Lady Blessington's new book makes a great noise. Living as she does, twelve hours out of the twenty-four, in the midst of the most brilliant and mind-exhausting circle in London, I only wonder how she found the time. Yet it was written in six weeks. Her novels sell for a hundred pounds more than any other author's except Bulwer. Do you know the real prices of books? Bulwer gets fifteen hundred pounds—Lady B. four hundred, Honorable Mrs. Norton two hundred and fifty, Lady Charlotte Bury two hundred, Grattan three hundred and most others below this. D'Israeli can not sell a book at all, I hear. Is not that odd? I would give more for one of his novels, than for forty of the common saleable things about town.
The authoress of the powerful book called Two Old Men's Tales, is an old unitarian lady, a Mrs. Marsh. She declares she will never write another book. The other was a glorious one, though!
LETTER LXXV.
LONDON—THE POET MOORE—LAST DAYS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT—MOORE'S OPINION OF O'CONNELL—ANACREON AT THE PIANO—DEATH OF BYRON—A SUPPRESSED ANECDOTE.
I called on Moore with a letter of introduction, and met him at the door of his lodgings. I knew him instantly from the pictures I had seen of him, but was surprised at the diminutiveness of his person. He is much below the middle size, and with his white hat and long chocolate frock-coat, was far from prepossessing in his appearance. With this material disadvantage, however, his address is gentleman-like to a very marked degree, and, I should think no one could see Moore without conceiving a strong liking for him. As I was to meet him at dinner, I did not detain him. In the moment's conversation that passed, he inquired very particularly after Washington Irving, expressing for him the warmest friendship, and asked what Cooper was doing.
I was at Lady Blessington's at eight. Moore had not arrived, but the other persons of the party—a Russian count, who spoke all the languages of Europe as well as his own; a Roman banker, whose dynasty is more powerful than the pope's; a clever English nobleman, and the "observed of all observers," Count D'Orsay, stood in the window upon the park, killing, as they might, the melancholy twilight half hour preceding dinner.
"Mr. Moore!" cried the footman at the bottom of the staircase, "Mr. Moore!" cried the footman at the top. And with his glass at his eye, stumbling over an ottoman between his near-sightedness and the darkness of the room, enter the poet. Half a glance tells you that he is at home on a carpet. Sliding his little feet up to Lady Blessington (of whom he was a lover when she was sixteen, and to whom some of the sweetest of his songs were written), he made his compliments, with a gayety and an ease combined with a kind of worshipping deference, that was worthy of a prime-minister at the court of love. With the gentlemen, all of whom he knew, he had the frank merry manner of a confident favorite, and he was greeted like one. He went from one to the other, straining back his head to look up at them (for, singularly enough, every gentleman in the room was six feet high and upward), and to every one he said something which, from any one else, would have seemed peculiarly felicitous, but which fell from his lips, as if his breath was not more spontaneous.
Dinner was announced, the Russian handed down "milady," and I found myself seated opposite Moore, with a blaze of light on his Bacchus head, and the mirrors, with which the superb octagonal room is pannelled, reflecting every motion. To see him only at table, you would think him not a small man. His principal length is in his body, and his head and shoulders are those of a much larger person. Consequently he sits tall, and with the peculiar erectness of head and neck, his diminutiveness disappears.
The soup vanished in the busy silence that beseems it, and as the courses commenced their procession, Lady Blessington led the conversation with the brilliancy and ease, for which she is remarkable over all the women of her time. She had received from Sir William Gell, at Naples, the manuscript of a volume upon the last days of Sir Walter Scott. It was a melancholy chronicle of imbecility, and the book was suppressed, but there were two or three circumstances narrated in its pages which were interesting. Soon after his arrival at Naples, Sir Walter went with his physician and one or two friends to the great museum. It happened that on the same day a large collection of students and Italian literati were assembled, in one of the rooms, to discuss some newly-discovered manuscripts. It was soon known that the "Wizard of the North" was there, and a deputation was sent immediately, to request him to honor them by presiding at their session. At this time Scott was a wreck, with a memory that retained nothing for a moment, and limbs almost as helpless as an infant's. He was dragging about among the relics of Pompeii, taking no interest in anything he saw, when their request was made known to him through his physician. "No, no," said he, "I know nothing of their lingo. Tell them I am not well enough to come." He loitered on, and in about half an hour after, he turned to Dr. H. and said, "who was that you said wanted to see me?" The doctor explained. "I'll go," said he, "they shall see me if they wish it;" and, against the advice of his friends, who feared it would be too much for his strength, he mounted the staircase, and made his appearance at the door. A burst of enthusiastic cheers welcomed him on the threshold, and forming in two lines, many of them on their knees, they seized his hands as he passed, kissed them, thanked him in their passionate language for the delight with which he had filled the world, and placed him in the chair with the most fervent expressions of gratitude for his condescension. The discussion went on, but not understanding a syllable of the language, Scott was soon wearied, and his friends observed it, pleaded the state of his health as an apology, and he rose to take his leave. These enthusiastic children of the south crowded once more around him, and with exclamations of affection and even tears, kissed his hands once more, assisting his tottering steps, and sent after him a confused murmur of blessings as the door closed on his retiring form. It is described by the writer as the most affecting scene he had ever witnessed.
Some other remarks were made upon Scott, but the parole was soon yielded to Moore, who gave us an account of a visit he made to Abbotsford when its illustrious owner was in his pride and prime. "Scott," he said, "was the most manly and natural character in the world. You felt when with him, that he was the soul of truth and heartiness. His hospitality was as simple and open as the day, and he lived freely himself, and expected his guests to do so. I remember him giving us whiskey at dinner, and Lady Scott met my look of surprise with the assurance that Sir Walter seldom dined without it. He never ate or drank to excess, but he had no system, his constitution was herculean, and he denied himself nothing. I went once from a dinner party with Sir Thomas Lawrence to meet Scott at Lockhart's. We had hardly entered the room when we were set down to a hot supper of roast chickens, salmon, punch, etc., etc., and Sir Walter ate immensely of everything. What a contrast between this and the last time I saw him in London! He had come down to embark for Italy—broken quite down in mind and body. He gave Mrs. Moore a book, and I asked him if he would make it more valuable by writing in it. He thought I meant that he should write some verses, and said, 'Oh I never write poetry now.' I asked him to write only his own name and hers, and he attempted it, but it was quite illegible."