Conversations Croker Papers "ugly, and not of an intellectual ugliness. Her features were coarse, and the ordinary expression rather vulgar, she had an ugly mouth, and one or two irregularly prominent teeth, which perhaps gave her countenance an habitual gaiety. Her eye was full, dark, and expressive; and when she declaimed, which was almost whenever she spoke, she looked eloquent, and one forgot that she was plain."
"did not affect to conceal her preference for the society of men to that of her own sex,"
"Found her in an excessively dirty cabinet—sofa singularly so; her own dress, a loose spencer with a bare neck,"
Journal Diary "On the 28th of January," he writes, "I first waited on Madame de Staël. I was shown into her bedroom, for which, not knowing Parisian customs, I was unprepared. She was sitting, most decorously, in her bed, and writing. She had her night-cap on, and her face was not made up for the day. It was by no means a captivating spectacle; but I had a very cordial reception, and two bright black eyes smiled benignantly on me."
Autobiographical Recollections "Madame de Staël was a perfect aristocrat, and her sympathies were wholly with the great and prosperous. She saw nothing in England but the luxury, stupidity, and pride of the Tory aristocracy, and the intelligence and magnificence of the Whig aristocracy. These latter talked about truth, and liberty and herself, and she supposed it was all as it should be. As to the millions, the people, she never inquired into their situation. She had a horror of the canaille, but anything of sangre asul had a charm for her. When she was dying she said, 'Let me die in peace; let my last moments be undisturbed.' Yet she ordered the cards of every visitor to be brought to her. Among them was one from the Duc de Richelieu. 'What!' exclaimed she indignantly, 'What! have you sent away the Duke? Hurry! Fly after him. Bring him back. Tell him that, though I die for all the world, I live for him.'"
New Letters of Napoleon I. ibid. ibid. Lettres inédites de Napoléon I'er
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2: "Old Gardner the bookseller employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany called the Universal Visitor. There was a formal written contract, which Allen the printer saw.... They were bound to write nothing else; they were to have, I think, a third of the profits of his sixpenny pamphlet; and the contract was for ninety-nine years"
Life of Dr. Johnson
return
Footnote 3: "But first the Monarch, so polite,
Ask'd Mister Whitbread if he'd be a Knight.
Unwilling in the list to be enroll'd,
Whitbread contemplated the Knights of Peg,
Then to his generous Sov'reign made a leg,
And said, 'He was afraid he was too old,'" etc.
Instructions to a Laureat
return
Список писем
Contents
306 — Достопочтенной Августе Ли
My Dearest Augusta dinner waylay
Byron
Список писем
Contents
307 — Достопочтенной Августе Ли
My Dearest Augusta whom own praises
even your eleven page 1
Byron
Footnote 1: Letters
return to footnote mark
Список писем
Contents
308 — Достопочтенной Августе Ли
My Dearest Augusta you 1 have
Stael me not sensation both
Footnote 1: Memoirs of the Life of Sir H. Davy Researches, Chemical and Philosophical Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing Life "He is now about thirty-three, but with all the freshness and bloom of five-and-twenty, and one of the handsomest men I have seen in England. He has a great deal of vivacity, talks rapidly, though with great precision, and is so much interested in conversation, that his excitement amounts to nervous impatience, and keeps him in constant motion."
née Journal "found her in her parlour, working on a dress, the contents of her basket strewed about the table, and looking more like home than anything since I left it. She is small, with black eyes and hair, a very pleasant face, an uncommonly sweet smile, and, when she speaks, has much spirit and expression in her countenance. Her conversation is agreeable, particularly in the choice and variety of her phraseology, and has more the air of eloquence than I have ever heard before from a lady."
Life of George Ticknor
return to footnote mark
Список писем
Contents
309 — Джону Мюррею
Dear Sir There 1 my cancel
There Satirist 2 vituperative viz s d
Footnote 1: "To Samuel Rogers, Esq., as a slight but most sincere token of my admiration of his genius."
