The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-10-25 00:00:00

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What if thy deep and ample strerot should be
A mirror of toy heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wihl as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed?
What do I say—a mirror of my heart ?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong
Such at my feelings were and are, thou art ;
And such as thou art, were my passions long.
Time may have somewhat tamed them, not for ever ;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye ;
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river !
Thy floods subside ; and mine have sunk away—
But left long wrecks behind them, end again
Borne on our old unchanged career, we move ;
Thou tendest wildly onward to the main,
And I to losing earl should not love.
The current I behold will sweep beneath
Hee native walls, and murmur at her feet ;
Her eyes will look on thee, when site shall breathe
The twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat.
bile will look on thee ; I have louk'd on thee,
Full of that thought, and from that moment nett
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
IVithout th' inseparable sigh for her.
Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy Stream
Yea, they will meet the wave I gale on now :
Mine cannot withess, even in a dream,
'That happy wave repass me in its flow.
The wave that bears my tears returns no more :
she return by whom that wave shall sweet, ?
Bien tread thy banks, both wander on thy short ;
I near thy source—she by the dark blue deep.
Mut that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, roe depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a aerial, lot.
As various as the climates of our birth.
A stranger loves a lady of the land.
born tkr beyond the mountains, bat his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fium'd
By the blank wind that chills the polar flood.
111 y blood is all meridian ; were it not,
I had not lift myy shall not be,
In spite of tortures ne'er to be forgot,
.1 rlave again of love, re least of thee.
'Tie vain to struggle—let me perish young—
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved:
To tins* if I return, from dust I sprung,
And theta at least my heart can nc'er be mowed.
-Defending the cuctoui of Gunther; Sefernti, his Lord-
ship says—
" The Count fluicetoli, for instaiire. who is the richest man in
Konaligna, acs sixty when he married Yonne. ; she sixteen. From
the first they had separate apartments, and she always used to call
lain air. What could be expected from such a preposterous con.
flexion ? For some tine she was an Angiolimi, and he n :Marino
Falter°, a good old man ; but young women, and your Italian titles
too, are riot satisfied with yoar good old wen. hove is not the
Wale lull, cold, calculating feeling here as in the North. It is the
business, the serious occupation of their lives; it is a want, a ne-
cessity. Swot:body properly defines a woman, • a creature that
loves: They die of love; particularly the Romans : they begin
to love earlier, and feel the passion later than the Northeru people.
%Viten I was at Venice. two dowagers of sixty made love to me.—
But to return to the Guicrioli. The old ;*onnt did not object to
her nailing herself of the privileges of her country ; an Italian
would have reconciled him to the thing : indeed for some time lie
W.aked at our intim-icy, but at length made an exception against
n.e, as a foreigner. a heretic, an Englishman, and, what was worse
than ail, a liheral.
• Be insisted--the Guiccioli was as obstinate ; her family took
de part. Catholics cannot get divorces. But, to the scandal of
iii Romarma, the matter was at length referred to the Pope, who
urderet her a.. separate maintenance, on conilitiou that she should
reside under her father's roof. All this was nut agreeable. and at
ienedi I was forced to smuggle her out of Ravenna, having dip-
.lasal a plot laid with the sanction of the Legate for shutting her
ea is a convent for life, which she narrowly escaped: "
'Tile morning after Shelley's obsequies, at which Lord B.
ellight a fever, Captain M. relates,
" I found him sitting in the garden under the shade of
urns orange-tress, with the Countesi-. They are now
always together, and he is become quite domestic. He
calls her Pie,:iitima, and bestows on her all the pretty dimi-
nutive epithets that are so sweet in Italian. His kindness
at:d attention to the G aiccioli have been invariable. A three
years constancy proves that he is not altogether so unma-
nageable by a stnsiide woman as might be supposed. In fact
1•:44) is SO easily hd : but lie is not to be driven. - -
" The influence of the Countess over Lord Byron re-
minded me of a remade u: Fletcher's, that Shelley once re-
peatral to sue as basing overheard :—"fhat it was'
strange every woman should be able to manage hit Lind-
ship but her had :ship "
lie bet her, however, when he went to Greece, and her
brother Count Garnba accompanied his corpse to its last
obyle in England. Of another of his amours we find the
teilowing account. lie. says—
'. • You may remember seeing the portrait of a female which
Murray got engraved. and dubbed my • Fornsrina.'
