[68] Having discovered that, while I was abroad, a kind friend had, without any communication with myself, placed at the disposal of the person who acted for me a large sum for the discharge of this claim, I thought it right to allow the money, thus generously destined, to be employed as was intended, and then immediately repaid my friend out of the sum given by Mr. Murray for the manuscript.
It may seem obtrusive, I fear, to enter into this sort of personal details; but, without some few words of explanation, such passages as the above would be unintelligible.
[69] My remark had been hasty and inconsiderate, and Lord Byron's is the view borne out by all experience. Almost all the tragic and gloomy writers have been, in social life, mirthful persons. The author of the Night Thoughts was a "fellow of infinite jest;" and of the pathetic Rowe, Pope says—"He would laugh all day long—he would do nothing else but laugh."
[70] See "Thoughts on Private Devotion," by Mr. Sheppard.
[71] Mr. Galignani having expressed a wish to be furnished with a short Memoir of Lord Byron, for the purpose of prefixing it to the French edition of his works, I had said jestingly in a preceding letter to his Lordship, that it would he but a fair satire on the disposition of the world to "bemonster his features," if he would write for the public, English as well as French, a sort of mock-heroic account of himself, outdoing, in horrors and wonders, all that had been yet related or believed of him, and leaving even Goethe's story of the double murder in Florence far behind.
[72] The following are the lines enclosed in this letter. In one of his Journals, where they are also given, he has subjoined to them the following note:—"I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now) a few days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa.
"Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.
"What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled.
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?
"Oh Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.
"There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory."
[73] This letter has been already published, with a few others, in a periodical work, and is known to have been addressed to the late Mr. Douglas Kinnaird.
[74] The preceding letter came enclosed in this.
[75] It will be seen from the extract I shall give presently of the passage to which he refers, that he wholly mistook my meaning.