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2: The Satirist Giaour "A word in conclusion. The noble lord appears to have an aristocratical solicitude to be read only by the opulent. Four shillings and sixpence for forty-one octavo pages of poetry! and those pages verily happily answering to Mr. Sheridan's image of a rivulet of text flowing through a meadow of margin. My good Lord Byron, while you are revelling in all the sensual and intellectual luxury which the successful sale of Newstead Abbey has procured for you, you little think of the privations to which you have subjected us unfortunate Reviewers, ... in order to enable us to purchase your lordship's expensive publication."
return
Список писем
Contents
310 — Томасу Муру
nonchalant
Rogers 1 proof I before
presume 2 M. W. you I Do 3
Footnote 1: "Madame de Stael treats me as the person whom she most delights to honour; I am generally ordered with her to dinner, as one orders beans and bacon: she is one of the few persons who surpass expectation; she has every sort of talent, and would be universally popular, if, in society, she were to confine herself to her inferior talents— pleasantry, anecdote, and literature. I have reviewed her Essay on Suicide in the last Edinburgh Review: it is not one of her best, and I have accordingly said more of the author and the subject than of the work."
Life
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2:
return
Footnote 3: Intercepted Letters, or the Twopenny Post-bag
return
Список писем
Contents
311 — Томасу Муру
his own
you inclined 1 clever would will
They 2
There 3
in la belle passion had
Footnote 1: "Lady A. F—— was also very handsome. It is melancholy to talk of women in the past tense. What a pity, that of all flowers, none fade so soon as beauty! Poor Lady A. F— has not got married. Do you know, I once had some thoughts of her as a wife; not that I was in love, as people call it, but I had argued myself into a belief that I ought to marry, and, meeting her very often in society, the notion came into my head, not heart, that she would suit me. Moore, too, told me so much of her good qualities—all which was, I believe, quite true—that I felt tempted to propose to her, but did not, whether tant mieux or tant pis, God knows, supposing my proposal accepted."
Conversations
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2: Hamlet The Two-penny Post-bag "Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou."
return
Footnote 3: Morning Chronicle Grand National Fête fête báton
return
Список писем
Contents
312 — Джону Хэнсону
Dear Sir young law
ruined over-reached
Список писем
Contents
313 — Джону Мюррею
Epic
Byron
Список писем
Contents
314 — Томасу Муру
have 1
2 indifferent you
Perhaps 3
season 4 5 Canning 6
Conceive 7 Townsend query
sheet 8 not not not
Byron
Footnote 1: The Dragon of Wantley, a Burlesque Opera i.e. "Have you not heard of the Trojan Horse;
With Seventy Men in his Belly?
This Dragon was not quite so big,
But very near, I'll tell you;
Devoured he poor Children three,
That could not with him grapple;
And at one sup he eat them up,
As one would eat an Apple.
"All sorts of Cattle this Dragon did eat,
Some say he eat up Trees,
And that the Forest sure he would
Devour by degrees.
For Houses and Churches were to him Geese and Turkies;
He eat all, and left none behind,
But some Stones, dear Jack, which he could not crack,
Which on the Hills you'll find."
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2:
"Farewell, thou poor rag of the Muse!
In the bag of the clothesman go lie;
A farthing thou'lt fetch from the Jews,
Which the hard-hearted Christians deny," etc.
The Shade of Pope "There reeling Morris and his bestial songs."
Lyra Urbanica
return
Footnote 3: Life of Goldsmith "a handful of grey pease, given him by a girl at a wake (after fasting for twenty-four hours) the most comfortable repast he had ever made."
return
Footnote 4: "I liked the Dandies," says Byron, in his Detached Thoughts; "they were always very civil to me, though in general they disliked literary people, and persecuted and mystified Madme. de Staël, Lewis, Horace Twiss, and the like, damnably. They persuaded Madme. de Staël that Alvanley had a hundred thousand a year, etc., etc., till she praised him to his face for his beauty! and made a set at him for Albertine (Libertine, as Brummell baptized her, though the poor girl was, and is, as correct as maid or wife can be, and very amiable withal), and a hundred other fooleries besides. The truth is, that, though I gave up the business early, I had a tinge of Dandyism in my minority, and probably retained enough of it to conciliate the great ones at four and twenty. I had gamed and drunk and taken my degrees in most dissipations, and, having no pedantry, and not being overbearing, we ran quietly together. I knew them all more or less, and they made me a member of Watier's (a superb club at that time), being, I take it, the only literary man (except two others, both men of the world, M[oore] and S[pencer] in it. Our Masquerade was a grand one; so was the Dandy Ball too—at the Argyle,—but that (the latter) was given by the four chiefs—B[rummel?], M[idmay?], A[lvanley?], and P[ierreoint?], if I err not."