••• Marlowe, the poor fellow who died soon after his return from
Rorie, and who used to copy pictures from memory. took nip like.
C. 15 when lie was at l• t. nice : and one day this frail one, who was
a casual seqoatatance of mine, happened to be at my palace, and
to be seen by the painter, aho was struck with her, and begged she
might sit to him. She did so. and I sent the drawing butte as a
saecimen if the Venetian/, and not a bail one either ; for the jade
was handsome, though the most troublesome shrew and tonnage:a
ever met with. To give you an idea of the lady. she used to call
sae the Grur Coe &Lila Madonna. When once site obtained •
footing inside my door, she took a dislike to the outside of it. tont
had great dil7lCLlhr is uncolooiring her. She forced bee way bock
one day when I was at dinner. and snatching • knife from the table.
offered to stab herself if I did not consent to her stay. Seeing I
took no rouse of her threat. as knowing it to be only a feint, she
ma into the balcony and threw herself into the canal. An it was
only kneo-deep, anti there were plenty of gondolas, ore of them
Fie •a`• her up. This atthir made a aweat noise at the time. Some
said that 1 out thrown her into the water, others that she lied
dromed henself for love; but this is the real story.
" • I got into nearly as great a scrape by malting !TIC court to a
spinster. „As many Dowers% as emu please at Venice. hut be-
au" of with glazzas. • I haa been one night under her
window ses-enadiaar, ant she root enconiog who should be antiounetd
a: the same time but a priest and police infirm come, as I thought.
either to shoot or many ate again,-1 dial not care which. I was
disaustal aril tired with the life I led at Venice, and was glad to
turn my back or. it. The Austrian tioverntuent, too, partly contri-
buted to drive me away. They intercepted nay books and
papers, opened my letters, and proscribed my works:
•• • Murray (said be), pretends to have lost money by my
writings, and pleads poverty; but if he is poor, which Is some-
what Kato:tat:cal to me. pray who is to blame? The fault is in
hishaving purchased, at the instance of his ;area: friends. during the
last year, so many expensive Voyages and Travels, which all his
influence with the Quarterly cannot persuade people to buy—can.
not puff into popularity. The Cookery-hook (which he has got •
lawsuit about), hits been fur a long time his sheet-anchor; but
they my he will have to refond—the worst of fonds. Mr. Murray
is tender of my fame ! Mow kind of him ! He is afraid of my
writing too fast. Why ? because he has a tender regard tin his own
pocket, and does not like the look of any new acquaintance, in the
shape of a book of mine, till he has seen his old friends in a variety
of new Leas; Id rat, disaosed of a vast many editions of the for.
raer works. I don't know what would become of me without
I )(ragtag Kinnairci, who has Mom,* been my best and kindest friend.
It is not easy to deal with Mr. Murray.
". Murray offered me, et his own stworti,l.ooW. a canto for Dun
Jana. and afterwards reduced it to MAIL on the plea of piracy, and
complained of my hating divided one canto into two, bocause I
happened to say something at the erd of the third about having
SIMS so. It is true mama that teaa Juita 113 A been pirated ; but
whom has he to thank but Wailed ? In the that place, he put toe
high a price oo the copies of the two first cantos that came out. only
printing a opirato edition, at, Lithisk.,s gun:sawed a half. There
was a greot demand tio it, and this induct:it the knavish booksellers
to bum:oar. It lie had put John Murray on the title-page. like
a man, instead of smuggling the brat into the amid, and getting
Saivism, who is a printer and not a publisher, to father it. who
would have ventured to question his paternal rights ? or who would
Lave attempted to deprive hint of them ?
