Murray had been tied to Payne's neck :-Payne, of the firm of Payne and Mackinlay, was a publisher (Hodgson's) who committed suicide in the Paddington Canal. In a note to the Hints from Horace, Mr. Southey,' Byron says, 'has lately tied another canister to his tail in the Curse of Kehama, maugre the neglect of Madoc, etc., and has in one instance had a wonderful effect. A literary friend of mine, walking out one lovely evening last summer, on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington canal, was alarmed by the cry of "one in jeopardy": he rushed along, collected a body of Irish haymakers (supping on butter-milk in an adjacent paddock), procured three rakes, one eel-spear, and a landing-net, and at last (horresco referens) pulled out-his own publisher. The unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which proved, on inquiry, to have been Mr. Southey's last work. Its "alacrity of sinking," etc. etc. etc. LETTER CV. p. 158. Hobhouse is also forthcoming:-That is, with the MS. of certain Notes to the First and Second Harold. LETTER cvi. p. 159. The ninth verse of the Good Night' :— Perchance my dog will whine in vain Till fed by stranger hands; But long ere I come back again He'd tear me where he stands. Thus, in effect, it has always read. The Giant's staff from St. Dunstan's Church :-Murray's shop at 32 Fleet Street stood over against old St. Dunstan in the West, which church was one of the sights of London for over a hundred and fifty years, by reason of a famous mechanical clock, the work of Thomas Harris, living at the end of Water Lane,' whereon the hours were struck by the staves of two brazen giants, put up in 1671 (When the alarm strikes,' cries Congreve's Sir Sampson, 'they shall keep time like the figures of St. Dunstan's clock'). Says Mr. Wheatley in his excellent London :-'When the old clock was taken down, the two figures were bought by the Marquis of Hertford and removed '-1831-'to his lordship's villa in Regent's Park. Moxon says that the removal of the figures drew tears from Charles Lamb's eyes.' Also:-'The villa is still called St. Dunstan's, and is now (1896) occupied by Mr. H. Hucks Gibbs.' Mr. Wheatley does not fail to add that St. Dunstan's (of which John Donne was Vicar) Churchyard was a bookselling centre, where Southwick had his shop 'under the Diall,' and published Romeo and Juliet (1609) and Hamlet (1611), and where Richard Marriot published The Compleat Angler (1653). There, too, Campion was buried, and Simon Wadlow, landlord of the Devil Tavern, Ben Jonson's 'Sim, the King of Skinkers.' As for Number 32 itself, it had witnessed the birth (under John 1.) of Langhorne's Plutarch, Mitford's Greece, Isaac Disraeli's first Curiosities, and Lavater's famous Physiognomy; under John II., that of more books than I care to enumerate. It was now to be the starting-point of |