Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Journal Entry: 16 November 1813
“Nov. 16th.
“Went last night with Lewis to see the first of Antony and Cleopatra. It was admirably got up and well acted—a salad of
Shak-![]()
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speare and Dryden. Cleopatra strikes me as the
epitome of her sex—fond, lively, sad, tender, teasing, humble, haughty, beautiful, the
devil!—coquettish to the last, as well with the ‘asp’ as with Antony. After doing all she can to persuade him that—but
why do they abuse him for cutting off that poltroon Cicero’s head? Did not Tully
tell Brutus it was a pity to have spared
Antony? and did he not speak the Philippics? and are not
‘words things?’ and such ‘words’ very pestilent ‘things’ too? If
he had had a hundred heads, they deserved (from Antony) a rostrum
(his was stuck up there) apiece—though, after all, he might as well have pardoned him,
for the credit of the thing. But to resume—Cleopatra, after
securing him, says, ‘yet go’—‘it is your interest,’
&c.—how like the sex! and the questions about Octavia—it is woman all over.
“To-day received Lord
Jersey’s invitation to Middleton—to travel sixty miles to meet
Madame * *! I once travelled three
thousand to get among silent people; and this same lady writes octavos and talks folios. I have read her books—like most of them, and delight
in the last; so I won’t hear it, as well as read. * *
* *
* * *
“Read Burns today.
What would he have been, if a patrician? We should have had more polish—less force—just
as much verse, but no immortality—a divorce and a duel or two, the which had he
survived, as his potations must have been less spirituous, he might have lived as long
as Sheridan, and outlived as much as poor
Brinsley. What a wreck is that man! and all from bad pilotage;
for no one had ever better gales, though now and then a little too squally. Poor dear
Sherry! I shall never forget the day he and Rogers and Moore
and I passed together; when he talked, and we listened, without one yawn, from six till
one in the morning.
“Got my seals * * * * *
* *. Have again forgot a
plaything for ma petite cousine Eliza; but I
must send for it to-morrow. I hope Harry will
bring her to me. I sent Lord Holland the proofs of
the last ‘Giaour,’ and the
‘Bride of Abydos.’ He
won’t like the latter, and I don’t think that I shall long. It was written
in four nights to distract my dreams from * *. Were it not thus, it had never been
composed; and had I not done something at that time, I must have gone mad, by ![]()
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eating my own heart—bitter diet!—Hodgson likes it better than the
Giaour, but nobody else will,—and he never liked the Fragment. I am sure, had
it not been for Murray, that would never have
been published, though the circumstances which are the groundwork make it * * * heigh-ho!
“To-night I saw both the sisters of
* *; my God! the youngest so like! I thought I should have
sprung across the house, and am so glad no one was with me in Lady H.’s box. I hate those likenesses—the mock-bird, but not the
nightingale—so like as to remind, so different as to be painful*. One quarrels equally
with the points of resemblance and of distinction.
Marcus Junius Brutus (85 BC c.-42 BC)
The assassin of Julius Caesar, defeated at the Battle of Philippi.
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Scottish poet and song collector; author of
Poems, chiefly in the
Scottish Dialect (1786).
Henry Byron (d. 1821)
The son of the Rev. Hon. Richard Byron (1724-1811) and grandson of the fourth baron
Byron. He married Margaret Powditch in 1803; their daughter Eliza is not recorded in
Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage.
John Dryden (1631-1700)
English poet laureate, dramatist, and critic; author of
Of Dramatick
Poesie (1667),
Absalom and Achitophel (1681),
Alexander's Feast; or the Power of Musique (1697),
The Works of Virgil translated into English Verse (1697), and
Fables (1700).
Elizabeth Fox, Lady Holland [née Vassall] (1771 c.-1845)
In 1797 married Henry Richard Fox, Lord Holland, following her divorce from Sir Godfrey
Webster; as mistress of Holland House she became a pillar of Whig society.
Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840)
Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place
for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish
and Italian;
Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.
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).
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.
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).
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)
Anglo-Irish playwright, author of
The School for Scandal (1777),
Whig MP and ally of Charles James Fox (1780-1812).
Germaine de Staël (1766-1817)
French woman of letters; author of the novel
Corinne, ou L'Italie
(1807) and
De l'Allemagne (1811); banned from Paris by Napoleon, she
spent her later years living in Germany, Britain, and Switzerland.
