The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals
Chapter 165 : Heigho! I would I were in mine island!--I am not well; and yet I look in good health.

Heigho! I would I were in mine island!--I am not well; and yet I look in good health. At times, I fear, "I am not in my perfect mind;" [4]--and yet my heart and head have stood many a crash, and what should ail them now? They prey upon themselves, and I am sick--sick--"Prithee, undo this b.u.t.ton--why should a cat, a rat, a dog have life--and thou no life at all?" [5]

Six-and-twenty years, as they call them, why, I might and should have been a Pasha by this time. "I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun." [6]

Buonaparte is not yet beaten; but has reb.u.t.ted Blucher, and repiqued Schwartzenburg [7]. This it is to have a head. If he again wins, _Vae victis!_

[Footnote 1:

"I am myself alone."

'Henry VI.', Part III. act v. sc. 6.]

[Footnote 2: 'Hamlet', act ii. sc. 2.]

[Footnote 3:

"This ancient housemaid, of whose gaunt and witch-like appearance it would be impossible to convey any idea but by the pencil, furnished one among the numerous instances of Lord Byron's p.r.o.neness to attach himself to any thing, however homely, that had once enlisted his good nature in its behalf, and become a.s.sociated with his thoughts. He first found this old woman at his lodgings in Bennet Street, where, for a whole season, she was the perpetual scarecrow of his visitors.

When, next year, he took chambers in Albany, one of the great advantages which his friends looked to in the change was, that they should get rid of this phantom. But, no,--there she was again--he had actually brought her with him from Bennet Street. The following year saw him married, and, with a regular establishment of servants, in Piccadilly; and here,--as Mrs. Mule had not made her appearance to any of the visitors,--it was concluded, rashly, that the witch had vanished. One of those friends, however, who had most fondly indulged in this persuasion, happening to call one day when all the male part of the establishment were abroad, saw, to his dismay, the door opened by the same grim personage, improved considerably in point of babiliments since he last saw her, and keeping pace with the increased scale of her master's household, as a new peruke, and other symptoms of promotion, testified. When asked 'how he came to carry this old woman about with him from place to place,' Lord Byron's only answer was, 'The poor old devil was so kind to me'". (Moore).]

[Footnote 4: 'King Lear', act iv. sc. 7.]

[Footnote 5:

"Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all?"

'King Lear', act v. sc. 3.]

[Footnote 6:

"I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun, And wish the estate of the world were now undone."

'Macbeth', act v. sc. 5.]

[Footnote 7: Napoleon fought the battle of Nangis against Blucher on the 17th of February, 1814, and that of Montereau against Prince Schwartzenberg on the following day.]

Sunday, March 6.

On Tuesday last dined with Rogers,--Madame de Stael, Mackintosh, Sheridan, Erskine [1], and Payne Knight, Lady Donegal, and Miss R.

there. Sheridan told a very good story of himself and Madame de Recamier's handkerchief; Erskine a few stories of himself only. _She_ is going to write a big book about England, she says;--I believe her. Asked by her how I liked Miss Edgeworth's thing, called _Patronage_ [2], and answered (very sincerely) that I thought it very bad for _her_, and worse than any of the others. Afterwards thought it possible Lady Donegal [3], being Irish, might be a patroness of Miss Edgeworth, and was rather sorry for my opinion, as I hate putting people into fusses, either with themselves or their favourites; it looks as if one did it on purpose. The party went off very well, and the fish was very much to my gusto. But we got up too soon after the women; and Mrs. Corinne always lingers so long after dinner that we wish her in--the drawing-room.

To-day Campbell called, and while sitting here in came Merivale [4].

During our colloquy, C. (ignorant that Merivale was the writer) abused the "mawkishness of the _Quarterly Review_ of Grimm's _Correspondence_."

I (knowing the secret) changed the conversation as soon as I could; and C. went away, quite convinced of having made the most favourable impression on his new acquaintance. Merivale is luckily a very good-natured fellow, or G.o.d he knows what might have been engendered from such a malaprop. I did not look at him while this was going on, but I felt like a coal--for I like Merivale, as well as the article in question.

Asked to Lady Keith's [5] to-morrow evening--I think I will go; but it is the first party invitation I have accepted this "season," as the learned Fletcher called it, when that youngest brat of Lady----'s cut my eye and cheek open with a misdirected pebble--"Never mind, my Lord, the scar will be gone before the _season_;" as if one's eye was of no importance in the mean time.

