  LORD BYRON'S DEALINGS WITH MR. MURRAY—continued—THE DEATH OF Lord Byron informed Mr. Murray, on October 12, 1817, that he had written "a poem in or after the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft (whom I take to be Frere)"; and in a subsequent letter he said, "Mr. Whistlecraft has no greater admirer than myself. I have written a story in eighty-nine stanzas in imitation of him, called 'Beppo,' the short name for Giuseppe, that is the Joe of the Italian Joseph." Lord Byron required that it should be printed anonymously, and in any form that Mr. Murray pleased. The manuscript of the poem was not, however, sent off until the beginning of 1818; and it reached the publisher about a month later. Meanwhile the friendly correspondence between the poet and his publisher continued: John Murray to Lord Byron. September 22, 1818. "I was much pleased to find, on my arrival from Edinburgh on Saturday night, your letter of August 26. The former one of the 21st I received whilst in Scotland. The Saturday and Sunday previous I passed most delightfully with Walter Scott, who was incessant in his inquiries after your welfare. He entertains the noblest sentiments of regard towards you, and speaks of you with the best feelings. I walked about ten miles with him round a very beautiful estate, which he has purchased by degrees, within two miles of his favourite Melrose. He has nearly completed the centre and one wing of a castle on the banks of the Tweed, where he is the happiness as well as pride of the whole neighbourhood. He is one of the most hospitable, merry, and entertaining of mortals. He would, I am confident, do anything to serve you; and as the Paper [Footnote: The review of the fourth canto of "Childe Harold," Q.R., No.37.] which I now enclose is a second substantial proof of the interest he takes in your literary character, perhaps it may naturally enough afford occasion for a letter from you to him. I sent you by Mr. Hanson four volumes of a second series of 'Tales of my Landlord,' and four others are actually in the press. Scott does not yet avow them, but no one doubts his being their author…. I sent also by Mr. Hanson a number or two of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, and I have in a recent parcel sent the whole. I think that you will find in it a very great share of talent, and some most incomparable fun…. John Wilson, who wrote the article on Canto IV. of 'Childe Harold' (of which, by the way, I am anxious to know your opinion), has very much interested himself in the journal, and has communicated some most admirable papers. Indeed, he possesses very great talents and a variety of knowledge. I send you a very well-constructed kaleidoscope, a newly-invented toy which, if not yet seen in Venice, will I trust amuse some of your female friends." The following letter is inserted here, as it does not appear in Moore's Lord Byron to John Murray. VENICE, November 24, 1818, DEAR. MR. MURRAY,Mr. Hanson has been here a week, and went five days ago. He brought nothing but his papers, some corn-rubbers, and a kaleidoscope. "For what we have received the Lord make us thankful"! for without His aid I shall not be so. He—Hanson-left everything else in Chancery Lane whatever, except your copy-papers for the last Canto, [Footnote: Of "Childe Harold."] etc., which having a degree of parchment he brought with him. You may imagine his reception; he swore the books were a "waggon-load"; if they were, he should have come in a waggon; he would in that case have come quicker than he did. Lord Lauderdale set off from hence twelve days ago accompanied by a cargo of Poesy directed to Mr. Hobhouse, all spick and span, and in MS.; you will see what it is like. I have given it to Master Southey, and he shall have more before I have done with him. You may make what I say here as public as you please, more particularly to Southey, whom I look upon—and will say so publicly-to be a dirty, lying rascal, and will prove it in ink—or in his blood, if I did not believe him to be too much of a poet to risk it! If he has forty reviews at his back, as he has the Quarterly, I would have at him in his scribbling capacity now that he has begun with me; but I will do nothing underhand; tell him what I say from me and every one else you please. You will see what I have said, if the parcel arrives safe. I understand Coleridge went about repeating Southey's lie with pleasure. I can believe it, for I had done him what is called a favour…. I can understand Coleridge's abusing me—but how or why Southey, whom I had never obliged in any sort of way, or done him the remotest service, should go about fibbing and calumniating is more than I readily comprehend. Does he think to put me down with his Canting, not being able to do it with his poetry? We will try the question. I have read his review of Hunt, where he has attacked Shelley in an oblique and shabby manner. Does he know what that review has done? I will tell you; it has sold an edition of the "Revolt of Islam" which otherwise nobody would have thought of reading, and few who read can understand, I for one. Southey would have attacked me too there, if he durst, further than by hints about