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them stupid, as also unphilosophic. To be a great philosopher, it is absolutely necessary to be famished. My intellect is far too electric in its speed, and its growth of flying armies of thoughts eternally new. I could spare enough to fit out a nation. This secret lies-not, observe, in my hair; cutting off that does no harm it lies in my want of dinner, as also of breakfast and supper. Being famished, I shall show this world of ours in the next five years something that it never saw before. But if I had a regular dinner, I should sink into the general stupidity of my beloved human brethren.

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By the way, speaking of gluttony as a foible of our interesting human race, I am reminded of another little foible, which they have rather distressingly, viz., a fancy for being horribly dirty. If I had happened to forget this fact, it would lately have been recalled to my remembrance by Mrs. Butler, formerly Fanny Kemble (but I dare say you know her in neither form-neither as chrysalis nor butterfly). She, in her book on Italy, &c. (not too good, I fear), makes this observe' in which I heartily agree— namely, that this sublunary world has the misfortune to be very dirty, with the exception of some people in England, but with no exception at all for any other island or continent. Allowing for thesome' in England, all the rest of the clean people, you perceive clearly, must be out at sea. For myself, I did not need Mrs. Butler's authority on this matter. One fact of my daily experience renews it most impertinently, and will not suffer me to forget it. As the slave said every morning to Philip of Macedon, 'Philip, begging your honour's pardon, you are mortal,' so does this infamous fact say to me truly as dawn revolves,' Tom, take it as you like, your race is dirty.' The fact I speak of is this— that I cannot accomplish my diurnal ablutions in fewer minutes than sixty, at the least, seventy-five at the most. Now, having an accurate measure of human patience, as that quality exists in most people, well I know that it would never stand this. I allow that, if people are not plagued with washing their hair, or not at the same time, much less time may suffice, yet hardly less than thirty minutes I think.

Professor Wilson tells on this subject a story of a Frenchman which pleases me by its naïveté-that is, you know, by its unconscious ingenuousness. He was illustrating the inconsistencies of

man, and he went on thus-- Our faces, for instance, our handswhy, bless me! we wash them every day our feet, on the other hand-never!' And echo answered- never.'

CCXCV.

Worn with fever and wearied at last with that brilliant series of adventures in Greece and Turkey of which the public was soon to hear so much in prose and verse, Byron started homeward from Malta on June 3, 1811. This, the last of his letters on the voyage, closes the first epoch of his romantic

career.

Lord Byron to Henry Drury.

Volage frigate, off Ushant: July 17, 1811. My dear Drury,-After two years' absence (on the 2nd) and some odd days, I am approaching your country. The day of our arrival you will see by the outside date of my letter.

At present, we are becalmed comfortably, close to Brest Harbour;-I have never been so near it since I left Duck Puddle. We left Malta thirty-four days ago, and have had a tedious passage of it. You will either see or hear from or of me, soon after the receipt of this, as I pass through town to repair my irreparable affairs; and thence I want to go to Notts. and raise rents, and to Lancs. and sell collieries, and back to London and pay debts,—for it seems I shall neither have coals nor comfort till I go down to Rochdale in person.

I have brought home some marbles for Hobhouse;-for myself, four ancient Athenian skulls, dug out of sarcophagi-a phial of Attic hemlock-four live tortoises-a greyhound (died on the passage)-two live Greek servants, one an Athenian, t'other a Yaniote, who can speak nothing but Romaic and Italian-and myself, as Moses in the Vicar of Wakefield says, slily, and I may say it too, for I have as little cause to boast of my expedition as he had of his to the fair.

I wrote to you from the Cyanean Rocks to tell you I had swam from Sestos to Abydos-have you received my letter? Hodgson,

I suppose, is four deep by this time. What would he have given

to have seen, like me, the real Parnassus, where I robbed the Bishop of Chrissæ of a book of geography !—but this I only call plagiarism, as it was done within an hour's ride of Delphi.

