The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4

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_Both_. I have written the prologue, and meant to have prayed
For a spice of your wit in an epilogue's aid.

_Ink_. Well, time enough yet, when the play's to be played.
Is it cast yet?

_Both_. The actors are fighting for parts,
As is usual in that most litigious of arts.

_Lady Blueb_. We'll all make a party, and go the _first_ night.

_Tra_. And you promised the epilogue, Inkel.

_Ink_. Not quite.
However, to save my friend Botherby trouble,
I'll do what I can, though my pains must be double. 90

_Tra_. Why so?

_Ink_. To do justice to what goes before.

_Both_. Sir, I'm happy to say, I've no fears on that score.
Your parts, Mr. Inkel, are----

_Ink_. Never mind _mine_;
Stick to those of your play, which is quite your own line.

_Lady Bluem_. You're a fugitive writer, I think, sir, of rhymes?[627]

_Ink_. Yes, ma'am; and a fugitive reader sometimes.
On Wordswords, for instance, I seldom alight,
Or on Mouthey, his friend, without taking to flight.

_Lady Bluem_. Sir, your taste is too common; but time and posterity
Will right these great men, and this age's severity 100
Become its reproach.

_Ink_. I've no sort of objection,
So I'm not of the party to take the infection.

_Lady Blueb_. Perhaps you have doubts that they ever will _take_?

_Ink_. Not at all; on the contrary, those of the lake
Have taken already, and still will continue
To take--what they can, from a groat to a guinea,
Of pension or place;--but the subject's a bore.

_Lady Bluem_. Well, sir, the time's coming.

_Ink_. Scamp! don't you feel sore?
What say you to this?

_Scamp_. They have merit, I own;
Though their system's absurdity keeps it unknown, 110

_Ink_. Then why not unearth it in one of your lectures?

_Scamp_. It is only time past which comes under my strictures.

_Lady Blueb_. Come, a truce with all tartness;--the joy of my heart
Is to see Nature's triumph o'er all that is art.
Wild Nature!--Grand Shakespeare!

_Both_. And down Aristotle!

_Lady Bluem_. Sir George[628] thinks exactly with Lady Bluebottle:
And my Lord Seventy-four,[629] who protects our dear Bard,
And who gave him his place, has the greatest regard
For the poet, who, singing of pedlers and asses,
Has found out the way to dispense with Parnassus. 120

_Tra_. And you, Scamp!--

_Scamp_. I needs must confess I'm embarrassed.

_Ink_. Don't call upon Scamp, who's already so harassed
With old _schools_, and new _schools_,
and no _schools_, and all _schools_[630].

_Tra_. Well, one thing is certain, that _some_ must be fools.
I should like to know who.

_Ink_. And I should not be sorry
To know who are _not_:--it would save us some worry.

_Lady Blueb_. A truce with remark, and let nothing control
This "feast of our reason, and flow of the soul."
Oh! my dear Mr. Botherby! sympathise!--I
Now feel such a rapture, I'm ready to fly, 130
I feel so elastic--"_so buoyant--so buoyant!_"[631]

_Ink_. Tracy! open the window.

_Tra_. I wish her much joy on't.

_Both_. For God's sake, my Lady Bluebottle, check not
This gentle emotion, so seldom our lot
Upon earth. Give it way: 'tis an impulse which lifts
Our spirits from earth--the sublimest of gifts;
For which poor Prometheus was chained to his mountain:
'Tis the source of all sentiment--feeling's true fountain;
'Tis the Vision of Heaven upon Earth: 'tis the gas
Of the soul: 'tis the seizing of shades as they pass, 140
And making them substance: 'tis something divine:--

_Ink_. Shall I help you, my friend, to a little more wine?

_Both_. I thank you: not any more, sir, till I dine.[632]

_Ink_. Apropos--Do you dine with Sir Humphry to day?

_Tra_. I should think with _Duke_ Humphry[633] was more in your way.

_Ink_. It might be of yore; but we authors now look
To the Knight, as a landlord, much more than the Duke.
The truth is, each writer now quite at his ease is,
And (except with his publisher) dines where he pleases.
But 'tis now nearly five, and I must to the Park. 150

_Tra_. And I'll take a turn with you there till 'tis dark.
And you, Scamp--

_Scamp_. Excuse me! I must to my notes,
For my lecture next week.

_Ink_. He must mind whom he quotes
Out of "Elegant Extracts."

_Lady Blueb_. Well, now we break up;
But remember Miss Diddle[634] invites us to sup.

_Ink_. Then at two hours past midnight we all meet again,
For the sciences, sandwiches, hock, and champagne!

_Tra_. And the sweet lobster salad![635]

_Both_. I honour that meal;
For 'tis then that our feelings most genuinely--feel.