Hunt's friends in general, and some outcry about an "Epicurean System" carried on by men of the most opposite habits and tastes and opinions in life and poetry (I believe) that ever had their names in the same volume—Moore, Byron, Shelley, Hazlitt, Haydon, Leigh Hunt, Lamb. What resemblance do ye find among all or any of these men? And how could any sort of system or plan be carried on or attempted amongst them? However, let Mr. Southey look to himself; since the wine is tapped, he shall drink it. I got some books a few weeks ago—many thanks. Amongst them is Israeli's new edition; it was not fair in you to show him my copy of his former one, with all the marginal notes and nonsense made in Greece when I was not two-and-twenty, and which certainly were not meant for his perusal, nor for that of his readers. I have a great respect for Israeli and his talents, and have read his works over and over and over repeatedly, and been amused by them greatly, and instructed often. Besides, I hate giving pain, unless provoked; and he is an author, and must feel like his brethren; and although his Liberality repaid my marginal flippancies with a compliment—the highest compliment—that don't reconcile me to myself—nor to you. It was a breach of confidence to do this without my leave; I don't know a living man's book I take up so often or lay down more reluctantly than Israeli's, and I never will forgive you—that is, for many weeks. If he had got out of humour I should have been less sorry; but even then I should have been sorry; but really he has heaped his "coals of fire" so handsomely upon my head that they burn unquenchably. You ask me of the two reviews [Footnote: Of "Childe Harold" in the Quarterly and Blackwood.]—I will tell you. Scott's is the review of one poet on another—his friend; Wilson's, the review of a poet too, on another—his Idol; for he likes me better than he chooses to avow to the public with all his eulogy. I speak judging only from the article, for I don't know him personally. Here is a long letter—can you read it? Yours ever, B.In the course of September 1818 Lord Byron communicated to Mr. Moore that he had finished the first canto of a poem in the style and manner of "Beppo." "It is called," he said, "'Don Juan,' and is meant to be a little quietly facetious upon everything; but," he added, "I doubt whether it is not—at least so far as it has yet gone—too free for these very modest days." In January 1819 Lord Byron requested Mr. Murray to print for private distribution fifty copies of "Don Juan." Mr. Murray urged him to occupy himself with some great work worthy of his reputation. "This you have promised to Gifford long ago, and to Hobhouse and Kinnaird since." Lord Byron, however, continued to write out his "Don Juan," and sent the second canto in April 1819, together with the "Letter of Julia," to be inserted in the first canto. Mr. Murray, in acknowledging the receipt of the first and second cantos, was not so congratulatory as he had formerly been. The verses contained, no doubt, some of the author's finest poetry, but he had some objections to suggest. "I think," he said, "you may modify or substitute other words for the lines on Romilly, whose death should save him." But Byron entertained an extreme detestation for Romilly, because, he said, he had been "one of my assassins," and had sacrificed him on "his legal altar"; and the verse [Footnote: St. 16, First Canto.] was allowed to stand over. "Your history," wrote Murray, "of the plan of the progress of 'Don Juan' is very entertaining, but I am clear for sending him to hell, because he may favour us with a description of some of the characters whom he finds there." Mr. Murray suggested the removal of some offensive words in Canto II. "These," he said, "ladies may not read; the Shipwreck is a little too particular, and out of proportion to the rest of the picture. But if you do anything it must be done with extreme caution; think of the effects of such seductive poetry! It probably surpasses in talent anything that you ever wrote. Tell me if you think seriously of completing this work, or if you have sketched the story. I am very sorry to have occasioned you the trouble of writing again the "Letter of Julia"; but you are always very forgiving in such cases." The lines in which the objectionable words appeared were obliterated by Lord Byron. From the following letter we see that Mr. Murray continued his remonstrances: John Murray to Lord Byron. May 3, 1819. "I find that 'Julia's Letter' has been safely received, and is with the printer. The whole remainder of the second canto will be sent by Friday's post. The inquiries after its appearance are not a few. Pray use your most tasteful discretion so as to wrap up or leave out certain approximations to indelicacy." Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, who was entrusted with the business portion of this transaction, wrote to Mr. Murray: Mr. Douglas Kinnaird to John Murray. June 7, 1819. My Dear Sir, Since I had the pleasure of seeing you, I have received from Lord Byron a letter in which he expresses himself as having left to Mr. Hobhouse and myself the sole and whole discretion and duty of settling with the publisher of the MSS. which are now in your hands the consideration to be given for them. Observing that you have advertised "Mazeppa," I feel that it is my duty to request you will name an early day—of course previous to your publishing that or any other part of the MSS.