" The thing was -plainly this; he disowned and refused to ac-
knowledge the bantling; the natural consequence was, that others
should come forward to adopt it. Mr. John Murray is the most
nervous of God's booksellers. When Dam Joao first canoe out, he
was so frightened that he made a precipitate retreat into the country,
-*hut himself up, and would not open his letters. The fact is, he
priats for too many Bishops. He is always boring me with piratical
edition Brom edition, to prove the amount of his own losses, and
furnish proof of the extent of his own folly. Here is one at 2.5. dd.
that came only yesterday. Ido not pity him. Because '1 gave him
one of my points, he wanted to make me believe that I had made
him a present of two others, and hinted at some lines in
Reds, that were certainly to the point. But I have altered my
mind coasidwahla mom that mthieet ; as I once hinted to him. I
see no reason why a man should not profit by the sweat of his
brain, as well as that of his brow, ire. • besides I will poor at that
time, and have no idea of aggrandizing hooksellers. I was in Steit-
z—land whets he mode this modest request—and he always enter-
:Ailed a spite against Shia-icy tin making the agreement, and fixing
the price, which I beiieve was not dear, for the third canto of
Nara Nonfred. The Priruiter of Cailkt, Le.—l girt
•2,400 f. 'amend on it he did not lose stoney—he was not ruined
'by tlis, speculation.
" • Murray has long prevented Qoarierlo from abusing me.
Some of its bullies have had their fingers itching to he at roe ; bid
they would get the worst of it in a set.to." (Here he put himself
in a boxing attitude.) •• I perceive. however, that we shall have
some sparring ere lone. I don't with to 41:Eiffel with Murray, bat
seine inevitable. 1 had no reason to be pleased with him the
-other day. leolignani wrote to me, offering to purchase the copy-
right of my works, in order to obtain an exclusive privilege of print-
-log them fn France. I might have made my own terms, and put
she money In my flea pocket, instead of which I coelosed Oak-
soani'adetter to ]hurray, .in coder that he might conclude the matter

as he pleased. Ile did so, very advantageously for his own inte-
rest: but never had the complaisance, the common politeness, to
thank me, or acknowledge my letter. My differences with Murray
are not over. When he purchased Cabs, Vie Twa Foseari, and
Sardasepelms, he sent me a deed, which you remember witnessing.
Well : after its returneto England, it was discovered that • •
• • • • •
But I shall take no notice of it."
" Some time afterwards lie said:—
" • Murray and I have made up our quarrel ; at least, it is not
my fault if it should be renewed. The parsons bare been at hint
about Cain. An Oxonian has addr a bullying letter to him,
asking him how so moral a bookseller can stain his press with so
profane a book ? He is threatened with a prosecution by the Anti-
Constitutional Society. I don't believe they will venture to attack
him : if they do, I shall go home and make my own defence.' "
" Lord Byron wrote the same day the letter contained
in the Notes on Cain. Same months afterwards he said in

a letter—
" ' Murray and I have dissolved all connection. Ile had the
choice of giving up me or the A'acy Lists. There was no hesita-
tion which way he should decitit ; the Admiralty carried the day.
Now fur Ti.. Quarto-11A their batteries will be opened ; but I can
lire broadsides too. They have been letting off lots of squibs and
crackers against me, but they only make a noise and • •
" In a letter dated from Genoa the sth of May, IS' a,
he says—
" ' Werner was the !nit book Murray published forme, and three
months after came out the Quarterly's article on my plays, when
Narino Faliera was noticed toe 'he tirst time, &c.
•• ' 1 need not say that I shall be delighted by your inscribing
your Wanderer to me; bat I would recoiontend you to think twice
before you instrihe a war:: to me, as you most be aware that at
present I am the ninst unpopelar. writer going, and the odium on
the dedicatee may reedy on the etlicator. If you do nut think this
a valid objection. of course there can be none on my part," &c.
• •• • • •
" On another occasion he said :—• I am always getting new cor-
respondents. Here are three letters joist arrived, from strangers all
of them. One is front a Frenchwoman., who has been writing to
me off and on for the last three years. She is not only a blue-bottle,
b:t a poetess, I susptyt. Her object in .uldr;,„•ing me now, she
its. is to get me to eotte on the lows vt a slasesship, the particu-
lars of el:kat she alt tails.
" "f he ;wrond epistle is stltort, and in a hand I know very well :
it is artorymnos too. Ilea? what site says : • 1 cannot longer mist
withom acknnwitalling the nuuulitmus untlaigonizatg delight with
v. Wei my land bums at the glowing beauties of yours.'
