Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to Thomas Moore, 4 November 1815
“Had you not bewildered my head with the
‘stocks,’ your letter would have been answered directly. Hadn’t I to
go to the city? and hadn’t I to remember what to ask when I got there? and
hadn’t I forgotten it?
“I should be undoubtedly delighted to see you; but I
don’t like to urge against your reasons my own inclinations. Come you must soon,
for stay you won’t. I know you of old;—you have been too
much leavened with London to keep long out of it.
“Lewis is going to
Jamaica to suck his sugar-canes. He sails in two days; I enclose you his farewell note.
I saw him last night at D. L. T. for the last time previous to his voyage. Poor fellow!
he is really a good man—an excellent man—he left me his walking-stick and a pot of
preserved ginger. I shall never eat the last without tears in my eyes, it is so hot. We have had a devil of a row among our ballerinas: Miss Smith has been wronged about a hornpipe. The
Committee have interfered; but Byrne, the d—d
ballet-master, won’t budge a step. I am furious, so is
George Lamb. Kinnaird is very glad, because—he don’t know why; and I am very
sorry, for the same reason. Today I dine with Kd.—we are to have Sheridan and Colman
again; and tomorrow, once more, at Sir Gilbert
Heathcote’s.
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“Leigh Hunt has written a
real good and very original Poem, which I think
will he a great hit. You can have no notion how very well it is written, nor should I,
had I not redde it. As to us, Tom—eh, when art thou out? If you
think the verses worth it, I would rather they were embalmed in the Irish Melodies, than scattered abroad in a separate
song—much rather. But when are thy great things out? I mean the Po of Pos—thy Shah Nameh. It is very kind in
Jeffrey to like the Hebrew Melodies. Some of the fellows here preferred
Sternhold and Hopkins, and said so;—‘the fiend receive their souls
therefor!’
“I must go and dress for dinner. Poor, dear Murat, what an end! You know, I suppose, that his white
plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry
Fourth’s. He refused a confessor and a bandage;—so would neither
suffer his soul or body to be bandaged. You shall have more to-morrow or next day.
“Ever, &c.”
Sarah Bartley [née Williamson] (1783-1850)
English tragic actress who made her London debut at Covent Garden in 1805; in 1814 she
married the actor George Bartley (1782?-1858).
James Byrne (1756-1845)
English actor and ballet master; the father of the ballet-master Oscar Byrne
(1796-1867).
Sir Gilbert Heathcote, fourth baronet (1773-1851)
Of Normanton Park; he married Catherine Sophia Manners (1773-1825) in 1793 and was MP for
Lincolnshire (1796-1807) and Rutland (1812-1841).
Henry IV, king of England (1366-1413)
Son of John of Gaunt; after usurping the throne from Richard II he was king of England
(1399-1413).
John Hopkins (1520-1570)
With Thomas Sternhold he translated the Psalms in the versions used in sixteenth and
seventeenth-century Anglican prayer-books; their paired names became a byword for poor
poetry.
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of
The
Examiner and
The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and
Shelley.
Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773-1850)
Scottish barrister, Whig MP, and co-founder and editor of the
Edinburgh
Review (1802-29). As a reviewer he was the implacable foe of the Lake School of
poetry.
George Lamb (1784-1834)
Lawyer and Whig MP for Westminster (1819) and Dungarvan (1822-34), he was the son of
Elizabeth Lamb Viscountess Melbourne, possibly by the Prince of Wales. He was author of a
gothic drama,
Whistle for It (1807) and served with Byron on the
management-committee of Drury Lane. His sister-in-law was Lady Caroline Lamb.
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.
King Joachim Murat of Naples and Sicily (1767-1815)
French marshall; he married Caroline Bonaparte (1800) and succeeded Joseph Bonaparte as
king of Naples (1808); in 1815 he was captured and shot in an attempt to retake
Naples.
Thomas Sternhold (d. 1549)
English courtier; with John Hopkins (d. 1570) produced a metrically irregular and
much-abused translation of the Psalms.
