LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES

Documents Biography Criticism

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Literary Reminiscences and Memoirs of Thomas Campbell

Thomas Campbell to Francis Jeffrey, [January?] 1825

INTRODUCTION & INDEXES

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

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Preface

Vol. I. Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Vol. II. Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

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“The criticisms in your review of my last volume of poems can form no proper subject for any printed animadversions of mine; but I hope the readers of this letter will excuse me for answering one of your observations, which relates rather to a matter of fact than to a matter of opinion.

“You say that my poem, the ‘Last Man,’ seems to have been suggested by Lord Byron’s poem, ‘Darkness.’—Now the truth is, that fifteen, or it may be more, years ago, I called on Lord Byron, who at that time had lodgings near St. James’s Street; and we had a long and, to me, a very memorable conversation, from which, I have not a doubt that his Lordship imbibed those few ideas in the poem, ‘Darkness,’ which have any resemblance to mine in the ‘Last Man.’—I remember my saying to him, that I thought the idea of a being witnessing the extinction of his species and of the creation, and of his looking, under the fading eye of nature, at desolate cities, ships floating at sea with the dead, would make a striking subject for a poem.—I met those very ideas, many years afterwards, when I read Lord Byron’s poem, ‘Darkness.’—It may be asked, why I did not then appeal to Lord Byron about the originality of those few ideas? As circumstances have turned out, I now wish that I had done so. Lord Byron’s most attached friend has given me his opinion, that if his Lordship had not forgotten the conversation, and was conscious of using an idea which I had suggested to him, he did so, prepared to give me credit for the suggestion whenever I should claim that credit. Had I taken this view of the case, and had I also then

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finished my little poem, I should in all probability have written to Lord B. But I had not written the piece, and at that time thought I never should write it. Unimportant as the leading idea was, I was discouraged by its being taken from me. There seemed to me to be no use in setting on foot a correspondence with Lord Byron, merely to dun him for an acknowledgment of my right to a stray idea. He might, or he might not, have recollected our conversation; but if he had forgotten it, his telling me so would have only increased a petty mortification.—Then as for ascertaining the matter by proofs, after years had past, how was I to rake up the recollections of those persons, to whom I might have, long ago, mentioned the design of my poem? One might be dead; a second might be uncertain as to dates; and a third certainly had so domestic a relation to me, that the evidence was no better than my own. In reality, I abandoned, for a great many years, the idea of fulfilling my sketch. But I was provoked to change my mind, when my friend Barry Cornwall informed me that an acquaintance of his intended to write a long poem, entitled the ‘Last Man.’—I thought this hard! The conception of the Last Man had been mine fifteen years ago; even Lord Byron had spared the title to me: I therefore wrote my poem so called,

MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL.

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and sent it to the press; for not one idea in which was I indebted to Lord Byron, or to any other person.

“Had I foreseen events, I should have communicated with Lord Byron, during his lifetime, on this subject: but I could, no more than any one else, foreknow the loss of his mighty genius to the world.

“If it should be alleged that this declaration of mine implies a reflection on Lord Byron’s memory, I have to answer, that it by no means necessarily does so. His glory goes against the supposition that he was a conscious plagiary from me; and I am only affirming, what I feel to be true, that I could not be either consciously or unconsciously a plagiary from him. There are really not many ideas in the two pieces which are similar. But supposing my statement to be true, do I depreciate Lord Byron?—No!—He either thought my suggestions “fair game,” or forgot that it was not himself who had started them. A poor man easily remembers from what quarter he has received each of his few pieces of money or banknotes; but a rich man easily forgets where he got this or that coin or bank-note amidst his accumulated thousands!—In like manner, Lord Byron was the most likely person in the world to forget the sources of his ideas.

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