Miss Pigots had something better to do than carry my miniatures to Nottingham to copy. Now they have done it, you may ask them to copy the others, which are greater favourites than my own. As to money matters, I am ruined at least till Rochdale is sold; and if that does not turn out well, 1 shall enter into the Austrian or Russian service - perhaps the Turkish, if I like their manners. The world is all before me, and I leave England without regret, and without a wish to revisit any thing it contains, except yourself, and your present residence. "Believe me, yours ever sincerely. "P. S.-Pray tell Mr. Rushton his son is well, and doing well; so is Murray, indeed better than I ever saw him; he will be back in about a month. I ought to add the leaving Murray to my few regrets, as his age perhaps will prevent my seeing him again. Robert I take with me; I like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal." To those who have in their remembrance his poetical description of the state of mind in which he now took leave of England, the gaiety and levity of the letters I am about to give will appear, it is not improbable, strange and startling. But in a temperament like that of Lord Byron, such bursts of vivacity on the surface are by no means incompatible with a wounded spirit underneath; and the light, laughing tone that pervades these letters, but makes the feeling of solitariness that breaks out in them the more striking and affecting. The poet Cowper, it is well known, produced that masterpiece of humour, John Gilpin, during one of his fits of morbid dejection; and he himself says, "Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood, and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been written at all." [See Southey's Life of Cowper, vol. ii. p. 38.] 2 The reconciliation which took place between him and Dr. Butler, before his departure, is one of those instances of placability and pliableness with which his life abounded. We have seen, too, from the manner in which he mentions the circumstance in one of his notebooks, that the reconcilement was of that generously retrospective kind, in which not only the feeling of hostility is renounced in future, but a strong regret expressed that it had been ever entertained. Not content with this private atonement to Dr. Butler, it was his intention, had he published another edition of the Hours of Idleness, to substitute for the offensive being at last procured, by this time tomorrow evening we shall be embarked on the vide vorld of vaters. vor all the vorld like Robinson Crusoe. The Malta vessel not sailing for some weeks, we have determined to go by way of Lisbon, and, as my servants term it, to see that there Portingale '— thence to Cadiz and Gibraltar, and so on our old route to Malta and Constantinople, if so be that Captain Kidd, our gallant commander, understands plain sailing and Mercator, and takes us on our voyage all according to the chart. "Will you tell Dr. Butler that I have taken the treasure of a servant, Friese, the from his recommendation. He has been all native of Prussia Proper, into my service and has seen Persepolis and all that. among the Worshippers of Fire in Persia, for a book on his return; 100 pens, two "Hobhouse has made woundy preparations gallons of japan ink, and several volumes of best blank, is no bad provision for a discerning public. I have laid down my pen, but have promised to contribute a chapter on the state of morals, &c. &c. verses against that gentleman a frank avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of in giving vent to them. This fact, so creditable to the candour of his nature, I learn from a loose sheet in his hand-writing, containing the following corrections. In place of the passage beginning" Or if my Muse a pedant's portrait drew," he meant to insert "If once my Muse a harsher portrait drew, Warm with her wrongs, and deem'd the likeness true, By cooler judgment taught, her fault she owns,— With noble minds a fault, confessed, atones." And to the passage immediately succeeding his warm praise of Dr. Drury-" Pomposus fills his magisterial chair," it was his intention to give the following turn:"Another fills his magisterial chair; Reluctant Ida owns a stranger's care; Oh may like honours crown his future name, — This town of Falmouth, as you will partly conjecture, is no great ways from the sea. It is defended on the sea-side by tway castles, St. Maws and Pendennis, extremely well calculated for annoying every body except an enemy. St. Maws is garrisoned by an able-bodied person of fourscore, a widower. He has the whole command and sole management of six most unmanageable pieces of ordnance, admirably adapted for the destruction of Pendennis, a like tower of strength on the opposite side of the Channel. We have seen St. Maws, but Pendennis they will not let us behold, save at a distance, because Hobhouse and I are suspected of having already taken St. Maws by a coup de main. "The town contains many Quakers and salt fish-the oysters have a taste of copper, owing to the soil of a mining country — the women (blessed be the Corporation therefor!) are flogged at the cart's tail when they pick and steal, as happened to one of the fair sex yesterday noon. She was pertinacious in her behaviour, and damned the mayor. I "I don't know when I can write again, because it depends on that experienced navigator, Captain Kidd, and the 'stormy winds that (don't) blow' at this season. leave England without regret - I shall return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation, but I have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab; and thus ends my first chapter. Adieu. "Yours," &c. In this letter the following lively verses were enclosed: : "Falmouth Roads, June 30. 