Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to Thomas Moore, 20 April 1814
“Albany, April 20th, 1814.
“I am very glad to hear that you are to be transient from
Mayfield so very soon, and was taken in by the first part of your letter*. Indeed,
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for aught I know, you may be treating me, as Slipslop says, with ‘ironing’ even now. I shall
say nothing of the shock, which had nothing of humeur in it; as I
am apt to take even a critic, and still more a friend, at his word, and never to doubt
that I have been writing cursed nonsense, if they say so. There was a mental reservation
in my pact with the public*, in behalf of anonymes; and, even had
there not, the provocation was such as to make it physically impossible to pass over
this damnable epoch of triumphant tameness. ’Tis a cursed business; and, after
all, I shall think higher of rhyme and reason, and very humbly of your heroic people,
till—Elba becomes a volcano, and sends him out again. I can’t think it all over
yet.
“My departure for the continent depends, in some measure, on
the incontinent. I have two country invitations at home, and
don’t know what to say or do. In the mean time, I have bought a macaw and a
parrot, and have got up my books; and I box and fence daily, and go out very little.
“At this present writing, Louis the
Gouty is wheeling in triumph into Piccadilly, in all the pomp and
rabblement of royalty. I had an offer of seats to see them pass; but, as I have seen a
Sultan going to mosque, and been at his reception of an
ambassador, the most Christian King ‘hath no attractions for
me:’—though in some coming year of the Hegira, I should not dislike to see the
place where he had reigned, shortly after the second revolution,
and a happy sovereignty of two months, the last six weeks being civil war.
“Pray write, and deem me ever, &c.”
Charlotte Dacre [née King] [Rosa Matilda] (1782 c.-1825)
English poetess, daughter of the radical writer John King; she published in the
Morning Post and
Morning Herald under the
name “Rosa Matilda.” In 1815 she married Nicholas Byrne, owner and editor of the
Morning Post.
William Thomas Fitzgerald (1759-1829)
A clerk in the Navy Office who for three decades supplied the newspapers and magazines
with patriotic effusions, many first performed orally at Literary Fund banquets.
Louis XVIII, king of France (1755-1824)
Brother of the executed Louis XVI; he was placed on the French throne in 1814 following
the abdication of Napoleon.
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.
