"You and Harness must fix on the time for your visit to Newstead; I can command mine at your wish, unless anything particular occurs in the interim. Bland dines with me on Tuesday to meet Moore. Coleridge has attacked the 'Pleasures of Hope,' and all other pleasures whatsoever. Mr. Rogers was present, and heard himself indirectly rowed by the lecturer. We are going in a party to hear the new Art of Poetry by this reformed schismatic; and were I one of these poetical luminaries, or of sufficient consequence to be noticed by the man of lectures, I should not hear him without an answer. For you know, 'an a man will be beaten with brains, he shall never keep a clean doublet.' Campbell will be desperately annoyed. I never saw a man (and of him I have seen very little) so sensitive;-what a happy temperament! I am sorry for it; what can he fear from criticism? I don't know if Bland has seen Miller, who was to call on him yesterday. "To-day is the Sabbath, -a day I never pass pleasantly, but at Cambridge; and, even there, the organ is a sad remembrancer. Things are stagnant enough in town; as long as they don't retrogade, 'tis all very well. Hobhouse writes and writes and writes, and is an author. I do nothing but eschew tobacco. I wish parliament were assembled, that I may hear, and perhaps some day be heard; but on this point I am not very sanguine. I have many plans; sometimes I think of the East again, and dearly beloved Greece. I am well, but weakly. Yesterday Kinnaird told me I looked very ill, and sent me home happy. "Is Scrope still interesting and invalid? And how does Hinde with his cursed chemistry? To Harness I have written, and he has written, and we have all written, and have nothing now to do but write again, till death splits up the pen and the scribbler. "The Alfred has three hundred and fifty-four candidates for six vacancies. The cook has run away and left us liable, which makes our committee very plaintive. Master Brook, our head serving-man, has the gout, and our new cook is none of the best. I speak from report, -for what is cookery to a leguminous-eating ascetic? So now you know as much of the matter as I do. Books and quiet are still there, and they may dress their dishes in their own way for me. Let me know your determination as to Newstead, and believe me, - Yours ever, “Μπαιρῶν.” TO LORD HOLLAND. "8, St. James's Street, February 25, 1812. "My Lord, With my best thanks, I have the honour to return the Notts. letter to your Lordship. I have read it with attention, but do not think I shall venture to avail myself of its contents, as my view of the question differs in some measure from Mr. Coldham's, I hope I do not wrong him, but his objections to the bill appear to me to be founded on certain apprehensions that he and his coadjutors might be mistaken for the 'original advisers' (to quote him) of the measure. For my own part, I consider the manufacturers as a much injured body of men, sacrificed to the views of certain individuals who have enriched themselves by those practices which have deprived the frame-workers of employment. For instance;-by the adoption of a certain kind of frame, one man performs the work of seven--six are thus thrown out of business. But it is to be observed that the work thus done is far inferior in quality, hardly marketable at home, and hurried over with a view to exportation. Surely, my Lord, however we may rejoice in any improvement in the arts which may be beneficial to mankind, we must not allow mankind to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. The maintenance and well-doing of the industrious poor is an object of greater consequence to the community than the enrichment of a few monopolists by any improvement in the implements of trade, which deprives the workman of his bread, and renders the labourer "unworthy of his hire." My own motive for opposing the bill is founded on its palpable injustice, and its certain inefficacy. I have seen the state of these miserable men, and it is a disgrace to a civilised country. Their excesses may be condemned, but cannot be subject of wonder. The effect of the present bill would be to drive them into actual rebellion. The few words I shall venture to offer on Thursday will be founded upon these opinions formed from my own observations on the spot. By previous inquiry, I am convinced these men would have • been restored to employment, and the county to tranquillity. It is, perhaps, not yet too late, and is surely worth the trial. It can never be too late to employ force in such circumstances. I believe your Lordship does not coincide with me entirely on this subject, and most cheerfully and sincerely shall I submit to your superior judgment and experience, and take some other line of argument against the bill, or be silent altogether, should you deem it more advisable. Condemning, as every one must condemn, the conduct of these wretches, I believe in the existence of grievances which call rather for pity than punishment. I have the honour to be, with great respect, my Lord, your Lordship's "Most obedient and obliged servant, "BYRON." TO LORD HOLLAND. "St. James's Street, March 5, 1812. "My Lord, May I request your Lordship to accept a copy of the thing which accompanies this note? You have already so fully proved the truth of the first line of Pope's couplet,* ""Forgiveness to the injured doth belong,' that I long for an opportunity to give the lie to the verse that follows. If I were not perfectly convinced that anything I may have formerly uttered in the boyish rashness of * The couplet is Dryden's : "Forgiveness to the injured doth belong, But they ne'er pardon who commit the wrong." my misplaced resentment had made as little impression as it deserved to make, I should hardly have the confidenceperhaps your Lordship may give it a stronger and more appropriate appellation to send you a quarto of the same scribbler. But your Lordship, I am sorry to observe to-day, is troubled with the gout; if my book can produce a laugh against itself or the author, it will be of some service. If it can set you to sleep, the benefit will be yet greater; and as some facetious personage observed half a century ago, that 'poetry is a mere drug,' I offer you mine as a humble asistant to the 'eau médicinale.' I trust you will forgive this and all my other buffooneries, and believe me to be, with great respect, "Your Lordship's obliged and "BYRON." TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. "St. James's Street, July 6, 1812. "Sir, I have just been honoured with your letter.-I feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the evil works of my nonage,' as the thing is suppressed voluntarily, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities: he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I thought the 'Lay.' He said his own opinion was nearly similar. In speaking of the others, I told him that I thought you more particularly the poet of Princes, as they never appeared more fascinating than in 'Marmion' and the 'Lady of the Lake.' He was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on the description of your Jameses as no less loyal than poetical. He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of the Turks and your humble servant) you were in very good company. I defy Murray to have exaggerated his Royal Highness's opinion of your powers, nor can I pretend to enumerate all he said on the subject; but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to manners, certainly superior to those of any living gentleman. "This interview was accidental. I never went to the levee; for having seen the courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed; and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, 'no business there.' To be thus praised by your Sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately and sincerely, "Your obliged and obedient Servant, "BYRON." TO LORD HOLLAND. "Cheltenham, September 10, 1812. "My dear Lord, -The lines which I sketched off on your hint are still, or rather were, in an unfinished state, for I have just committed them to a flame more decisive than that of Drury. Under all the circumstances, I should hardly wish a contest with Philo-drama-Philo-DruryAsbestos, H, and all the anonymes and synonymes of |