" • A thinl is of a very illereat character from the last ; it is
fr./31 a .Mr. Sheppard. inclostng a prayer made for my welfare by
his wife a few days before her death. The letter states that he has
had the misfortune to lose this amiable woman, who had seen we at
ltamagate, many years ago, rambling amoag the cliffs; that she
had been impressed with a sense of my ir.cligion from the tenor of
my works, and had often prayed fervently fur my conversion, par.
ticularly in her last moments. The prayer is beautifully written.
I like devotion in women. She must have been adivine creatuir.
I pity the man who has lost her ! I shall write to him by return of
the courier to - condole with him, and tell him that Mrs. S.
need not have entertained any concern fur my spiritual affairs, for
that no man is more of a Christian than 1 fun, whatever my writ-
ings may have led her and alien to suspect."
• • • •

"' One of the principal incidents in The Ciao., is derived from
a real occurrence, and one too in which I myself was nearly and
deeply interested • but an unwillingness to hays it considered a
traveller's tale made me suppress the fact of its genuineness. The
Marquis of Slip, who knew ,Le particulars of the story, reminded
rne of them in Lnisland, and wondered 1 had not authenticated
them in the 1'.41t :
" When I was at Athens. there was an edict in throe similar
to that of Ali's, except that the ...aide of punishment was different.
It was necessary, therefore, that all love atiliirs should be carried
on with the greatest privacy. I was very fond at that time of a
Turkish girl--ave, fond of her as I have been of few women. All
went on very well till the Itainasan fur forty days, which is rather
a long fast for lovers; all intercourse between the sexes is forbid.
den by law, vs well as by religion. During this Lent of the Mus.
selmans the women are not allowed to quit their apartments. I
was in despair, and could hardly contrive to get a cinder. or a token.
flower sent to express it. We had not met the several days, and all
my thought's were occupied in planning an assignation, when, as
ill fate would have it, the means i took to effect filed to the disco.
very of our seem. The penalty was death,—death without reprieve
—a horrible death, at which ore cannot think without shuddering !
An order was issued for the law being put into in an est late effect. In the
mean time I knew nothilig of what had happened, and it was deter-
mined that I should be kept in ignorance of the who!? affair till it was
too late to interfere. A mere accident only enahle.l me to prevent
the completion of the sentence. I was taking one of my usual even-
ing rides by the sea-side, when I observed a crowd of people moving
down to the shore, and the arms of the soldier' glittering among
them. They were not so far off, but that I thought I could ovw
and then distinguish a faint and stilled shriek. My curiosity was
forcibly excited, and I despatched one of my followers to inquire
the cause of the procession. What was my hoiror to learn that
*thcy were carrying an unfortunate girl, sown up in a sack, is be
thrown into the sea! I did not hesitate as to what was to be done.
I knew I could depend on my faithful Albanians, and rode up to
the Aker commanding the party, threatening in case of his refusal
to give up his prisoner, that I would adopt means to compel hint.
Ile did not like the business he rat on, or perhaps the determined
look of my bnely-guard, and consented to accompany me back to
the city with the girl. whom I soon discovered to be my Turkish
favourite. Suffice it to say, that my interference with the chief ma-
gistrate, backed by a heavy bribe, saved her; but it was only on
condition that I should break off all intercourse with her, and that
she should immediately quit Athens, and be sent to her friends is
Thebes. There she died, a few days after her arrival, of a fever—
perhaps of lose.' "
• • • • • •
" I think I can give no stronger proof of the sociability
of Lord Byron's disposition, than the festivity that presid-
ed over his dinners.
"IYetlncsday being one of his fixed days You will
dine with me; said he, 4 though it is the 2d days,
" His own table, when alone, was frugal, not to say ab-
stemiens; but on the occasion of these meetings every sort
of wine, every luxury of the season, and };nglish delicacy,
were displayed. I never knew any man do the honours of
his house with greater kindness and hospitality. tht this
eventful an& v,•rsary :le wax not, however, in his usual IP*
rite, and evidently tried to drown the remembrance of the
day by a levity that was forced and unnatural; for it was
clear, in spite of all his effort', that something oppressed
him, anti he could not help continually recurring to the
strhject. One of the party proposed Lady Byron's health,
which he gave with evident pleasure, and we all drank in
bumpers. The conversation turning on his separation, the
probability of their being reconciled was catiemised.