—when we may meet and receive your offer of such terms as you may deem proper for the purchase of the copyright of them. The very liberal footing on which Lord Byron's intercourse with you in your character of publisher of his Lordship's works has hitherto been placed, leaves no doubt in my mind that our interview need be but very short, and that the terms you will propose will be met by our assent. The parties met, and Mr. Murray agreed to give £525 for "Mazeppa," and £1,575 for the first and second cantos of "Don Juan," with "The Ode to Venice" thrown in. In accordance with Lord Byron's directions to his publisher to "keep the anonymous," Cantos I. and II. of "Don Juan" appeared in London, in quarto, in July 1819, without the name of either author, publisher, or bookseller. The book was immediately pounced upon by the critics; but it is unnecessary to quote their reviews, as they are impartially given in the latest accredited editions of Lord Byron's poems. A few criticisms from Mr. Murray's private correspondence may be given. Mr. Gifford to John Murray. RYDE, July 1, 1819. "Lord B.'s letter is shockingly amusing. [Footnote: Probably that written in May; printed in the "Life."] He must be mad; but then there's method in his madness. I dread, however, the end. He is, or rather might be, the most extraordinary character of his age. I have lived to see three great men—men to whom none come near in their respective provinces—Pitt, Nelson, Wellington. Morality and religion would have placed our friend among them as the fourth boast of the time; even a decent respect for the good opinion of mankind might have done much now; but all is tending to displace him." Mr. Murray, who was still in communication with Mr. Blackwood, found that he refused to sell "Don Juan" because it contained personalities which he regarded as even more objectionable than those of which Murray had complained in the Magazine. When the copyright of "Don Juan" was infringed by other publishers, it became necessary to take steps to protect it at law, and Mr. Sharon Turner was consulted on the subject. An injunction was applied for in Chancery, and the course of the negotiation will be best ascertained from the following letters: Mr. Sharon Turner to John Murray. October 21, 1819. DEAR MURRAY,… on "Don Juan" I have much apprehension. I had from the beginning, and therefore advised the separate assignment. The counsel who is settling the bill also doubts if the Chancellor will sustain the injunction. I think, when Mr. Bell comes to town, it will be best to have a consultation with him on the subject. The counsel, Mr. Loraine, shall state to him his view on the subject, and you shall hear what Mr. Bell feels upon it. Shall I appoint the consultation? The evil, if not stopped, will be great. It will circulate in a cheap form very extensively, injuring society wherever it spreads. Yet one consideration strikes me. You could wish Lord Byron to write less objectionably. You may also wish him to return you part of the £1,625. If the Chancellor should dissolve the injunction on this ground, that will show Lord B. that he must expect no more copyright money for such things, and that they are too bad for law to uphold. Will not this affect his mind and purify his pen? It is true that to get this good result you must encounter the risk and expense of the injunction and of the argument upon it. Will you do this? If I laid the case separately before three of our ablest counsel, and they concurred in as many opinions that it could not be supported, would this equally affect his Lordship's mind, and also induce him to return you an adequate proportion of the purchase money? Perhaps nothing but the Court treating him as it treated Southey [Footnote: In the case of "Wat Tyler," see Murray's letter to Byron in preceding chapter, April 12, 1817.] may sufficiently impress Lord B. After the consultation with Bell you will better judge. Shall I get it appointed as soon as he comes to town? Ever yours faithfully, SHARON TURNER.Mr. Bell gave his opinion that the Court would not afford protection to the book. He admitted, however, that he had not had time to study it. The next letter relates to the opinion of Mr. Shadwell, afterwards Mr. Sharon Turner to John Murray. November 12, 1819. Dear Murray, I saw Mr. Shadwell to-day on "Don Juan." He has gone through the book with more attention than Mr. Bell had time to do. He desires me to say that he does not think the Chancellor would refuse an injunction, or would overturn it if obtained…. Yours most faithfully, SHARON TURNER.In the event the injunction to restrain the publication of "Don Juan" by piratical publishers was granted. Towards the end of 1819 Byron thought of returning to England. On "If she [the Countess Guiccioli] and her husband make it up, you will perhaps see me in England sooner than you expect. If not, I will retire with her to France or America, change