"There is here Mr. Taaffe, an Irish genius, with whom we are acquainted. He hath written a really excellent Commentary on Dante, full of new and true information, and much ingenuity. But his verse is such as it hath pleased God to endue him withal. Nevertheless, he is so firmly persuaded of its equal excellence, that he won't divorce the Commentary from the traduction, as I ventured delicately to hint,-not having the fear of Ireland before my eyes, and upon the presumption of having shotten very well in his presence (with common pistols too, not with my Manton's) the day before. "But he is eager to publish all, and must be gratified, though the Reviewers will make him suffer more tortures than there are in his original. Indeed, the Notes are well worth publication; but he insists upon the translation for company, so that they will come out together, like Lady C**t chaperoning Miss**. I read a letter of yours to him yesterday, and he begs me to write to you about his Poeshie. He is really a good fellow, apparently, and I dare say that his verse is very good Irish. Now, what shall we do for him? He says that he will risk part of the expense with the publisher. He will never rest till he is published and abused-for he has a high opinion of himself— and I see nothing left but to gratify him, so as to have him abused as little as possible; for I think it would kill him. You must write, then, to Jeffrey to beg him not to review him, and I will do the same to Gifford, through Murray. Perhaps they might notice the Comment 1 [Mr. Taaffe's "Comment on the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri," Vol. i., was published by Mr. Murray in 1823.] * Having discovered that, while I was abroad, a kind friend had, without any communication with myself, placed at the disposal of the person who acted for me a large sum for the discharge of this claim, I thought it right to allow the money thus generously destined, to be without touching the text. But I doubt the dogs the text is too tempting. I have to thank you again, as I believe I did before, for your opinion of Cain,' &c. "You are right to allow - to settle the claim; but I do not see why you should repay him out of your legacy-at least, not yet. If you feel about it (as you are ticklish on such points), pay him the interest now, and the principal when you are strong in cash; or pay him by instalments; or pay him as I do my creditors that is, not till they make me. "I address this to you at Paris, as you desire. Reply soon, and believe me ever, &c. P. S.-What I wrote to you about low spirits is, however, very true. At present, owing to the climate, &c. (I can walk down into my garden, and pluck my own oranges, -and, by the way, have got a diarrhoea in consequence of indulging in this meridian luxury of proprietorship,) my spirits are much better. You seem to think that I could not have written the Vision,' &c. under the influence of low spirits; but I think there you err. 3 A man's poetry is a distinct faculty, or soul, and has no more to do with the every-day individual than the Inspiration with the Pythoness when removed from her tripod." words of explanation, such passages as the above would be unintelligible. 3 My remark had been hasty and inconsiderate, and Lord Byron's is the view borne out by all experience. Almost all the tragic and gloomy writers have been, in social life, mirthful persons. The author of the Night Thoughts was a "fellow of infinite jest ;" and of the employed as was intended, and then immediately repaid pathetic Rowe, Pope says "He! why, he would laugh my friend out of the sum given by Mr. Murray for the manuscript. It may seem obstrusive, I fear, to enter into this sort of personal details; but, without some few all day long- he would do nothing else but laugh." 4 See "Thoughts on Private Devotion," by Mr. Sheppard. I ÆT. 33. LETTER TO MR. SHEPPARD. possessed unvarying gentleness and fortitude, and a piety so retiring as rarely to disclose itself in words, but so influential as to produce uniform benevolence of conduct. In the last hour of life, after a farewell look on a lately born and only infant, for whom she had evinced inexpressible affection, her last whispers were God's happiness! God's hapSince the second anniversary of piness!' her decease, I have read some papers which no one had seen during her life, and which contain her most secret thoughts. I am induced to communicate to your Lordship a passage from these papers, which, there is no doubt, refers to yourself; as I have more than once heard the writer mention your agility on the rocks at Hastings. 666 Oh, my God, I take encouragement 'July 31. 1814.- Hastings.' "There is nothing, my Lord, in this extract which, in a literary sense, can at all interest you; but it may, perhaps, appear to you worthy of reflection how deep and ex- "It would add nothing, my Lord, to the and 66 JOHN SHEPPARD." However romantic, in the eyes of the cold LETTER 469. "Sir, TO MR. SHEPPARD. "Pisa, December 8. 