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LIFE

OF

LORD BYRON:

WITH HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS.

BY THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.

IN SIX VOLUMES.--VOL. V.

NEW EDITION.


LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1854.




CONTENTS OF VOL. V.

LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE, from
October, 1820, to November, 1822.




NOTICES

OF THE

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.




LETTER 394. TO MR. MOORE.

     "Ravenna, October 17. 1820.

     "You owe me two letters--pay them. I want to know what you are
     about. The summer is over, and you will be back to Paris. Apropos
     of Paris, it was not Sophia _Gail_, but Sophia _Gay_--the English
     word _Gay_--who was my correspondent.[1] Can you tell who she is,
     as you did of the defunct * *?

     "Have you gone on with your Poem? I have received the French of
     mine. Only think of being _traduced_ into a foreign language in
     such an abominable travesty! It is useless to rail, but one can't
     help it.

     "Have you got my Memoir copied? I have begun a continuation. Shall
     I send it you, as far as it is gone?

     "I can't say any thing to you about Italy, for the Government here
     look upon me with a suspicious eye, as I am well informed. Pretty
     fellows!--as if I, a solitary stranger, could do any mischief. It
     is because I am fond of rifle and pistol shooting, I believe; for
     they took the alarm at the quantity of cartridges I consumed,--the
     wiseacres!

     "You don't deserve a long letter--nor a letter at all--for your
     silence. You have got a new Bourbon, it seems, whom they have
     christened 'Dieu-donne;'--perhaps the honour of the present may be
     disputed. Did you write the good lines on ----, the Laker? * *

     "The Queen has made a pretty theme for the journals. Was there ever
     such evidence published? Why, it is worse than 'Little's Poems' or
     'Don Juan.' If you don't write soon, I will'make you a speech.'
     Yours," &c.

[Footnote 1: I had mistaken the name of the lady he enquired after, and
reported her to him as dead. But, on the receipt of the above letter, I
discovered that his correspondent was Madame Sophie Gay, mother of the
celebrated poetess and beauty, Mademoiselle Delphine Gay.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER 395. TO MR. MURRAY.

     "Ravenna, 8bre 25 deg., 1820.

     "Pray forward the enclosed to Lady Byron. It is on business.

     "In thanking you for the Abbot, I made four grand mistakes, Sir
     John Gordon was not of Gight, but of Bogagicht, and a son of
     Huntley's. He suffered _not_ for his loyalty, but in an
     insurrection. He had _nothing_ to do with Loch Leven, having been
     dead some time at the period of the Queen's confinement: and,
     fourthly, I am not sure that he was the Queen's paramour or no, for
     Robertson does not allude to this, though _Walter Scott does_, in
     the list he gives of her admirers (as unfortunate) at the close of
     'The Abbot.'

     "I must have made all these mistakes in recollecting my mother's
     account of the matter, although she was more accurate than I am,
     being precise upon points of genealogy, like all the aristocratical
     Scotch. She had a long list of ancestors, like Sir Lucius
     O'Trigger's, most of whom are to be found in the old Scotch
     Chronicles, Spalding, &c. in arms and doing mischief. I remember
     well passing Loch Leven, as well as the Queen's Ferry: we were on
     our way to England in 1798.

     "Yours.

     "You had better not publish Blackwood and the Roberts' prose,
     except what regards Pope;--you have let the time slip by."

       *       *       *       *       *

The Pamphlet in answer