my name, and lead a quiet provincial life. If she gets over this, and I get over my Tertian ague, I will perhaps look in at Albemarle Street en passant to Bolivar." When Mr. Hobhouse, then living at Ramsbury, heard of Byron's intention to go to South America, he wrote to Mr. Murray as follows: " … To be sure it is impossible that Lord B. should seriously contemplate, or, if he does, he must not expect us to encourage, this mad scheme. I do not know what in the world to say, but presume some one has been talking nonsense to him. Let Jim Perry go to Venezuela if he will—he may edit his 'Independent Gazette' amongst the Independents themselves, and reproduce his stale puns and politics without let or hindrance. But our poet is too good for a planter—too good to sit down before a fire made of mare's legs, to a dinner of beef without salt and bread. It is the wildest of all his meditations—pray tell him. The plague and Yellow Jack, and famine and free quarter, besides a thousand other ills, will stare him in the face. No tooth-brushes, no corn-rubbers, no Quarterly Reviews. In short, plenty of all he abominates and nothing of all he loves. I shall write, but you can tell facts, which will be better than my arguments." Byron's half-formed intention was soon abandoned, and the Countess Guiccioli's serious illness recalled him to Ravenna, where he remained for the next year and a half. Hobhouse's next letter to Murray (January 1820), in which he reported "Bad news from Ravenna—a great pity indeed," is dated Newgate, where he had been lodged in consequence of his pamphlet entitled "A Trifling Mistake in Thomas Lord Erskine's Recent Pamphlet," containing several very strong reflections on the House of Commons as then constituted. During his imprisonment, Mr. Hobhouse was visited by Mr. Murray and Ugo Lady Caroline Lamb also wrote to Mr. Murray from Brockett Hall, asking for information about Byron and Hobhouse. Lady Caroline Lamb to John Murray. You have never written to tell me about him. Now, did you know the pain and agony this has given me, you had not been so remiss. If you could come here on Wednesday for one night, I have a few people and a supper. You could come by the Mail in two hours, much swifter than even in your swift carriage; and I have one million of things to say and ask also. Do tell me how that dear Radical Hob is, and pray remember me to him. I really hope you will be here at dinner or supper on Wednesday. Your bedroom shall be ready, and you can be back in Town before most people are up, though I rise here at seven. Yours quite disturbed my mind, for want of your telling me how he [Byron] looks, what he says, if he is grown fat, if he is no uglier than he used to be, if he is good-humoured or cross-grained, putting his brows down—if his hair curls or is straight as somebody said, if he has seen Hobhouse, if he is going to stay long, if you went to Dover as you intended, and a great deal more, which, if you had the smallest tact or aught else, you would have written long ago; for as to me, I shall certainly not see him, neither do I care he should know that I ever asked after him. It is from mere curiosity I should like to hear all you can tell me about him. Pray come here immediately. Yours, C.L.Notwithstanding the remarkable sale of "Don Juan," Murray hesitated about publishing any more of the cantos. After the fifth canto was published, Lord Byron informed Murray that it was "hardly the beginning of the work," that he intended to take Don Juan through the tour of Europe, put him through the Divorce Court, and make him finish as Anacharsis Clootz in the French Revolution. Besides being influenced by his own feelings, it is possible that the following letter of Mr. Croker may have induced Mr. Murray to have nothing further to do with the work: Mr. Croker to John Murray. MUNSTER HOUSE, March 26, 1820. A rainy Sunday. DEAR MURRAY,I have to thank you for letting me see your two new cantos [the 3rd and 4th], which I return. What sublimity! what levity! what boldness! what tenderness! what majesty! what trifling! what variety! what tediousness!—for tedious to a strange degree, it must be confessed that whole passages are, particularly the earlier stanzas of the fourth canto. I know no man of such general powers of intellect as Brougham, yet I think him insufferably tedious; and I fancy the reason to be that he has such facility of expression that he is never recalled to a selection of his thoughts. A more costive orator would be obliged to choose, and a man of his talents could not fail to choose the best; but the power of uttering all and everything which passes across his mind, tempts him to say all. He goes on without thought—I should rather say, without pause. His speeches are poor from their richness, and dull from their infinite variety. An impediment in his speech would make him a perfect Demosthenes. Something of the same kind, and with something of the same effect, is Lord Byron's wonderful fertility of thought and facility of expression; and the Protean style of "Don Juan," instead of checking (as the fetters of rhythm generally do) his natural activity, not only gives him wider limits to range in, but even