Yours,

BYRON.

CCXCVI.

In English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' which appeared in March, 1809, the gay young satirist spared none of his poetical contemporaries, and consequently the next five or six years had to witness the spectacle of the proudest of poets asking pardon in every direction. It is only fair to say that he did it with a very good grace, and this was his apology to the bard who reigned before him.

Lord Byron to Sir Walter Scott.

St. James's Street: July 6, 1812. Sir, I have just been honoured with your letter. I feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the 'evil works of my nonage,' as the thing is suppressed voluntarily, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waiving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities: he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I thought the 'Lay.' He said his own opinion was nearly similar. In speaking of the others, I told him that I thought you more particularly the poet of Princes, as they never appeared more fascinating than in Marmion' and the 'Lady of the Lake.' He was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on the description of your Jameses as no less royal than poetical. He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of the Turks and your humble servant) you were in very good company. defy Murray to have exaggerated his Royal Highness's opinion of your powers, nor can I pretend to enumerate all he said on the subject; but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high

I

idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to manners, certainly superior to those of any living gentleman.

The interview was accidental. I never went to the levée; for having seen the courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed; and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, no business there. To be thus praised by your Sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately and sincerely, Your obliged and obedient servant,

BYRON.

P.S.-Excuse this scrawl, scratched in a great hurry, and just after a journey.

CCXCVII.

Byron, who affected indifference to literature, was in fact one of the typical men of letters of his time. Not even Southey shows more minute consideration of technical matters than the noble writer whose unique correspondence with his publisher has happily been preserved to us. Byron demanded the most unwearied editorial care from his printers, and some dereliction of duty, some neglect of the anise and cummin of the publisher's art, dictated this amusing outburst of wrath.

Lord Byron to John Murray.

2, Albany: April 29, 1814.

Dear Sir, I enclose a draft for the money; when paid, send the copyright. I release you from the thousand pounds agreed on for the Giaour and Bride, and there's an end.

If any accident occurs to me, you may do then as you please; but, with the exception of two copies of each for yourself only, I expect and request that the advertisements be withdrawn, and the remaining copies of all destroyed; and any expense so incurred I will be glad to defray.

For all this, it might be as well to assign some reason. I have none to give, except my own caprice, and I do not consider the circumstances of consequence enough to require explanation.

In course, I need hardly assure you that they never shall be

published with my consent, directly, or indirectly, by any other person whatsoever, that I am perfectly satisfied, and have every reason so to be, with your conduct in all transactions between us as publisher and author.

It will give me great pleasure to preserve your acquaintance, and to consider you as my friend.

Believe me very truly, and for much attention,

Your obliged and very obedient servant,

BYRON.

P.S.-I do not think that I have overdrawn at Hammersley's; but if that be the case, I can draw for the superflux on Hoare's. The draft is £5 short, but that I will make up. On paymentnot before-return the copyright papers.

CCXCVIII.

Thus commences, auspiciously enough, that singularly deplorable connection over which so much scandalous speculation has been wasted, and so much vulgar curiosity exposed. That a union between the sea and a forest pool, between the most fiery and the most chilly of mortals, could continue long or terminate happily, was scarcely to be expected, yet who could foresee the end would be so near, the agony so intense?

Lord Byron to Thomas Moore.

Newstead Abbey: September 20, 1814.

Here's to her who long

Hath waked the poet's sigh!

The girl who gave to song

What gold could never buy.

My dear Moore,-I am going to be married—that is, I am accepted, and one usually hopes the rest will follow. My mother of the Gracchi (that are to be) you think too strait-laced for me, although the paragon of only children, and invested with 'golden opinions of all sorts of men,' and full of most blest conditions' as Desdemona herself. Miss Milbanke is the lady, and I have her father's invitation to proceed there in my elect capacity,-which, however, I cannot do till I have settled some business in London and got a blue coat.

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