Memoir of Francis Hodgson
Lord Byron to Francis Hodgson, 8 December 1811
I sent you a sad ‘Tale of Three
Friars’ the other day, and now take a dose in another style. I wrote it a day or two
ago, on hearing a song of former days:—
Away, away, ye notes of woe, etc. |
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I have gotten a book by Sir W.
Drummond (printed but not published) entitled ‘Œdipus Judaicus,’
in which he attempts to prove the greater part of the Old Testament an
allegory, particularly Genesis and Joshua. He professes himself a theist in the
preface, and handles the literal interpretation very roughly. I wish you could
see it. Mr. Ward has lent it to me, and I
confess to me it is worth fifty Watsons.
You and Harness must fix on the time for your visit to Newstead. . . .
Master William Harness and I have
recommenced a most fiery correspondence; I like him as Euripides liked Agatho, or
Darby admired Joan, as much for the past as the present.
Sir William Drummond (1770 c.-1828)
Scottish classical scholar and Tory MP; succeeded Lord Elgin as ambassador to the Ottoman
Porte (1803); his
Oedipus judaicus, in which he interpreted the Old
Testament as an astrological allegory, was privately printed in 1811.
Euripides (480 BC c.-406 BC)
Greek tragic poet; author of
Medea,
Alcestis, the
Bacchae, and other
plays.
William Harness (1790-1869)
A Harrow friend and early correspondent of Byron. He later answered the poet in
The Wrath of Cain (1822) and published an edition of Shakespeare
(1825) and other literary projects. Harness was a longtime friend of Mary Russell
Mitford.
John William Ward, earl of Dudley (1781-1833)
The son of William Ward, third Viscount Dudley (d. 1823); educated at Edinburgh and
Oxford, he was an English MP, sometimes a Foxite Whig and sometimes Canningite Tory, who
suffered from insanity in his latter years.
Richard Watson, bishop of Llandaff (1737-1816)
Regius Professor of Divinity, Trinity College, Cambridge and bishop of Llandaff (1782);
he published
Apology for Christianity (1776) in response to Gibbon,
and
Apology for the Bible (1796) in response to Paine.
