Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 8 July 1817
“La Mira, near Venice, July 8th, 1817.
“If you can convey the inclosed letter to its address, or
discover the person to whom it is directed, you will confer a favour upon the Venetian
creditor of a deceased Englishman. This epistle is a dun to his executor, for
house-rent. The name of the insolvent defunct is, or was, Porter Valter, according to the account of the plaintiff, which I
rather suspect ought to be Walter Porter,
according to our mode of collocation. If you are acquainted with any dead man of the
like name a good deal in debt, pray dig him up, and tell him that ‘a pound of his
fair flesh’ or the ducats are required and that ‘if you deny them, fie upon
your law!’
“I hear nothing more from you about Moore’s poem, Rogers, or other literary phenomena; but tomorrow, being post-day, will
bring perhaps some tidings. I write to you with people talking Venetian all about, so
that you must not expect this letter to be all English.
“The other day, I had a squabble on the highway as follows:
I was riding pretty quickly from Dolo home about eight in the evening, when ![]()
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I passed a party of people in a hired carriage, one of
whom, poking his head out of the window, began bawling to me in an inarticulate but
insolent manner. I wheeled my horse round, and overtaking, stopped the coach, and said,
‘Signor, have you any commands for me?’ He replied, impudently as to manner,
‘No.’ I then asked him what he meant by that unseemly noise, to the
discomfiture of the passers-by. He replied by some piece of impertinence, to which I
answered by giving him a violent slap in the face. I then dismounted (for this passed at
the window, I being on horseback still), and opening the door desired him to walk out,
or I would give him another. But the first had settled him except as to words, of which
he poured forth a profusion in blasphemies, swearing that he would go to the police and
avouch a battery sans provocation. I said he lied, and was a * *, and, if he did
not hold his tongue, should be dragged out and beaten anew.—He then held his tongue. I
of course told him my name and residence, and defied him to the death, if he were a
gentleman, or not a gentleman, and had the inclination to be genteel in the way of
combat. He went to the police, but there having been bystanders in the
road,—particularly a soldier, who had seen the business,—as well as my servant,
notwithstanding the oaths of the coachman and five insides besides the plaintiff, and a
good deal of paying on all sides, his complaint was dismissed, he having been the
aggressor;—and I was subsequently informed that, had I not given him a blow, he might
have been had into durance.
“So set down this,—‘that in Aleppo once’ I
‘beat a Venetian;’ but I assure you that he deserved it, for I am a
quiet man, like Candide, though with somewhat of his
fortune in being forced to forego my natural meekness every now and then.
“Yours, &c.
“B.”
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.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Columbus (1810),
Jaqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28).
