THE "NOBLE LORD" ON LITERARY MEN 147 Pentonville and Paradise Row. The pity of these men is, that they never lived either in high life, nor in solitude: there is no medium for the knowledge of the busy or the still world. If admitted into high life for a season, it is merely as spectators-they form no part of the Mechanism thereof. Now Moore and I, the one by circumstances, and the other by birth, happened to be free of the corporation, and to have entered into its pulses and passions, quarum partes fuimus. Both of us have learnt by this much which nothing else could have taught us. (1821, September 12. Letter 933, to John Murray, Vol. V., p. 362.) In general, I do not draw well with literary men: not that I dislike them, but I never know what to say to them after I have praised their last publication. There are several exceptions, to be sure; but they have either been men of the world, such as Scott, and Moore, etc., or visionaries out of it, such as Shelley, etc. but your literary every day man and I never went well in company-especially your foreigner, whom I never could abide. Except Giordani, and--and-and-(I really can't name any other) I do not remember a man amongst them, whom I ever wished to see twice, except perhaps Mezzophanti. ("Detached Thoughts," 1821-1822. "Thought" 53, Vol. V., p. 435.) The only literary news that I have heard of the plays (contrary to your friendly augury) is that the Edinburgh R. has attacked them all three [Sardana palus, The Two Foscari, and Cain] as well as it could. I have not seen the article. Murray writes discouragingly, and says "that nothing published this year has made the least impression" including, I presume, what he has published on my account also. You see what it is to throw pearls to swine. As long as I write the exaggerated nonsense which has corrupted the public taste, they applauded to the very echo, and, now that I have really composed, within these three or four years, some things which shd. "not willingly be let die," the whole herd snort and grumble and return to wallow in their mire. However, it is fit I shd pay the penalty of spoiling them, as no man has contributed more than me in my earlier compositions to produce that exaggerated and false taste. is a fit retribution that any really classical production sha be received as these plays have been treated. d. It (1822, May 20. Letter 1005, to Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. VI., p. 67.) It is I really cannot know whether I am or am not the Genius you are pleased to call me, but I am very willing to put up with the mistake, if it be one. a title dearly enough bought by most men, to render it endurable, even when not quite clearly made out, which it never can be till the Posterity, whose decisions are merely dreams to ourselves, has sanctioned or denied it, while it can touch us no further. . . . If there are any questions which you would like to ask me as connected with your Philosophy of the literary Mind (if mine be a literary mind), I will answer them fairly or give a reason for not-good, bad, or indifferent. At present I am paying the penalty of having helped BYRON THE MEGALOPSYCH 149 to spoil the public taste, for, as long as I wrote in the false exaggerated style of youth and the times in which we live, they applauded me to the very echo; and within these few years, when I have endeavoured at better things and written what I suspect to have the principle of duration in it, the Church, the Chancellor, and all men-even to my grand patron, Francis Jeffrey, Esq., of the E. R.-have risen up against me and my later publications. Such is Truth! Men dare not look her in the face, except by degrees : they mistake her for a Gorgon, instead of knowing her to be a Minerva. (1822, June 10. Letter 1010, to Isaac Disraeli, Vol. VI., p. 88.) If you can not be civil to M' John Hunt, it means that you have ceased to be so to me, or mean to do So. I have thought as much for some time past; but you will find in the long run (though I hear that you go about talking of yourself, like Dogbery, "as a fellow that hath had losses "), that you will not change for the better. I am worth any "forty on fair ground of the wretched stilted pretenders and advertisements. parsons of your (1822, September 23. Letter 1027, to John Murray, Vol. VI., p. 117.) I have read the defence of Cain, which is very good; who can be the author? As to myself I shall not be deterred by any outcry; your present public hate me, but they shall not interrupt the march of my mind, nor prevent me from telling those who are attempting to trample on all thought, that their thrones shall yet be rocked to their foundations. It is Madame de Stael who says, that "all talent has a propensity to attack the strong." I have never flattered, whether it be or be not a proof of talent. (1822, November. Letter 1039, to the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird (?), Vol. VI., p. 140.) I am at this moment the most unpopular man in England, and if a whistle would call me to the pinnacle of English fame, I would not utter it. All this, however, is no reason why I should involve others in similar odium, and I have some reason to believe that "The Liberal" would have more success without my intervention. (1823, March 10. Letter 1060, to John Hunt, Vol. VI., p. 171.) Your letter, and what accompanied it, have given me the greatest pleasure. The glory and the works of the writers who have deigned to give me these volumes, bearing their names, were not unknown to me, but still it is more flattering to receive them from the authors themselves. I beg you to present my thanks to each of them in particular; and to add, how proud I am of their good opinion, and how charmed I shall be to cultivate their acquaintance, if ever the occasion should occur. The productions of M. Jouy have long been familiar to me. Who has not read and applauded The Hermit and Scylla? But I cannot accept what it has pleased your friends to call their homage, because there is no sovereign in the republic of letters; and A CRITIQUE OF GREAT LENGTH 151 even if there were, I have never had the pretension or the power to become a usurper. I have also to return you thanks for having honoured me with your own compositions; I thought you too young, and probably too amiable, to be an author. (1823, July 12 (?). Letter 1100, to J. J. Coulmann, Vol. VI., p. 230.) (2) The Effects of Criticism and of Attack In town things wear a more promising aspect, and a man whose works are praised by reviewers, admired by duchesses, and sold by every bookseller of the metropolis, does not dedicate much consideration to rustic readers. I have now a review before me, entitled Literary Recreations where my bardship is applauded far beyond my desserts. I know nothing of the critic, but think him a very discerning gentleman, and myself a devilish clever fellow. His critique pleases me particularly, because it is of great length, and a proper quantum of censure is administered, just to give an agreeable relish to the praise. You know I hate insipid, unqualified, common-place compli ment. (1807, August 2. Letter 78, to Elizabeth I have been praised to the skies in the Critical Review, and abused greatly in another publication [The Satirist]. So much the better, they tell me, for |