generates a more roving disposition. I dare swear, if the truth were known, that his digressions and repetitions generate one another, and that the happy jingle of some of his comical rhymes has led him on to episodes of which he never originally thought; and thus it is that, with the most extraordinary merit, merit of all kinds, these two cantos have been to me, in several points, tedious and even obscure. As to the PRINCIPLES, all the world, and you, Mr. Murray, first of all, have done this poem great injustice. There are levities here and there, more than good taste approves, but nothing to make such a terrible rout about—nothing so bad as "Tom Jones," nor within a hundred degrees of "Count Fathom." The writer goes on to remark that the personalities in the poem are more to be deprecated than "its imputed looseness of principle": I mean some expressions of political and personal feelings which, I believe, he, in fact, never felt, and threw in wantonly and de gaietÉ de coeur, and which he would have omitted, advisedly and de bontÉ de coeur, if he had not been goaded by indiscreet, contradictory, and urgent criticisms, which, in some cases, were dark enough to be called calumnies. But these are blowing over, if not blown over; and I cannot but think that if Mr. Gifford, or some friend in whose taste and disinterestedness Lord Byron could rely, were to point out to him the cruelty to individuals, the injury to the national character, the offence to public taste, and the injury to his own reputation, of such passages as those about Southey and Waterloo and the British Government and the head of that Government, I cannot but hope and believe that these blemishes in the first cantos would be wiped away in the next edition; and that some that occur in the two cantos (which you sent me) would never see the light. What interest can Lord Byron have in being the poet of a party in politics?… In politics, he cannot be what he appears, or rather what Messrs. Hobhouse and Leigh Hunt wish to make him appear. A man of his birth, a man of his taste, a man of his talents, a man of his habits, can have nothing in common with such miserable creatures as we now call Radicals, of whom I know not that I can better express the illiterate and blind ignorance and vulgarity than by saying that the best informed of them have probably never heard of Lord Byron. No, no, Lord Byron may be indulgent to these jackal followers of his; he may connive at their use of his name—nay, it is not to be denied that he has given them too, too much countenance—but he never can, I should think, now that he sees not only the road but the rate they are going, continue to take a part so contrary to all his own interests and feelings, and to the feelings and interests of all the respectable part of his country…. But what is to be the end of all this rigmarole of mine? To conclude, this—to advise you, for your own sake as a tradesman, for Lord Byron's sake as a poet, for the sake of good literature and good principles, which ought to be united, to take such measures as you may be able to venture upon to get Lord Byron to revise these two cantos, and not to make another step in the odious path which Hobhouse beckons him to pursue…. Yours ever, J.W. CROKER.But Byron would alter nothing more in his "Don Juan." He accepted the corrections of Gifford in his "Tragedies," but "Don Juan" was never submitted to him. Hobhouse was occasionally applied to, because he knew Lord Byron's handwriting; but even his suggestions of alterations or corrections of "Don Juan" were in most cases declined, and moreover about this time a slight coolness had sprung up between him and Byron. When Hobhouse was standing for Westminster with Sir Francis Burdett, Lord Byron sent a song about him in a letter to Mr. Murray. It ran to the tune of "My Boy Tammy? O!" "Who are now the People's men? "When to the mob you make a speech, Lord Byron asked Murray to show the song not only to some of his friends—who got it by heart and had it printed in the newspapers—but also to Hobhouse himself. "I know," said his Lordship, "that he will never forgive me, but I really have no patience with him for letting himself be put in quod by such a set of ragamuffins." Mr. Hobhouse, however, was angry with Byron for his lampoon and with Murray for showing it to his friends. He accordingly wrote the following letter, which contains some interesting particulars of the Whig Club at Cambridge in Byron's University days: Mr. Hobhouse to John Murray. 