•• • What!' said he. • efts" having lost the live best Tears of our
lives? Never I But,' added b •it vies no fault of mule that we
quarrelled. I have made admacs enough. I had once an idea
tont people are happiest in the marriage state, after the impetuosity
of the passion has subsided; but that hope is all over with me !'
• • • • • •

" Do you think,' asked I, • that Sir Walter Scott's Novels owe
any part of their reputation to the concealment of the author's
name No,' said he; such works do not gain or lose by it. 1
am at a loss to know his reason for keeping up the incognito but
that the reigning family could not lure been very well pleased with
Waserky. Thus is a degree of charlatanism in same authors
keeping up the Unknown. Junius owed mock of his fame to that
trick; and now that it Is known to be the work of Fir Philip
Francis, who reeds it? A political writer, and one who descends
to personalities such as disgrace Junius, should be immaculate as a
public, as well as a private character; and Sir Philip Francis was
neither. ale had hia price, and was gagged by being seat to India.
lie there seduced another DUD% wife. It would have been • new
cape for a Judge to sit in judgment on himself, in a Crim. Con. It
seems that his conjugal felicity was not great, for, when his wile
died, he came into the room where they were sitting up with the
corpse. and said, • bolder her up, solder her up ! lie saw his
dOODIDer (TONG and scolded hey, saying. • An old hag—she ought
to have died thirty yrars so P Ile married, shortly after, a young
woman. Ile hated Hastings to a violent degree • all he hoped and
prayed for was to outlive hun. But many of the newspapers of the
day are written as well as Junius. Matthias's book, The Porsaits
of Literature, DOW almost a dead letter, had once a great fame.'
" • 1 have been reading,' said 1, The Laisiod, and some of Ca.
moons' smaller poems. Why did Lord Stranigford call his beauti-
ful Sonnets, beu translations t'
" • B.'cause he wrote,' said Lord Byron,' order to get the si.
tuation of the Brazils, and did not know a ward of Portuguese when
he rommenecd.'
•• • Moore was suspected of assisting his Lordship,' said I. ' Was

that so ?'
"• 1 ant told not,' said Lord Byron. ' They are great friends
and when Moore WAS in difficulty about the Bermuda strait, in
which lie w.is so hardly used, Lord Strangford offered to give
him WO!. ; but 3loore had too much independence to lay hintwo.f
unt'.cr an obligation. I know no man I would go futtlicr to verve
than Moore.
••" The Fudge mils, pleases moat:touch as arty of his works.
The letter which he veractiesi at the end was given hint by Danglaa
Kinnaird anti myself, and was addressed by the Life.guardsmaa,
after the battle id ‘Vaterloo, to Big Ben. Witty av .Moore's epistle
is. it falls short of the orti;inal. • Doubling up the Meutisccrs in
biles,' is not so energetic an exprescou as was used by our hero ;
all the alliteration is lust.
•" Moore is one of the few writers who will survive the age in
which he so deservedly flourishes. Ile will live in his /r;sh Melo-
dies ; they will go down to posterity with the music ; both will LIN:
as loeg as Ireland. or as mune and poetry.'
"• I have got Hunt with me,' said' he. I will tell you how I
became acquainted with him.
" • One of the brat visits I paid to Hunt was in prison. I re-
member Lady Byron was with mein the carriaFe, atal I made her
wait longer thani intended at the gate of the king's Bench.
•• • When party feeling ran highest against Inc. Hunt was the
emir editor of a paper the only literary n:an, who dared say a word
lin my justification. shall always be grateful to him for the part
he took on that occasion. It was manly in him to brave the
eWo-
qua of standing alone.
" Shelley and myself furnished some time ago a suite of apart-
ments in my boos; for hint, which he now occupies. I believe I
told you of a plan we had in agitation for his benefit. Iftsprinci-