Memoir of Francis Hodgson
Lord Byron to Francis Hodgson, 16 July 1809
Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of
marvellous sights, palaces, convents, &c.; which, being to be heard of in
my friend Hobhouse’s
![]()
| LETTERS FROM BYRON. SPAIN. PORTUGAL. | 163 |
![]()
forthcoming
‘Book of
Travels,’ I shall not anticipate by giving any account to you in a
private and clandestine manner. I must just observe that the village of Cintra,
in Estremadura, is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world—very far
superior to my expectation—and Portugal pleasant enough. The inhabitants
have few vices, &c. . . . The first and sweetest spot in this kingdom is
Montserrat, lately the seat of the great Beckford.1
Hodgson! send me the news, and Hobby’s Missellingany, and the deaths and
defeats, and capital crimes, and the misfortunes of one’s friends, and
the controversies and criticisms. All this will be pleasant, suave mari magno, &c. Talking of that, I have
been sea-sick and sick of the sea. Adieu!
William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844)
English novelist and aesthete, son of the Jamaica planter and Lord Mayor William Beckford
(1709-1770), author of
Vathek: An Arabian Tale, surreptitiously
translated and published in 1786. He was MP for Wells (1784-90) and Hindon (1790-94,
1806-20).
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).
Francis Hodgson (1781-1852)
Provost of Eton College, translator of Juvenal (1807) and close friend of Byron. He wrote
for the
Monthly and
Critical Reviews, and was
author of (among other volumes of poetry)
Childe Harold's Monitor; or
Lines occasioned by the last Canto of Childe Harold (1818).
