Volume II Part 14 (1/2)
'Macbeth', act v. sc. 5.]
[Footnote 3: Francis Hodgson, writing to Byron, October 8, 1811, says,
”Murray's shopman, taught, I presume, by himself, calls 'Psyche'
'Pishy,' 'The Four Slaves of Cythera' 'The Four do. of Cythera,' and 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' 'Child of Harrow's Pilgrimage.' This misnomering Vendor of Books must have been misbegotten in some portentous union of the Malaprops and the Slipslops.”]
198.--To Francis Hodgson.
Newstead Abbey, Oct. 13, 1811.
You will begin to deem me a most liberal correspondent; but as my letters are free, you will overlook their frequency. I have sent you answers in prose and verse to all your late communications; and though I am invading your ease again, I don't know why, or what to put down that you are not acquainted with already. I am growing _nervous_ (how you will laugh!)--but it is true,--really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically _nervous_. Your climate kills me; I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. My days are listless, and my nights restless; I have very seldom any society, and when I have, I run out of it. At ”this present writing,” there are in the next room three _ladies_, and I have stolen away to write this grumbling letter.--I don't know that I sha'n't end with insanity, for I find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely; but this looks more like silliness than madness, as Scrope Davies would facetiously remark in his consoling manner. I must try the hartshorn of your company; and a session of Parliament would suit me well,--any thing to cure me of conjugating the accursed verb ”_ennuyer_.”
When shall you be at Cambridge? You have hinted, I think, that your friend Bland [1] is returned from Holland. I have always had a great respect for his talents, and for all that I have heard of his character; but of me, I believe he knows nothing, except that he heard my sixth form repet.i.tions ten months together at the average of two lines a morning, and those never perfect. I remembered him and his _Slaves_ as I pa.s.sed between Capes Matapan, St. Angelo, and his Isle of Ceriga, and I always bewailed the absence of the _Anthology_. I suppose he will now translate Vondel, the Dutch Shakspeare, and _Gysbert van Amsteli_ [2]
will easily be accommodated to our stage in its present state; and I presume he saw the Dutch poem, where the love of Pyramus and Thisbe is compared to the pa.s.sion of Christ; also the love of Lucifer for Eve, and other varieties of Low Country literature.
No doubt you will think me crazed to talk of such things, but they are all in black and white and good repute on the banks of every ca.n.a.l from Amsterdam to Alkmaar.
Yours ever,
B.
My poesy is in the hands of its various publishers; but the _Hints from Horace_ (to which I have subjoined some savage lines on Methodism, [3]
and ferocious notes on the vanity of the triple Editory of the _Edin.
Annual Register_ [4]), my _Hints_, I say, stand still, and why?--I have not a friend in the world (but you and Drury) who can construe Horace's Latin or my English well enough to adjust them for the press, or to correct the proofs in a grammatical way. So that, unless you have bowels when you return to town (I am too far off to do it for myself), this ineffable work will be lost to the world for--I don't know how many _weeks_.
_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_ must wait till _Murray's_ is finished. He is making a tour in Middles.e.x, and is to return soon, when high matter may be expected. He wants to have it in quarto, which is a cursed unsaleable size; but it is pestilent long, and one must obey one's bookseller. I trust Murray will pa.s.s the Paddington Ca.n.a.l without being seduced by Payne and Mackinlay's example,--I say Payne and Mackinlay, supposing that the partners.h.i.+p held good. Drury, the villain, has not written to me; ”I am never (as Mrs. Lumpkin [5] says to Tony) to be gratified with the monster's dear wild notes.”
So you are going (going indeed!) into orders. You must make your peace with the Eclectic Reviewers--they accuse you of impiety, I fear, with injustice. Demetrius, the ”Sieger of Cities,” is here, with ”Gilpin Horner.” [6]
The painter [7] is not necessary, as the portraits he already painted are (by antic.i.p.ation) very like the new animals.--Write, and send me your ”Love Song”--but I want _paulo majora_ from you. Make a dash before you are a deacon, and try a _dry_ publisher.
Yours always,