_Ink_. True; feeling is truest _then_, far beyond question:
I wish to the gods 'twas the same with digestion! 161

_Lady Blueb_. Pshaw!--never mind that; for one moment of feeling
Is worth--God knows what.

_Ink_. 'Tis at least worth concealing
For itself, or what follows--But here comes your carriage.

_Sir Rich_. (_aside_).
I wish all these people were d----d with _my_ marriage!
[_Exeunt._

FOOTNOTES:

[609] {573}[Benjamin Stillingfleet is said to have attended evening
parties at Mrs. Montague's in grey or blue worsted stockings, in lieu of
full dress. The ladies who excused and tolerated this defiance of the
conventions were nicknamed "blues," or "blue-stockings." Hannah More
describes such a club or coterie in her _Bas Bleu_, which was circulated
in MS. in 1784 (Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, 1848, p. 689). A farce by
Moore, entitled _The M. P., or The Blue-Stocking_, was played for the
first time at the Lyceum, September 30, 1811. The heroine, "Lady Bab
Blue, is a pretender to poetry, chemistry, etc."--Genest's _Hist. of the
Stage_, 1832, viii. 270.]

[610] {574}[Compare the dialogue between Mr. Paperstamp, Mr.
Feathernest, Mr. Vamp, etc., in Peacock's _Melincourt_, cap. xxxii.,
_Works_, 1875, i. 272.]

[611] [Compare--

"The last edition see by Long. and Co.,
Rees, Hurst, and Orme, our fathers of the Row."

_The Search after Happiness_, by Sir Walter Scott.]

[612] [This phrase is said to have been first used in the _Edinburgh
Review_--probably by Jeffrey. (See review of _Rogers's Human Life_,
1818, _Edin. Rev._, vol. 31, p. 325.)]

[613] {575}[It is possible that the description of Hazlitt's Lectures of
1818 is coloured by recollections of Coleridge's Lectures of 1811-1812,
which Byron attended (see letter to Harness, December 6, 1811,
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 76, note 1); but the substance of the attack is
probably derived from Gifford's review of _Lectures on the English
Poets, delivered at the Surrey Institution_ (_Quarterly Review_,
December, 1818, vol. xix. pp. 424-434.)]

[614] {576}["Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella.... She is
... very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress.... She is a
poetess--a mathematician--a metaphysician."--_Journal_, November 30,
1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 357]

[615] {578}[The term "renegade" was applied to Southey by William Smith,
M.P., in the House of Commons, March 14, 1817 (_vide ante_, p. 482).
Sotheby's plays, _Ivan_, _The Death of Darnley_, _Zamorin and Zama_,
were published under the title of _Five Tragedies_, in 1814.]

[616] [Compare--

"I've bribed my Grandmother's Review the British."

_Don Juan_, Canto I. stanza ccix. line 9.

And see "Letter to the Editor of 'My Grandmother's Review,'" _Letters_,
1900, iv. Appendix VII. pp. 465-470. The reference may be to a review of
the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, which appeared in the _British
Review_, January, 1818, or to a more recent and, naturally, most hostile
notice of _Don Juan_ (No. xviii. 1819).]

[617] [_The Journal de Trevoux_, published under the title of _Memoires
de Trevoux_ (1701-1775, 265 vols. 12º), edited by members of the Society
of Jesus, was an imitation of the _Journal des Savants_. The original
matter, the Memoires, contain a mine of information for the student of
the history of French Literature; but the reviews, critical notices,
etc., to which Byron refers, were of a highly polemical and partisan
character, and were the subject of attack on the part of Protestant and
free-thinking antagonists. In a letter to Moore, dated Ravenna, June 22,
1821, Byron says, "Now, if we were but together a little to combine our
_Journal of Trevoux_!" (_Letters_, 1901, v. 309). The use of the same
illustration in letter and poem is curious and noteworthy.]

[618] {579}[The publication of the _British Review_ was discontinued in
1825.]

[619] [For "Botherby," _vide ante_, _Beppo_, stanza lxxii. line 7, p.
182, note 1; and with the "ex-cathedra tone" compare "that awful note of
woe," _Vision of Judgment_, stanza xc. line 4, _ante_, p. 518.]

[620] {580}["Sotheby is a good man, rhymes well (if not wisely), but is
a bore. He seizes you by the button. One night of a rout at Mrs. Hope's,
he had fastened upon me (something about Agamemnon, or Orestes, or some
of his plays), notwithstanding my symptoms of manifest distress (for I
was in love, and just nicked a minute, when neither mothers, nor
husbands, nor rivals, nor gossips, were near my then idol, who was
beautiful as the Statues of the Gallery where we stood at the
time)--Sotheby I say had seized upon me by the button and the
heart-strings, and spared neither. William Spencer, who likes fun, and
don't dislike mischief, saw my case, and coming up to us both, took me
by the hand, and pathetically bade me farewell; 'for,' said he, 'I see
it is all over with you.' Sotheby then went way. '_Sic me servavit
Apollo_.'"--_Detached Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 433.]

