“I arrived in town late yesterday evening, having been absent three weeks, which I passed in Notts. quietly and pleasantly. You can have no conception of the uproar the eight lines on the little Royalty’s weeping in 1812 (now republished) have occasioned. The R * *, who had always thought them yours, chose—God knows why—on discovering them to be mine, to be affected ‘in sorrow rather than anger.’ The Morning Post, Sun, Herald, Courier, have all been in hysterics ever since. M. is in a fright, and wanted to shuffle—and the abuse against me in all directions is vehement, unceasing, loud—some of it good and all of it hearty. I feel a little compunctious as to the R * *’s regret;—would he had been only angry! but I fear him not.’
“Some of these same assailments you have probably seen. My person (which is excellent for ‘the nonce’) has been denounced in verses. the more like the subject, inasmuch as they halt exceedingly. Then, in another, I am an atheist—a rebel—and, at last, the Devil (boiteux, I presume). My demonism seems to be a female’s conjecture: if so, perhaps. I could convince her that I am but a mere mortal,—if queen of the Amazons may be believed, who says αριςον χολος οιϕει I quote from memory, so my Greek is probably deficient; but the passage is meant to mean * * * * * *.
“Seriously, I am in, what the learned call, a dilemma, and the vulgar, a scrape; and my friends desire me not to be in a passion, and like Sir Fretful, I assure them that I am ‘quite calm,’—but I am nevertheless in a fury.
| A. D. 1814. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 527 |
“Since I wrote thus far, a friend has come in, and we have been talking and buffooning, till I have quite lost the thread of my thoughts; and, as I won’t send them unstrung to you, good morning, and
“P.S. Murray, during my absence, omitted the Tears in several of the copies. I have made him replace them, and am very wroth with his qualms;—‘as the wine is poured out, let it be drunk to the dregs.’”
