in all general riots,-"Whoever is not for you is against you-mill away right and left," and so I did; -like Ishmael, my hand was against all men, and all men's anent me. I did wonder, to be sure, at my

own success

"And marvels so much wit is all his own,"

as Hobhouse sarcastically says of somebody (not unlikely myself, as we are old friends);-but were it to come over again, I would not. I have since redde the cause of my couplets, and it is not adequate to the effect. C** told me that it was believed I alluded to poor Lord Carlisle's nervous disorder in one of the lines. I thank Heaven I did not know it -and would not, could not, if I had. I must naturally be the last person to be pointed on defects or maladies.

(1813, November 22. "Journal, 1813-1814,” Vol. II., p. 330.)

To-night I went with young Henry Fox [Lord Holland's son] to see Nourjahad, a drama, which the Morning Post hath laid to my charge, but of which I cannot even guess the author. I wonder what they will next inflict upon me. They cannot well sink below a melodrama; but that is better than a satire, (at least, a personal one,) with which I stand truly arraigned, and in atonement of which I am resolved to bear silently all criticisms, abuses, and even praises, for bad pantomimes never composed by me, without even a contradictory aspect. I suppose the root of this report is my loan to the manager of my Turkish drawings for his dresses, to which he was more

A PROPOSED RECONCILIATION

welcome than to my name.

193

I suppose the real author will soon own it, as it has succeeded; if not, Job be my model, and Lethe my beverage!

(1813, November 27. "Journal, 1813-1814," Vol. II., p. 350.)

I wrote to Lord Holland briefly, but I hope distinctly, on the subject which has lately occupied much of my conversation with him and you. [The subject was that of a proposed reconciliation between Lord Carlisle and Byron.] As things now stand, upon that topic my determination must be unalterable. I declare to you most sincerely that there is no human being on whose regard and esteem I set a higher value than on Lord Holland's; and, as far as concerns himself and Lady Holland, I would concede even to humiliation without any view to the future, and solely from my sense of his conduct as to the past. For the rest, I conceive that I have already done all in my power by the suppression [of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers]. If that is not enough, they must act as they please; but I will not "teach my tongue a most inherent baseness," come what may.

(1814, February 16. Letter 409, to Samuel Rogers, Vol. III., p. 36.)

You may be assured that the only prickles that sting from the Royal hedgehog [an allusion to the outcry in the press raised on the occasion of Byron's avowal of the "Lines to the young Princess"] are those which possess a torpedo property, and may

N

benumb some of my friends. I am quite silent, and "hush'd in grim repose." The frequency of the assaults has weakened their effects,-if ever they had any; and, if they had had much, I should hardly have held my tongue, or withheld my fingers. It is something quite new to attack a man for abandoning his resentments. I have heard that previous praise and subsequent vituperation were rather ungrateful, but I did not know that it was wrong to endeavour to do justice to those who did not wait till I had made some amends for former and boyish prejudices, but received me into their friendship, when I might still have been their enemy.

(1814, February 16. Letter 411, to Thomas Moore, Vol. III., p. 38.)

You mention my "Satire," lampoon, or whatever you or others please to call it. I can only say that it was written when I was very young and very angry, and has been a thorn in my side ever since; more particularly as almost all the persons animadverted upon became subsequently my acquaintances, and some of them my friends, which is "heaping fire upon an enemy's head," and forgiving me too readily to permit me to forgive myself. The part applied to you is pert, and petulent, and shallow enough; but, although I have done every thing in my power to suppress the circulation of the whole thing, I shall always regret the wantonness or generality of many of its attempted attacks.

(1815, March 31. Letter 532, to Samuel T. Coleridge, Vol. III., p. 192.)

CANCELLED EDITION OF ENGLISH BARDS 195

I send you a thing whose greatest value is its present rarity; the present copy [of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers] contains some manuscript corrections previous to an edition which was printed, but not published, and, in short, all that is in the suppressed edition, the fifth, except twenty lines in addition, for which there was not room in the copy before me. There are in it many opinions I have altered, and some which I retain; upon the whole, I wish that it had never been written, though my sending you this copy (the only one in my possession, unless one of Lady B.'s be excepted) may seem at variance with this statement;-but my reason for this is very different; it is, however, the only gift I have made of the kind this many a day.

P.S.-You probably know that it is not in print for sale, nor ever will be (if I can help it) again.

(1815, October 15. Letter 553, to Leigh Hunt, Vol. III., p. 225.)

I forgot

I am glad the book sent reached you. to tell you the story of its suppression, which shan't be longer than I can make it. My motive for writing that poem was, I fear, not so fair as you are willing to believe it; I was angry, and determined to be witty, and, fighting in a crowd, dealt about my blows against all alike, without distinction or discernment. When I came home from the East, among other new acquaintances and friends, politics and the state of the Nottingham rioters (of which county I am a landholder, and Lord Holland Recorder of the town,) -led me by the good offices of Mr Rogers, into the society of Lord Holland, who, with Lady Holland,

was particularly kind to me; about March, 1812, this introduction took place, when I made my first speech on the Frame Bill, in the same debate in which Lord Holland spoke. Soon after this, I was correcting the fifth edition of E. B. for the press, when Rogers represented to me that he knew Lord and Lady Holland would not be sorry if I suppressed any further publication of that Poem; and I immediately acquiesced, and with great pleasure, for I had attacked them upon a fancied and false provocation, with many others; and neither was, nor am, sorry to have done what I could to stifle that ferocious rhapsody. This was subsequent to my acquaintance with Lord Holland, and was neither expressed nor understood, as a condition of that acquaintance. Rogers told me, he thought I ought to suppress it; I thought so too, and did it as far as I could, and that's all. I sent you my copy, because I consider your having it much the same as having it myself. Lady Byron has one; I desire not to have any other and sent it only as a curiosity and a memento.

(1815, October 22. Letter 554, to Leigh Hunt, Vol. III., p. 227.)

With regard to the English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, I have no concealments, nor desire to have any from you or yours; the suppression occurred (I am as sure as I can be of anything) in the manner stated I have never regretted that, but very often the composition, that is, the humeur of a great deal in it. As to the quotation you allude to, I have no right, nor indeed desire, to prevent it; but, on the