Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 15 January 1814
“Before any proof goes to Mr.
Gifford, it may be as well to revise this, where there are words omitted, faults committed, and the devil knows what. As to
the Dedication, I cut out the parenthesis of Mr. *, but not
another word shall move unless for a better. Mr.
Moore has seen, and decidedly preferred the part your Tory bile sickens
at. If every syllable were a rattlesnake, or every letter a pestilence, they should not
be expunged. Let those who cannot swallow chew the expressions on Ireland; or should
even Mr. Croker array himself in all his terrors
against them, I care for none of you, except Gifford; and he won’t abuse me, except I deserve it—which will at
least reconcile me to his justice. As to the poems in Hobhouse’s volume, the translation from the Romaic is well enough; but the best of the
other volume (of mine, I mean) have been already printed. But do as you please—only, as
I shall be absent when you come out, do, pray, let Mr. Dallas
and you have a care of the press.
“Yours, &c.”
John Wilson Croker (1780-1857)
Secretary of the Admiralty (1810) and writer for the
Quarterly
Review; he edited an elaborate edition of Boswell's
Life of
Johnson (1831).
Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1824)
English poet, novelist, and translator who corresponded with Byron. His sister Charlotte
Henrietta Dallas (d. 1793) married Captain George Anson Byron (1758-1793); their son George
Anson Byron (1789-1868) inherited Byron's title in 1824.
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
John Cam Hobhouse, baron Broughton (1786-1869)
Founder of the Cambridge Whig Club; traveled with Byron in the orient, radical MP for
Westminster (1820); Byron's executor; after a long career in politics published
Some Account of a Long Life (1865) later augmented as
Recollections of a Long Life, 6 vols (1909-1911).
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