1809. "Huzza! Hodgson, we are going, Our embargo's off at last; Favourable breezes blowing Bend the canvass o'er the mast. From aloft the signal's streaming, Hark! the farewell gun is fired, Women screeching, tars blaspheming, Tell us that our time's expired. [Henley, in one of his publications entitled “ Oratory Transactions," engaged "to execute singly what would sprain a dozen of modern doctors of the tribe of Issachar -to write, read, and study twelve hours a day, and yet appear as untouched by the yoke as if he never wore it Here's a rascal Come to task all, Prying from the Custom-house; Trunks unpacking, Cases cracking, Not a corner for a mouse 'Scapes unsearch'd amid the racket, Ere we sail on board the Packet. "Now our boatmen quit their mooring, And all hands must ply the oar; Baggage from the quay is lowering, We're impatient-push from shore. Gemmen, ladies, servants, Jacks ; All are wrangling, Laugh at all things, Great and small things, Sick or well, at sea or shore; While we're quaffing, Let's have laughing Who the devil cares for more ? Some good wine! and who would lack it, Ev'n on board the Lisbon Packet? "BYRON." On the 2d of July the packet sailed from Falmouth, and, after a favourable passage of four days and a half, the voyagers reached Lisbon, and took up their abode in that city. ' The following letters, from Lord Byron to his friend Mr. Hodgson, though written in his most light and schoolboy strain, will give some idea of the first impressions that his residence in Lisbon made upon him. Such letters, too, contrasted with the noble stanzas on Portugal in "Childe Harold," will show how various were the moods of his versatile mind, and what different aspects it could take when in repose or on the wing. LETTER 37. TO MR. HODGSON. "Lisbon, July 16. 1809. "Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of marvellous sights, palaces, convents, &c. ; which, being to be heard in my friend Hobhouse's forthcoming Book of Travels, I shall not anticipate by smuggling any account whatsoever to you in a private and clandestine manner. I must just observe, that the village of Cintra in Estremadura is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world. "I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, and talk bad Latin to the monks, who understand it, as it is like their own,and I goes into society (with my pocketpistols), and I swims in the Tagus all across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears Portuguese, and have got a diarrhoea and bites from the musquitoes. But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a pleasuring. "When the Portuguese are pertinacious, I say, 'Carracho!'-the great oath of the grandees, that very well supplies the place Lord Byron used sometimes to mention a strange story, which the commander of the packet, Captain Kidd, related to him on the passage. This officer stated that, being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his limbs, and, there being a faint light in the room, could see, as he thought, distinctly, the figure of his brother, who was at that time in the naval service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. But still the same pressure continued, and still, as often as he ventured to take another look, of Damme,'—and, when dissatisfied with my neighbour, I pronounce him ' Ambra di merdo.' With these two phrases, and a third, 'Avra bouro,' which signifieth 'Get an ass,' I am universally understood to be a person of degree and a master of languages. How merrily we lives that travellers be! if we had food and raiment. But, in sober sadness, any thing is better than England, and I am infinitely amused with my pilgrimage as far as it has gone. "To-morrow we start to ride post near 400 miles as far as Gibraltar, where we embark for Melita and Byzantium. A letter to Malta will find me, or to be forwarded, if I am absent. Pray embrace the Drury and Dwyer, and all the Ephesians you encounter. I am writing with Butler's donative pencil, which makes my bad hand worse. Excuse illegibility. 66 Hodgson! send me the news, and the deaths and defeats and capital crimes and the misfortunes of one's friends; and let us hear of literary matters, and the controversies and the criticisms. All this will be pleasant-Suave mari magno,' &c. Talking of that, I have been sea-sick, and sick of the sea. "Adieu. Yours faithfully," &c. LETTER 38. TO MR. HODGSON. Gibraltar, August 6. 