Volume II Part 96 (1/2)

Wrote to H.:--he has been telling that I------[3] I am sure, at least, _I_ did not mention it, and I wish he had not. He is a good fellow, and I obliged myself ten times more by being of use than I did him,--and there's an end on't.

Baldwin [4] is boring me to present their King's Bench pet.i.tion. I presented Cartwright's last year; and Stanhope and I stood against the whole House, and mouthed it valiantly--and had some fun and a little abuse for our opposition. But ”I am not i' th' vein” [5] for this business. Now, had----been here, she would have _made_ me do it.

_There_ is a woman, who, amid all her fascination, always urged a man to usefulness or glory. Had she remained, she had been my tutelar genius.

Baldwin is very importunate--but, poor fellow, ”I can't get out, I can't get out--said the starling.” [6] Ah, I am as bad as that dog Sterne, who preferred whining over ”a dead a.s.s to relieving a living mother”

[7]--villain--hypocrite--slave--sycophant! but _I_ am no better. Here I cannot stimulate myself to a speech for the sake of these unfortunates, and three words and half a smile of----had she been here to urge it (and urge it she infallibly would--at least she always pressed me on senatorial duties, and particularly in the cause of weakness) would have made me an advocate, if not an orator. Curse on Rochefoucault for being always right! In him a lie were virtue,--or, at least, a comfort to his readers.

George Byron has not called to-day; I hope he will be an admiral, and, perhaps, Lord Byron into the bargain. If he would but marry, I would engage never to marry myself, or cut him out of the heirs.h.i.+p. He would be happier, and I should like nephews better than sons.

I shall soon be six-and-twenty (January 22d., 1814). Is there any thing in the future that can possibly console us for not being always _twenty-five_?

”Oh Gioventu!

Oh Primavera! gioventu dell' anno.

Oh Gioventu! primavera della vita.”

[Footnote 1:

”'Strato'.

For Brutus only overcame himself, And no man else hath honour by his death.

'Octavius'.

According to his virtue let us use him, With all respect and rites of burial.”

'Julius Caesar', act v. sc. 5.]

[Footnote 2: In 'The Giaour' (lines 388-392) occurs the following pa.s.sage:

”As rising on its purple wing The insect-queen of Eastern spring O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer Invites the young pursuer near,” etc.

To line 389 is appended this note:

”The blue-winged b.u.t.terfly of Kashmeer, the most rare and beautiful of the species.”]

[Footnote 3: See letter [Letter 365] to Francis Hodgson, p. 294.]

[Footnote 4: The letters which W.J. Baldwin, a debtor in the King's Bench prison, wrote to Byron are preserved. Byron seems to have refused to present the pet.i.tion from diffidence, but he interested himself in the subject, and probably induced Lord Holland to take up the question.

(See p. 318, 'note' 2 [Footnote 6 of the initial journal entry which forms the beginning of Chapter VIII.]) In the list of abuses enumerated by Baldwin is mentioned a ”strong room,” in which prisoners were confined, without fires or gla.s.s to the windows, in the depth of winter.]