THE COCKNEY'S LETTER.
The following letter has been transmitted to us, as written by a Cockney gentleman late in the train of Lord Byron,[50] but now discarded—we are not sufficiently acquainted with the style of the writer to vouch for its genuineness, but we give it as we have received it:—
My dear ——, —I am astonished at what you write me. So then, notwithstanding all the strong articles in our last Liberal Magazine, neither Government nor people has made a stir; England is still a monarchy, England is still a monarchy, and not even a single change in the ministry has been effected! Jeffrey, (Byron's new friend,) who is always sanguine, thinks the next Number must do it, but I begin to despair; and the worry-one's soul-out, as it were, effect of the disappointment on my health is very visible. I pine, and grow thinner and paler every day. My appearance, by the way, is very interesting and Tasso-like, and I think an engraving of me would sell well in England, where a "how-does-he-look" sort of inquiry must be in everybody's mouth just now. But let that pass for the present, I have matter of still greater moment for you.
The only subject of conversation now in England, and indeed in all those parts of Europe where tyrants are not as yet allowed to send in fellows with bayonets to stop people's mouths whenever they mention my name, must be the coolness between me and Byron, and it is proper the rights of it should be known, which is better than folks going about with a he-said-this—and then-he-said-t'other sort of report of it. The fact is, that Byron is the aggressor, for he began first, as the children say, and all about a piece of patrician pride, very unbecoming among us radicals. Some time ago, seeing him in conversation with the Earl of——, at the end of the Strada di——, I hopped down the street, and, just to shew the intimacy which subsisted between us, slapped him on the back with a "Ha! Byron, my boy!" He darted at me one of his look-you-through sort of glances, and turned from me without speaking; and it was not till after a decided cut of eight or ten days that, wanting something done, he sent for me. I went; he began by a tread-you to-dirtish, as it were taking of me to task, said something about the "coarse familiarity of your radicals;" and then told me that I might stop and dine with him that day, which I did. You will gather from this that these lords are not to be depended upon, they are but a half and half sort of radicals—the cloven foot of nobility is perpetually peeping out, they won't give altogether into that hail-fellow-well-metishness, which we expect from them. Again: at dinner that day, happening to say to him, "I and you, Byron, who are called the Satanic School:" he cut me short unceremoniously, and said, "Who the h—ll ever called you Satanic?—Cockney, if you please and reminded me of the fable of the apples swimming. Now, putting radicalism out of the question, this was very ungenteel from one great poet to another—then he is jealous of me. We have had a disagreement about which of us should have the most room to write in the Liberal Magazine. He wanted all; which (though I never contradict him, or he'd have cut me long ago.) I almost remonstrated against, so he allowed me a corner here and there, as it were. Thus he flatly attributes our slow sale to my poetry—then to my prose—and in short, he was lately so insulting that I had "ever such a mind" (as we used to say at school) to tell him the fault was all his own; for between ourselves he has grown as stupid and as vulgar as the best of us. But worst of all, I find he has been making a mere tool of me, and he quizzes me to my very face. Some weeks ago I told him I had thoughts of writing his life, to which he replied with a smile, "Do;" but when I added that he ought in return to write mine, he exclaimed with a sneer "Pooh!" and went away in a turn-on-the-heel sort of fashion. But this is of a piece with his refusing to call me Tasso and Ariosto in exchange for my calling him Dante in our next poems.
Doubtless you have heard of the verses I addressed to him; I suppose there is an I-wish-I-could-get-'em sort of anxiety about them in England, so I send you a copy:—
"LINES TO MY FRIEND BYRON.
"Dear Byron, while you're out walking, I'll just say
Something about ourselves in my off-hand way,
Easy and Chaucer-like; in that free rhyme