1809. "I have just arrived at this place after a journey through Portugal, and a part of Spain, of nearly 500 miles. We left Lisbon and travelled on horseback to Seville and Cadiz, and thence in the Hyperion frigate to Gibraltar. The horses are excellentwe rode seventy miles day. Eggs and wine, and hard beds, are all the accommodation we found, and, in such torrid weather, quite enough. My health is better than in England. "Seville is a fine town, and the Sierra Morena, part of which we crossed, a very sufficient mountain; but damn description, it is always disgusting. Cadiz, sweet Cadiz! -it is the first spot in the creation. The beauty of its streets and mansions is only excelled by the loveliness of its inhabitants. For, with all national prejudice, I must con he saw the figure lying across him in the same position. To add to the wonder, on putting his han forth to touch this form, he found the uniform, in which it appeared to be dressed, dripping wet. On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months after he received the startling intelligence that on that night his brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the supernatural character of this appearance, Captain Kidd himself did not appear to have the slightest doubt. 2 The baggage and part of the servants were sent by sea to Gibraltar. fess the women of Cadiz are as far superior to the English women in beauty as the Spaniards are inferior to the English in every quality that dignifies the name of man. Just as I began to know the principal persons of the city, I was obliged to sail. "You will not expect a long letter after my riding so far on hollow pampered jades of Asia. Talking of Asia puts me in mind of Africa, which is within five miles of my present residence. I am going over before I go on to Constantinople. "Cadiz is a complete Cythera. Many of the grandees who have left Madrid during the troubles reside there, and I do believe it is the prettiest and cleanest town in Europe. London is filthy in the comparison. The Spanish women are all alike, their education the same. The wife of a duke is, in information, as the wife of a peasant,- the wife of peasant, in manner, equal to a duchess. Certainly they are fascinating; but their minds have only one idea, and the business of their lives is intrigue. ["Once stopping at an inn at Dundalk, the Dean was so much amused with a prating barber, that rather than be alone he invited him to dinner. The fellow was rejoiced at this unexpected honour, and being dressed out in his best apparel came to the inn, first inquiring of the groom what the clergyman's name was who had so kindly invited him. 'What the vengeance,' said the servant, don't you know Dean Swift?' At which the barber turned pale, and running into the house fell upon his knees and intreated the Dean not to put him into print; for that he was a poor barber, had a large family to maintain, and if his reverence put him into black and white he should lose all his customers.' Swift laughed heartily at the poor fellow's simplicity, bade him sit down and eat his dinner in peace, for he assured him he would neither put him nor his wife in print."- Sheridan's Life of Swift.] "This sort of passage," says Mr. Hodgson, in a note scription, natural and artificial. Palaces and gardens rising in the midst of rocks, cataracts, and precipices; convents on stupendous heights-a distant view of the sea and the Tagus; and, besides (though that is a secondary consideration), is remarkable as the scene of Sir Hew Dalrymple's Convention. + It unites in itself all the wildness of the western highlands, with the verdure of the south of France. Near this place, about ten miles to the right, is the palace of Mafra, the boast of Portugal, as it might be of any other country, in point of magnificence without elegance. There is a convent annexed; the monks, who possess large revenues, are courteous enough, and understand Latin, so that we had a long conversation: they have a large library, and asked me if the English had any books in their country?" An adventure which he met with at Seville, characteristic both of the country and of himself, is thus described in the same letter to Mrs. Byron : "We lodged in the house of two Spanish unmarried ladies, who possess sir houses in Seville, and gave me a curious specimen of Spanish manners. They are women of character, and the eldest a fine woman, the youngest pretty, but not so good a figure as Donna Josepha. The freedom of manner, which is general here, astonished me not a little; and in the course of further observation, I find that reserve is not the characteristic of the Spanish belles, who are, in general, very handsome, with large black eyes, and very fine forms. The eldest honoured your unworthy son with very particular attention, embracing him with great tenderness at parting (I was there but three days), after cutting off a lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of her own, about three feet in length, which I send, and beg you will retain till my return. Her last words were, Adios, tu hermoso! me gusto on his copy of this letter, "constantly occurs in his correspondence. Nor was his interest confined to mere remembrances and inquiries after health. Were it possible to state all he has done for numerous friends, he would appear amiable indeed. For myself, I am bound to acknowledge, in the fullest and warmest manner, his most generous and well-timed aid; and, were my poor friend Bland alive, he would as gladly bear the like testimony;-though I have most reason, of all men, to do so." 3 The filthiness of Lisbon and its inhabitants. 