1821. "I have received your letter. I need has affected me, because it would imply a not say, that the extract which it contains want of all feeling to have read it with indifference. Though I am not quite sure that it was intended by the writer for me, yet the some other circumstances that you mention, date, the place where it was written, with have read it with all the ever it was meant, render the allusion probable. But for whompleasure which can arise from so melancholy a topic. I say pleasure-because your brief and simple picture of the life and demeanour of the excellent person whom I trust you will again meet, cannot be contemplated without pure and unpretending piety. Her last mothe admiration due to her virtues, and her 1 ments were particularly striking; and I do not know that, in the course of reading the story of mankind, and still less in my observations upon the existing portion, I ever met with any thing so unostentatiously beautiful. Indisputably, the firm believers in the Gospel have a great advantage over all others, for this simple reason, that, if true, they will have their reward hereafter; and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope, through life, without subsequent disappointment, since (at the worst for them) out of nothing, nothing can arise,' not even sorrow. But a man's creed does not depend upon himself: who can say, I will believe this, that, or the other? and least of all, that which he least can comprehend. I have, however, observed, that those who have begun life with extreme faith, have in the end greatly narrowed it, as Chillingworth, Clarke (who ended as an Arian), Bayle, and Gibbon (once a Catholic), and some others; while, on the other hand, nothing is more common than for the early sceptic to end in a firm belief, like Maupertuis, and Henry Kirke White. "But my business is to acknowledge your letter, and not to make a dissertation. I am obliged to you for your good wishes, and more than obliged by the extract from the papers of the beloved object whose qualities you have so well described in a few words. I can assure you that all the fame which ever cheated humanity into higher notions of its own importance would never weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous being may be pleased to take in my welfare. In this point of view, I would not exchange the prayer of the deceased in my behalf for the united glory of Homer, Cæsar, and Napoleon, could such be accumulated upon a living head. at least the justice to suppose, that Do me "By extracts in the English papers, your holy ally, Galignani's Messenger,' — I perceive that the two greatest examples of human vanity in the present age' are, firstly, the ex-Emperor Napoleon,' and secondly, his Lordship, &c. the noble poet,' meaning your humble servant, poor guiltless I.' "Poor Napoleon! he little dreamed to what vile comparisons the turn of the wheel | would reduce him! 66 'I have got here into a famous old feudal palazzo, on the Arno, large enough for a garrison, with dungeons below and cells in the walls, and so full of ghosts, that the learned Fletcher (my valet) has begged leave to change his room, and then refused to occupy his new room, because there were more ghosts there than in the other. It is quite true that there are most extraordinary noises (as in all old buildings), which have terrified the servants so as to incommode me extremely. There is one place where people were evidently walled up; for there is but one possible passage, broken through the wall, and then meant to be closed again upon the inmate. The house belonged to the Lanfranchi family, (the same mentioned by Ugolino in his dream, as his persecutor with Sismondi,) and has had a fierce owner or two in its time. 2 The staircase, &c. is said to have been built by Michel Agnolo. It is not yet cold enough for a fire. What a climate! "I am, however, bothered about these spectres, (as they say the last occupants were, too,) of whom I have as yet seen nothing, nor, indeed, heard (myself); but all the other ears have been regaled by all kinds of supernatural sounds. The first night I thought I heard an odd noise, but it has not been repeated. I have now been here more than a month. 'My mother, my wife, my daughter, my halfsister, my sister's mother, my natural daughter (as far at least as I am concerned), and my self, are all only children. 66 My father, by his first marriage with Lady Conyers (an only child), had only my sister; and by his second marriage with an only child, an only child again. Lady Byron, as you know, was one also, and so is my daughter, &c. such a com"Is not this rather odd I plication of only children? By the way; send me my daughter Ada's miniature. have only the print, which gives little or no idea of her complexion. LETTER 472. Yours, &c. TO MR. MOORE. B." "Pisa, December 12. 