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December 19th 1821: Cain published with Sardanapalus and The Two Foscari
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December 19th 1821: Cain published with Sardanapalus and The Two Foscari. Byron to Scott, from Pisa, January 12th 1822: (Source: text from NLS 3894; LJ VI 1-6; QII 685-7; BLJ IX 85-7) Five years late, Byron thanks Scott for his review of Childe Harold III. Pisa. Ja y . 12 th . 1822. My dear Sir Walter / I need not say how grateful I am for yr. letter – but I must own my ingratitude in not having written to you again long ago. – Since I left England (and it is not far off the usual term of transportation) I have scribbled to five hundred blockheads – on business & c . without difficulty though with no great pleasure; and yet, with the notion of addressing you a hundred times in my head – and always in my heart – I have not done what I ought to have done. – I can only account for it on the {same} principle of tremulous anxiety with which one sometimes makes love to a beautiful woman of our own degree with whom one is earnest; – whereas we attack a fresh=coloured housemaid without (I speak of course of earlier times) 149: In The Bride of Lammermoor; in fact, “John” and “Gibbie” as well as “Gilbert”. 150: In A Legend of Montrose. 151: Both in The Bride of Lammermoor. any sentimental remorse or mitigation of our virtuous purpose. – I the usual obligation for the courtesies of literature and common friendship – for you 1:2 went out of your way in 1817 – to do me a service – when it required not merely kindness – but courage to do so; – to have been seconded by you in such a manner would have been a proud memorial at any time – but at such proverb goes – were trying to trample upon me was something still higher to my Self-esteem, – I allude to the Quarterly rev. of the 3 d . C o . of C e . H d . which Murray told me was written by you 152 – and indeed I should have known it would panegyrical – I should have felt pleased undoubtedly and grateful – but not to the extent which the extraordinary Good=heartedness of the whole proceeding – must induce in any mind capable of such sensations. – The {very} tardiness of 1:3 of this acknowledgement will at least show that I have not forgotten the obligation – & I can assure {you} that my sense of it has been out at compound interest during the delay. – I shall only add one word upon the subject – which is – that I think – that you and Jeffrey – and Leigh Hunt were the only literary men of numbers whom I know (& some of whom I had served) who dared venture even an anonymous word in my favour just then – and that of those three – I had never seen one all} 153 – of the second much less than I desired – and {that} the third was under no kind of obligation to me, whatever; while the other two had been actually attacked {by} me on a former occasion – one indeed with some provocation – but the other wantonly enough. – So you see you have been heaping “coals of fire & c .” 154 in the true Gospel manner – – and I can assure you that they have burnt {down} to my very heart. – 1:4 I am glad that you accepted the Inscription. I meant to have inscribed “The Foscaris” to you instead – but firstly – I heard that “Cain” was thought the least bad of the two as a composition – and 2d ly . – I have abused Southey like a pickpocket in a note to the “Foscaris” – and I recollected that he is a friend of yours (though not of mine) – and that it would not be the handsome thing to dedicate to one friend any thing containing such matters about another. – – However – I’ll work the Laureate before I have done with him – as soon as I can muster Billingsgate therefor. – I like a row – & always did from a boy – in the course of which propensity I must needs say that I have found it the most easy {of all} to be gratified – personally and poetically. – – You dislaim “Jealousies” but I would ask as Boswell did of Johnson “Of whom could you be jealous” – of none of the living certainly – and (taking all and all into consideration) – of which of the dead? – 2:1 2.) I don’t like to bore you about the Scotch novels (as they call them though two of them are wholly English 155 – and the rest half so), but nothing can or could ever persuade me since I was {the first} ten minutes in your company that you are not the Man. – – – To me those novels have so much of “Auld lang syne” (I was bred a canny Scot till ten years old), that I never move without them – and when I removed from Ravenna to Pisa the other day – and sent on my library before – they were the only books that I kept by me – although I already knew them by heart. Janyary 27 th . 1822. – I delayed till now concluding in the hope that I should have got “the Pirate” who is under way for me 156 – but has not yet hove in sight. – – I hear that your daughter is married and Download 1.07 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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