[621] [For Byron's misapprehension concerning "kibes," see _Childe
Harold_, Canto I. stanza lxvii. line 5, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 64,
note 3.]

[622] ["Where can the animals who write this trash have been bred, to
fancy that ladies drink bumpers of Madeira at luncheon?"--_Literary
Register_, May 3, 1823.]

[623] {582}[Wordsworth's _Resolution and Independence_, originally
entitled _The Leech-gatherer_, was written in 1802, and published in
1807.]

[624] [Wordsworth was appointed Distributor of Stamps for the County of
Westmoreland, in March, 1813. Lord Lonsdale and Sir George Beaumont were
"suretys for the due execution of the trust."--_Life of William
Wordsworth_, by William Knight, 1889, ii. 210.]

[625] Grange is or was a famous pastry-cook and fruiterer in Piccadilly.
["Grange's" (James Grange, confectioner, No. 178, Piccadilly, see Kent's
London Directory of 1820), moved farther west some fifteen years ago.]

[626] {584}["When I belonged to the Drury Lane Committee ... the number
of plays upon the shelves were about _five_ hundred.... Mr. Sotheby
obligingly offered us all his tragedies, and I pledged myself; and,
notwithstanding many squabbles with my Committe[e]d Brethren, did get
'Ivan' accepted, read, and the parts distributed. But lo! in the very
heart of the matter, upon some _tepid_-ness on the part of Kean, or
warmth on that of the author, Sotheby withdrew his play."--_Detached
Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 442.]

[627] [_Fugitive Pieces_ is the title of the suppressed quarto edition
of Byron's juvenile poems.]

[628] {585}[Sir George Beaumont, Bart., of Coleorton, Leicestershire
(1753-1827), landscape-painter, art critic, and picture-collector, one
of the founders of the National Gallery, married, in 1778, Margaret
Willis, granddaughter of Chief Justice Willis. She corresponded with
Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, and with Coleridge (see _Memorials of
Coleorton_, 1888). Coleridge visited the Beaumonts for the first time at
Dunmore, in 1804. "I was not received here," he tells Wordsworth, "with
mere kindness; I was welcomed _almost_ as you welcomed me when first I
visited you at Racedown" (_Letters of S. T. Coleridge_, 1895, ii. 459).
Scott (_Memoirs of the life, etc._, 1838, ii, II) describes Sir George
Beaumont as "by far the most sensible and pleasing man I ever knew,
kind, too, in his nature, and generous and gentle in society.... He was
the great friend of Wordsworth, and understood his poetry."]

[629] [It was not Wordsworth's patron, William Lord Lonsdale, but his
kinsman James, the first earl, who, towards the close of the American
war, offered to build and man a ship of seventy-four guns.]

[630] {586}[For this harping on "schools" of poetry, see Hazlitt's
Lectures "On the Living Poets" _Lectures on the English Poets_ (No.
viii.), 1818, p. 318.]

[631] Fact from life, with the _words_.

[632] [Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), President of the Royal Society,
received the honour of knighthood April 8, 1812. He was created a
baronet January 18, 1819.]

[633] {587}[Compare "We have been for many years at a great distance
from each other; we are now separated. You have combined arsenic with
your gold, Sir Humphry! You are brittle, and I will rather dine with
Duke Humphry than with you."--_Anima Poetae_, by S. T. Coleridge, 1895,
p. 218.]

[634] ["Lydia White," writes Lady Morgan (_Memoirs_, 1862, ii. 236),
"was a personage of much social celebrity in her day. She was an Irish
lady of large fortune and considerable talent, noted for her hospitality
and dinners in all the capitals of Europe." She is mentioned by Moore
(_Memoirs_, 1853, in. 21), Miss Berry (_Journal_, 1866, ii. 484),
Ticknor (_Life, Letters, and Journal_, 1876, i. 176), etc., etc.

Byron saw her for the last time in Venice, when she borrowed a copy of
_Lalla Rookh_ (Letter to Moore, June 1, 1818, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 237).
Sir Walter Scott, who knew her well, records her death: "January 28,
[1827]. Heard of Miss White's death--she _was_ a woman of wit, and had a
feeling and kind heart. Poor Lydia! I saw the Duke of York and her in
London, when Death, it seems, was brandishing his dart over them.

'The view o't gave them little fright.'"

(_Memoirs of the Life, etc._, 1838, iv. 110.)]

[635] [Moore, following the example of Pope, who thought his "delicious
lobster-nights" worth commemorating, gives details of a supper at
Watier's, May 19, 1814, at which Kean was present, when Byron "confined
himself to lobsters, and of these finished two or three, to his own
share," etc.--an Ambrosian night, indeed!--_Life_, p. 254.]

END OF VOL. IV.