Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III | Page 8

know--but I think I, even I (an insect compared with this creature), have set my life on casts not a millionth part of this man's. But, after all, a crown may be not worth dying for. Yet, to outlive Lodi for this!!! Oh that Juvenal or Johnson could rise from the dead! 'Expende--quot libras in duce summo invenies?' I knew they were light in the balance of mortality; but I thought their living dust weighed more carats. Alas! this imperial diamond hath a flaw in it, and is now hardly fit to stick in a glazier's pencil:--the pen of the historian won't rate it worth a ducat.
"Psha! 'something too much of this.' But I won't give him up even now; though all his admirers have, 'like the thanes, fallen from him.'
"April 10.
"I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am sure of, that I never am long in the society even of her I love, (God knows too well, and the devil probably too,) without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library.[5] Even in the day, I send away my carriage oftener than I use or abuse it. Per esempio,--I have not stirred out of these rooms for these four days past: but I have sparred for exercise (windows open) with Jackson an hour daily, to attenuate and keep up the ethereal part of me. The more violent the fatigue, the better my spirits for the rest of the day; and then, my evenings have that calm nothingness of languor, which I most delight in. To-day I have boxed one hour--written an ode to Napoleon Buonaparte--copied it--eaten six biscuits--drunk four bottles of soda water--redde away the rest of my time--besides giving poor * * a world of advice about this mistress of his, who is plaguing him into a phthisic and intolerable tediousness. I am a pretty fellow truly to lecture about 'the sect.' No matter, my counsels are all thrown away.
[Footnote 5: "As much company," says Pope, "as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better, and would rather be employed in reading than in the most agreeable conversation."]
"April 19. 1814.
"There is ice at both poles, north and south--all extremes are the same--misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only,--to the emperor and the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. There is, to be sure, a damned insipid medium--an equinoctial line--no one knows where, except upon maps and measurement.
"'And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.'
I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in Ipecacuanha,--'that the Bourbons are restored!!!'--'Hang up philosophy.' To be sure, I have long despised myself and man, but I never spat in the face of my species before--'O fool! I shall go mad.'"
* * * * *
The perusal of this singular Journal having made the reader acquainted with the chief occurrences that marked the present period of his history--the publication of The Corsair, the attacks upon him in the newspapers, &c.--there only remains for me to add his correspondence at the same period, by which the moods and movements of his mind, during these events, will be still further illustrated.
* * * * *
TO MR. MURRAY.
"Sunday, Jan. 2. 1814.
"Excuse this dirty paper--it is the _pen_ultimate half-sheet of a quire. Thanks for your book and the Ln. Chron., which I return. The Corsair is copied, and now at Lord Holland's; but I wish Mr. Gifford to have it to-night.
"Mr. Dallas is very _perverse_; so that I have offended both him and you, when I really meaned to do good, at least to one, and certainly not to annoy either.[6] But I shall manage him, I hope.--I am pretty confident of the Tale itself; but one cannot be sure. If I get it from Lord Holland, it shall be sent.
"Yours," &c.
[Footnote 6: He had made a present of the copyright of "The Corsair" to Mr. Dallas, who thus describes the manner in which the gift was bestowed:--"On the 28th of December, I called in the morning on Lord Byron, whom I found composing 'The Corsair.' He had been working upon it but a few days, and he read me the portion he had written. After some observations, he said, 'I have a great mind--I will.' He then added that he should finish it soon, and asked me to accept of the copyright. I was much surprised. He had, before he was aware of the value of his works, declared that he never would take money for them, and that I should have the whole advantage of