return
Footnote 5: Reflections Vindiciæ Gallicæ Anti- Jacobin's Introductory Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations The Law of Nature and Nations Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy History of the Revolution in England in 1688
Table-Talk "He had a prodigious memory, and could repeat by heart more of Cicero than you could easily believe.... I never met a man with a fuller mind than Mackintosh,—such readiness on all subjects, such a talker."
"Till subdued by age and illness," wrote Sydney Smith (Life of Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 500), "his conversation was more brilliant and instructive than that of any human being I ever had the good fortune to be acquainted with."
Life
Table-Talk
return
Footnote 6:
Morning Chronicle "Mr. Canning it seems has (to use a French phrase) reformed his political corps. He assembled them at the close of the Session, and with many expressions of regret for the failure of certain negociations, which might have been favourable to them as a body, relieved them from their oaths of allegiance, and recommended them to pursue in future their objects separately. The Right Honourable gentleman, perhaps, finds it more convenient for himself to act unencumbered; and both he and one or two others may find their interest in disbanding the squad; but some of them are turned off without a character."
Courier "We believe ... that Mr. Canning is not indisposed to join the present Cabinet, and may wish one or two of his particular friends to come in with him."
return
Footnote 7: "I have led my ragamuffins where they are pepper'd: there's but three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's end, to beg during life."
Henry IV
Reminiscences "a little fat man with a flaxen wig, Kersey-mere breeches, a blue straight-cut coat, and a broad-brimmed white hat. To the most daring courage he added great dexterity and cunning; and was said, in propria persona, to have taken more thieves than all the other Bow Street officers put together."
return
Footnote 8: Fam
return
Список писем
Contents
315 — Томасу Муру
de moribus Germannorum Woods have 1
indignantly
Footnote 1: i. e.
return to footnote mark
Список писем
Contents
316 — Томасу Муру
from for to
am 1 little 2
Footnote 1: Detached Thoughts "In society I have met Sheridan frequently: he was superb! He had a sort of liking for me, and never attacked me, at least to my face, as he did every body else—high names, and wits, and orators, some of them poets also. I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Staël, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others (whose names, as friends, I set not down) of good fame and ability. Poor fellow! he got drunk very thoroughly and very soon. It occasionally fell to my lot to pilot him home—no sinecure, for he was so tipsy that I was obliged to put on his cocked hat for him. To be sure, it tumbled off again, and I was not myself so sober as to be able to pick it up again.
"The last time I met him was, I think, at Sir Gilbert Elliot's, where he was as quick as ever—no, it was not the last time; the last time was at Douglas Kinnaird's. I have met him in all places and parties—at Whitehall with the Melbournes, at the Marquis of Tavistock's, at Robins's the auctioneer's, at Sir Humphry Davy's, at Sam Rogers's,—in short, in most kinds of company, and always found him very convivial and delightful.
"I have seen Sheridan weep two or three times. It may be that he was maudlin; but this only renders it more impressive, for who would see
'From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow,
And Swift expire a driveller and a show'?
"Once I saw him cry at Robins's the auctioneer's, after a splendid dinner, full of great names and high spirits. I had the honour of sitting next to Sheridan. The occasion of his tears was some observation or other upon the subject of the sturdiness of the Whigs in resisting office and keeping to their principles: Sheridan turned round: 'Sir, it is easy for my Lord G. or Earl G. or Marquis B. or Lord H. with thousands upon thousands a year, some of it either presently derived, or inherited in sinecure or acquisitions from the public money, to boast of their patriotism and keep aloof from temptation; but they do not know from what temptation those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal talents, and not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not in the course of their lives what it was to have a shilling of their own.' And in saying this he wept.