1821. "What you say about Galignani's two debiographies is very amusing; and, if I were not lazy, I would certainly do what you sire. But I doubt my present stock of face- that is, of good serious humour, I tiousness so as not to let the cat out of the bag. 2 wish you would undertake it. I will forgive and indulge you (like a Pope) beforehand, for any thing ludicrous, that might keep those fools in their own dear belief that a man is a loup garou. "I suppose I told you that the Giaour had actually some foundation on facts; story or, if I did not, you will one day find it in a letter of Lord Sligo's, written to me after I should not the publication of the poem. like marvels to rest upon any account of my own, and shall say nothing about it. However, the real incident is still remote 1 ["During our drive this evening, Lord Byron hardly spoke a word. There was a sacredness in his melancholy that I dared not interrupt. At length he said, 'This is Ada's birth-day, and might have been the happiest day of my life: as it is!' He stopped, seemingly ashamed of having betrayed his feelings. All at once our silence was interrupted by shrieks that seemed to proceed from We pulled up to enquire of a contadino. He a cottage. told us, that a widow had just lost her only child, and that the sounds proceeded from the wailings of some women over the corpse. Lord Byron was much affected. I shall not be happy,' said he, till I hear that my daughter I have a great horror of anniversaries."— is well. MEDWIN.] purpose of 2 Mr. Galignani having expressed a wish to be furnished with a short Memoir of Lord Byron, for the prefixing it to the French edition of his works, I had said enough from the poetical one, being just 's &c. are as 'german to the matter' as Mr. Maturin could desire for his novels. *. * * * "The consummation you mentioned for poor Taaffe was near taking place yesterday. Riding pretty sharply after Mr. Medwin and myself, in turning the corner of a lane be As was tween Pisa and the hills, he was spilt,—and, would be but a fair satire on the disposition of the world jestingly in a preceding letter to his Lordship, that it to "bemonster his features," if he would write for the account of himself, outdoing, in horrors and wonders, all public, English as well as French, a sort of mock-heroic that had yet been related or believed of him, and leaving even Goethe's story of the double murder at Florence far behind. 3 The following are the lines enclosed in this letter. In one of his Journals, where they are also given, he has subjoined to them the following note:-"I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now), a few days ago on the road from Florence to Pisa. "Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story; Nn never will rest till he is so. He is just gone with his broken head to Lucca, at my desire, to try to save a man from being burnt. The Spanish * *, that has her petticoats over Lucca, had actually condemned a poor devil to the stake, for stealing the wafer box out of a church. Shelley and I, of course, were up in arms against this piece of piety, and have been disturbing every body to get the sentence changed. Taaffe is gone to see what can be done. LETTER 473. TO MR. SHELLEY. "My dear Shelley, "B." "December 12. 1821. "Enclosed is a note for you from His reasons are all very true, I dare say, and it might and may be of personal inconvenience to us. But that does not appear to me to be a reason to allow a being to be burnt without trying to save him. To save him by any means but remonstrance is of course out of the question; but I do not see why a temperate remonstrance should hurt any one. Lord Guilford is the man, if he would undertake it. He knows the Grand Duke personally, and might, perhaps, prevail upon him to interfere. But, as he goes to-morrow, you must be quick, or it will be useless. Make any use of my name that you please. "Yours ever, &c." PISA. "P. B. SHELLEY." CHAPTER XLVIII 1822. LETTERS TO SIR WALTER SCOTT ON HIS REVIEW OF CHILDE HAROLD, AND ACCEPTANCE OF THE DEDICATION OF CAIN -TO KINNAIRD, MURRAY, AND MOORE, ON THE OUTCRY AGAINST THE MYSTERY.— DEATH OF LADY NOEL. THE TRAGEDY OF WERNER CONCLUDED.-PIRACIES OF CAIN.-DECISION OF THE LORD CHANPROPOSED MEETING WITH SOUTHEY. DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER ALLEGRA.-AFFRAY AT PISA.-LETTER TO MURRAY CONCERNING ALLEGRA'S FUNERAL. INVITED ON BOARD THE AMERICAN SQUADRON. -TRANSLATIONS OF CHILDE HAROLD. PARTIALITY OF GOETHE AND THE GERMANS TO DON JUAN. CELLOR. 'My dear Sir Walter, "I NEED not say how grateful I am for your letter', but I must own my ingratitude in not having written to you again long ago. dedicated Cain.' The sight of one of his letters always does me good." - MEDWIN.] |