Lord Erskine called, and gave me his famous pamphlet, with a marginal note and corrections in his handwriting. Sent it to be bound superbly, and shall treasure it.

Sent my fine print of Napoleon [6] to be framed. It _is_ framed; and the Emperor becomes his robes as if he had been hatched in them.

[Footnote 1: Thomas, Lord Erskine (1750-1823), youngest son of the tenth Earl of Buchan, a mids.h.i.+pman in the Royal Navy (1764-67), an ensign, and subsequently a lieutenant in the First Foot (1767-75), was called to the Bar in 1778, and became Lord Chancellor in 1806. As an advocate he was unrivalled.

"Even the great luminaries of the law," says Wraxall ('Posthumous Memoirs', vol. i. p. 86), "when arrayed in their ermine, bent under his ascendancy, and seemed to be half subdued by his intelligence, or awed by his vehemence, pertinacity, and undaunted character."

With a jury he was particularly successful, though he lived to write the lines quoted by Lord Campbell ('Lives of the Chancellors', ed. 1868, vol. viii. p. 233):

"The monarch's pale face was with blushes suffused, To observe right and wrong by twelve villains confused, And, kicking their----s all round in a fury, Cried, ''Curs'd be the day I invented a jury!''"

A Whig in politics, and in sympathy with the doctrines of the French Revolution, he defended Paine, Frost, Hardy, and other political offenders, and did memorable service to the cause of const.i.tutional liberty. In the House of Commons, which he entered as M. P. for Portsmouth in 1783, he was a failure; his maiden speech on Fox's India Bill fell flat, and he was crushed by Pitt's contempt. As Lord Chancellor (1806-7) he proved a better judge than was expected. At the time when Byron made his acquaintance, he had practically retired from public life, and devoted himself to literature, society, and farming, writing on the services of rooks, and attending the Holkham sheep-shearings. Lord Campbell has collected many of his verses and jokes in vol. ix. chap. cxc. of his 'Lives of the Chancellors'. His famous pamphlet, 'On the Causes and Consequences of the War with France'

(1797), was written, as he told Miss Berry ('Journal of Miss Berry', vol. ii. p. 340),

"on slips of paper in the midst of all the business which I was engaged in at the time--not at home, but in open court, whilst the causes were trying. When it was not my turn to examine a witness, or to speak to the Jury, I wrote a little bit; and so on by s.n.a.t.c.hes."

His 'Armata' was published by Murray in 1817. In society Erskine was widely known for his brilliancy, his puns, and his extraordinary vanity.

His egotism gained him such t.i.tles as Counsellor Ego, Baron Ego of Eye, and supplied Mathias ('Pursuits of Literature') with an ill.u.s.tration:

"A vain, pert prater, bred in Erskine's school."]

[Footnote 2: Miss Edgeworth's 'Patronage' was published in 1813-4. In 1813 she had been in London with her father and stepmother. The following entries respecting the family are taken from Byron's 'Detached Thoughts':

"Old Edgeworth, the fourth or fifth Mrs. Edgeworth, and 'the' Miss Edgeworth were in London, 1813. Miss Edgeworth liked, Mrs. Edgeworth not disliked, old Edgeworth a bore, the worst of bores--a boisterous Bore. I met them in Society--once at a breakfast of Sir H.D.'s. Old Edgeworth came in late, boasting that he had given 'Dr. Parr a dressing the night before' (no such easy matter by the way). I thought her pleasant. They all abused Anna Seward's memory. When on the road they heard of her brother's--and his son's--death. What was to be done? Their 'London' apparel was all ordered and made! so they sunk his death for the six weeks of their sojourn, and went into mourning on their way back to Ireland. 'Fact!'

"While the Colony were in London, there was a book with a subscription for the 'recall of Mrs. Siddons to the Stage' going about for signatures. Moore moved for a similar subscription for the 'recall of 'Mr. Edgeworth to Ireland!''

"Sir Humphry Davy told me that the scene of the French Valet and Irish postboy in 'Ennui' was taken from his verbal description to the Edgeworths in Edgeworthtown of a similar fact on the road occurring to himself. So much the better--being 'life'."]