"There was something odd about Sheridan. One day, at dinner, he was slightly praising that pert pretender and impostor, Lyttelton (the Parliamentary puppy, still alive, I believe). I took the liberty of differing from him; he turned round upon me, and said, 'Is that your real opinion?' I confirmed it. Then said he, 'Fortified by this concurrence, I beg leave to say that it, in fact, is my opinion also, and that he is a person whom I do absolutely and utterly despise, abhor, and detest.' He then launched out into a description of his despicable qualities, at some length, and with his usual wit, and evidently in earnest (for he hated Lyttelton). His former compliment had been drawn out by some preceding one, just as its reverse was by my hinting that it was unmerited.
"I have more than once heard him say, 'that he never had a shilling of his own.' To be sure, he contrived to extract a good many of other people's.
"In 1815 I had occasion to visit my lawyer in Chancery Lane; he was with Sheridan. After mutual greetings, etc., Sheridan retired first. Before recurring to my own business, I could not help inquiring that of Sheridan. 'Oh,' replied the attorney, 'the usual thing! to stave off an action from his wine-merchant, my client.'—'Well,' said I, 'and what do you mean to do?'—'Nothing at all for the present,' said he: 'would you have us proceed against old Sherry? what would be the use of it?' and here he began laughing, and going over Sheridan's good gifts of conversation.
"Now, from personal experience, I can vouch that my attorney is by no means the tenderest of men, or particularly accessible to any kind of impression out of the statute or record; and yet Sheridan, in half an hour, had found the way to soften and seduce him in such a manner, that I almost think he would have thrown his client (an honest man, with all the laws, and some justice, on his side) out of the window, had he come in at the moment.
"Such was Sheridan! he could soften an attorney! There has been nothing like it since the days of Orpheus.
"One day I saw him take up his own 'Monody on Garrick.' He lighted upon the Dedication to the Dowager Lady Spencer. On seeing it, he flew into a rage, and exclaimed 'that it must be a forgery, that he had never dedicated any thing of his to such a damned canting bitch,' etc., etc.—and so went on for half an hour abusing his own dedication, or at least the object of it. If all writers were equally sincere, it would be ludicrous.
"He told me that, on the night of the grand success of his School for Scandal he was knocked down and put into the watch-house for making a row in the street, and being found intoxicated by the watchmen. Latterly, when found drunk one night in the kennel, and asked his name by the watchmen, he answered, 'Wilberforce.'
"When dying he was requested to undergo 'an operation.' He replied that he had already submitted to two, which were enough for one man's lifetime. Being asked what they were, he answered, 'having his hair cut, and sitting for his picture."
"I have met George Colman occasionally, and thought him extremely pleasant and convivial. Sheridan's humour, or rather wit, was always saturnine, and sometimes savage; he never laughed (at least that I saw, and I watched him), but Colman did. If I had to choose and could not have both at a time I should say, 'Let me begin the evening with Sheridan, and finish it with Colman.' Sheridan for dinner, Colman for supper; Sheridan for claret or port but Colman for every thing, from the madeira and champagne at dinner the claret with a layer of port between the glasses up to the punch of the night, and down to the grog, or gin and water, of daybreak;—all these I have threaded with both the same. Sheridan was a grenadier company of life guards, but Colman a whole regiment—of light infantry, to be sure, but still a regiment."
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2: "Potations pottle deep"
Othello
return
Список писем
Contents
317 — Джону Мюррею
reviews Giaour thank Satirist personally 1
Footnote 1: Satirist Rejected Addresses With horn-handled knife,
To kill a tender lamb as dead as mutton."
"A short time back (say the newspapers, and newspapers never say the thing which is not) Lady H. gave a ball and supper. Among the company were Lord B—n, Lady W—, and Lady C. L—b. Lord B., it would appear, is a favourite with the latter Lady; on this occasion, however, he seemed to lavish his attention on another fair object. This preference so enraged Lady C. L. that in a paroxysm of jealousy she took up a dessert-knife and stabbed herself. The gay circle was, of course, immediately plunged in confusion and dismay, which however, was soon succeeded by levity and scandal. The general cry for medical assistance was from Lady W—d: Lady W—d!!! And why? Because it was said that, early after her marriage, Lady W— also took a similar liberty with her person for a similar cause, and was therefore considered to have learned from experience the most efficacious remedy for the complaint. It was also whispered that the Lady's husband had most to grieve, that the attempt had not fully succeeded. Lady C. L. is still living.