4 Colonel Napier, in a note in his able History of the Peninsular War, notices the mistake into which Lord Byron and others were led on this subject ;-the signature of the Convention, as well as all the other proceedings connected with it, having taken place at a distance of thirty miles from Cintra. [See Works, p. 07.] mucho.'-' Adieu, you pretty fellow! you please me much.' She offered me a share of her apartment, which my virtue induced me to decline; she laughed, and said I had some English amante' (lover), and added that she was going to be married to an officer in the Spanish army." Among the beauties of Cadiz, his imagination, dazzled by the attractions of the many, was on the point, it would appear from the following, of being fixed by one :— "Cadiz, sweet Cadiz, is the most delightful town I ever beheld, very different from our English cities in every respect except cleanliness (and it is as clean as London), but still beautiful, and full of the finest women in Spain, the Cadiz belles being the Lancashire witches of their land. Just as I was introduced and began to like the grandees, I was forced to leave it for this cursed place; but before I return to England I will visit it again. "The night before I left it, I sat in the box at the opera with admiral Cordova's family; he is the commander whom Lord St. Vincent defeated in 1797, and has an aged wife and a fine daughter, Sennorita Cordova. The girl is very pretty, in the Spanish style; in my opinion, by no means inferior to the English in charms, and certainly superior in fascination. Long black hair, dark languishing eyes, clear olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman used to the drowsy, listless air of his countrywomen, added to the most becoming dress, and, at the same time, the most decent in the world, render a Spanish beauty irresistible. "Miss Cordova and her little brother understood a little French, and, after regretting my ignorance of the Spanish, she proposed to become my preceptress in that language. I could only reply by a low bow, and express my regret that I quitted Cadiz too soon to permit me to make the progress which would doubtless attend my studies under so charming a directress. standing at the back of the box, which resembles our Opera boxes, (the theatre is large and finely decorated, the music admirable,) in the manner which Englishmen generally adopt, for fear of incommoding the ladies in front, when this fair Spaniard dis I was 1 [In a letter of the same date Lord Byron says: " I beg leave to observe, that intrigue here is the business of life; when a woman marries she throws off all restraint, but I believe their conduct is chaste enough before. If you make a proposal, which in England would bring a box on the ear from the meekest of virgins, to a Spanish girl, she thanks you for the honour you intend her, and possessed an old woman (an aunt or a duenna) of her chair, and commanded me to be seated next herself, at a tolerable distance from her mamma. At the close of the performance I withdrew, and was lounging with a party of men in the passage, when, en passant, the lady turned round and called me, and I had the honour of attending her to the admiral's mansion. I have an invitation on my return to Cadiz, which I shall accept if I repass through the country on my return from Asia." To these adventures, or rather glimpses of adventures, which he met with in his hasty passage through Spain, he adverted, I recollect, briefly, in the early part of his " Memoranda ;" and it was the younger, I think, of his fair hostesses at Seville, whom he there described himself as making earnest love to, with the help of a dictionary. "For some time," he said, "I went on prosperously both as a linguist and a lover 2, till at length, the lady took a fancy to a ring which I wore, and set her heart on my giving it to her, as a pledge of my sincerity. This, however, could not be any thing but the ring, I declared, was at her service, and much more than its value,—but the ring itself I had made a vow never to give away." The young Spaniard grew angry as the contention went on, and it was not long before the lover became angry also; till, at length, the affair ended by their separating unsuccessful on both sides. "Soon after this," said he, “I sailed for Malta, and there parted with both my heart and ring.” In the letter from Gibraltar, just cited, he adds "I am going over to Africa tomorrow; it is only six miles from this fortress. My next stage is Cagliari in Sardinia, where I shall be presented to his majesty. I have a most superb uniform as a court-dress, indispensable in travelling." His plan of visiting Africa was, however, relinquished. After a short stay at Gibraltar, during which he dined one day with Lady Westmoreland, and another with General Castanos, he, on the 19th of August, took his departure for Malta, in the packet, having first sent Joe Murray and young Rushton back to England, -the latter being unable, from ill health, to accompany him any further. Pray," he says to his mother, "show the 66 replies, Wait till I am married, and I shall be too happy.' This is literally and strictly true."] 2 We find an allusion to this incident in Don Juan:""Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been," &c. |