“In case the prose or verse of the above should be actionable, I put my name, that the man may rather proceed against me than the publisher—not without some faint hope that the brand with which I blast him may induce him, however reluctantly, to a manlier revenge.”
Extract from Letter to Murray
“I enclose you the stanzas which were intended for 1st Canto, after the line
‘Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey:’
but I do not mean them for present publication, because I will not, at this distance, publish that of a Man, for which he has a claim upon another too remote to give him redress.
“With regard to the Miscreant Brougham, however, it was only long after the fact, and I was made acquainted with the language he had held of me on my leaving England (with regard to the Dss of D.’s house),1218 and his letter to Me. de Staël, and various matters for all of which the first time he and I foregather—be it in England, be it on earth—he shall account, and one of the two be carried home.
“As I have no wish to have mysteries, I merely prohibit the publication of these stanzas in print, for the reasons of fairness mentioned; but I by no means wish him not to know their existence or their tenor, nor my intentions as to himself: he has shown no forbearance, and he shall find none. You may show them to him and to all whom it may concern, with the explanation that the only reason that I have not had satisfaction of this man has been, that I have never had an opportunity since I was aware of the facts, which my friends had carefully concealed from me; and it was only by slow degrees, and by piecemeal, that I got at them. I have not sought him, nor gone out of my way for him; but I will find him, and then we can have it out: he has shown so little courage, that he must fight at last in his absolute necessity to escape utter degradation.
“I send you the stanzas, which (except the last) have been written nearly two years, merely because I have been lately copying out most of the MSS. which were in my drawers.”
Julia was sent into a nunnery,
—[MS. M]
And there, perhaps, her feelings may be better.
Man’s love is of his life—.
—[MS. M]
“Que les hommes sont heureux d’aller à la guerre, d’exposer leur vie, de se livrer à l’enthousiasme de l’honneur et du danger! Mais il n’y a rien au-dehors qui soulage les femmes.”
—Corinne, ou L’Italie, Madame de Staël, liv., XVIII chap. V ed. 1835, III 209
—Editor ↩
To mourn alone the love which has undone.
or,
To lift our fatal love to God from man.
Take that which, of these three, seems the best prescription. —B. ↩
You will proceed in beauty and in pride,
—[MS. M]
You will return—.
Or,
That word is fatal now
—[MS. M]
lost for me
deadly now—but let it go.
I struggle, but can not collect my mind.
—[MS.]
As turns the needle trembling to the pole
—[MS.]
It ne’er can reach—so turns to you my soul.
With a neat crow-quill, rather hard, but new.
—[MS.]
Byron had a seal bearing this motto. —Editor ↩
And there are other incidents remaining
—[MS.]
Which shall be specified in fitting time,
With good discretion, and in current rhyme.
To newspapers, to sermons, which the zeal
—[MS.]
Of pious men have published on his acts.
I’ll call the work “Reflections o’er a Bottle.”
—[MS.]
Here, and elsewhere in Don Juan, Byron attacked Coleridge fiercely and venomously, because he believed that his protégé had accepted patronage and money, and, notwithstanding, had retailed scandalous statements to the detriment and dishonour of his advocate and benefactor (see letter to Murray, November 24, 1818, Letters, 1900, IV 272; and “Introduction to the Vision of Judgment,” Poetical Works, 1901, IV 475). Byron does not substantiate his charge of ingratitude, and there is nothing to show whether Coleridge ever knew why a once friendly countenance was changed towards him. He might have asked, with the Courtenays, Ubi lapsus, quid feci? If Byron had been on his mind or his conscience he would have drawn up an elaborate explanation or apology; but nothing of the kind is extant. He took the abuse as he had taken the favours—for the unmerited gifts of the blind goddess Fortune. (See, too, Letter … , by John Bull, 1821, p. 14.) —Editor ↩
Compare Byron’s “Letter to the Editor of My Grandmother’s Review,” Letters, 1900, IV Appendix VII 465–470; and letter to Murray, August 24, 1819, Letters, p. 348:
“I wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for publication, addressed to the buffoon Roberts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written offhand, and in the midst of circumstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of small acid punch.”
The letter was in reply to a criticism of Don Juan (Cantos I, II) in the British Review (No. XXVII, 1819, vol. 14, pp. 266–268), in which the Editor assumed, or feigned to assume, that the accusation of bribery was to be taken au grand sérieux. —Editor ↩
Hor., Od.