2, HANOVER SQUARE, November, 1820. I have received your letter, and return to you Lord Byron's. I shall tell you very frankly, because I think it much better to speak a little of a man to his face than to say a great deal about him behind his back, that I think you have not treated me as I deserved, nor as might have been expected from that friendly intercourse which has subsisted between us for so many years. Had Lord Byron transmitted to me a lampoon on you, I should, if I know myself at all, either have put it into the fire without delivery, or should have sent it at once to you. I should not have given it a circulation for the gratification of all the small wits at the great and little houses, where no treat is so agreeable as to find a man laughing at his friend. In this case, the whole coterie of the very shabbiest party that ever disgraced and divided a nation—I mean the Whigs—are, I know, chuckling over that silly charge made by Mr. Lamb on the hustings, and now confirmed by Lord Byron, of my having belonged to a Whig club at Cambridge. Such a Whig as I then was, I am now. I had no notion that the name implied selfishness and subserviency, and desertion of the most important principles for the sake of the least important interest. I had no notion that it implied anything more than an attachment to the principles the ascendency of which expelled the Stuarts from the Throne. Lord Byron belonged to this Cambridge club, and desired me to scratch out his name, on account of the criticism in the Edinburgh Review on his early poems; but, exercising my discretion on the subject, I did not erase his name, but reconciled him to the said Whigs. The members of the club were but few, and with those who have any marked politics amongst them, I continue to agree at this day. They were but ten, and you must know most of them—Mr. W. Ponsonby, Mr. George O'Callaghan, the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Dominick Browne, Mr. Henry Pearce, Mr. Kinnaird, Lord Tavistock, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Byron, and myself. I was not, as Lord Byron says in the song, the founder of this Club; [Footnote: "But when we at Cambridge were ] on the contrary, thinking myself of mighty importance in those days, I recollect very well that some difficulty attended my consenting to belong to the club, and I have by me a letter from Lord Tavistock, in which the distinction between being a Whig party man and a Revolution Whig is strongly insisted upon. I have troubled you with this detail in consequence of Lord Byron's charge, which he, who despises and defies, and has lampooned the Whigs all round, only invented out of wantonness, and for the sake of annoying me—and he has certainly succeeded, thanks to your circulating this filthy ballad. As for his Lordship's vulgar notions about the mob, they are very fit for the Poet of the Morning Post, and for nobody else. Nothing in the ballad annoyed me but the charge about the Cambridge club, because nothing else had the semblance of truth; and I own it has hurt me very much to find Lord Byron playing into the hands of the Holland House sycophants, for whom he has himself the most sovereign contempt, and whom in other days I myself have tried to induce him to tolerate. I shall say no more on this unpleasant subject except that, by a letter which I have just received from Lord Byron, I think he is ashamed of his song. I shall certainly speak as plainly to him as I have taken the liberty to do to you on this matter. He was very wanton and you very indiscreet; but I trust neither one nor the other meant mischief, and there's an end of it. Do not aggravate matters by telling how much I have been annoyed. Lord Byron has sent me a list of his new poems and some prose, all of which he requests me to prepare for the press for him. The monied arrangement is to be made by Mr. Kinnaird. When you are ready for me, the materials may be sent to me at this place, where I have taken up my abode for the season. I remain, very truly yours, JOHN CAM HOBHOUSE. Towards the end of 1820 Lord Byron wrote a long letter to Mr. Murray on Mr. Bowles's strictures on the "Life and Writings of Pope." It was a subject perhaps unworthy of his pen, but being an ardent admirer of Pope, he thought it his duty to "bowl him [Bowles] down." "I mean to lay about me," said Byron, "like a dragon, till I make manure of Bowles for the top of Parnassus." After some revision, the first and second letters to Bowles were published, and were well received. The tragedy of "Sardanapalus," the last three acts of which had been written in a fortnight, was despatched to Murray on May 30, 1821, and was within a few weeks followed by "The Two Foscari: an Historical Tragedy"—which had been composed within a month—and on September 10 by "Cain, a Mystery." The three dramas, "Sardanapalus," "The Two Foscari," and "Cain, a Mystery," were published together in December 1821, and Mr. Murray paid Lord Byron for them the sum of £2,710. "Cain" was dedicated, by his consent, to Sir Walter Scott, who, in writing to Mr. Murray, described it as "a very grand and tremendous drama." On its first appearance it was reprinted in a cheap form by two booksellers, under the impression that the Court of Chancery would not protect it, and it therefore became necessary to take out an injunction to restrain these piratical publishers. The case came before Lord Chancellor Eldon on February 9. Mr. Shadwell, Mr. Spence, and Sergeant Copley were retained by Mr. Murray, and after considerable discussion the injunction was refused, the Lord Chancellor intimating that the publisher must establish his right to the publication at law, and obtain the decision of a jury, on which he would grant the injunction required. This was done accordingly, and the copyright in "Cain" was thus secured. On the death of Allegra, his natural daughter, Lord Byron entrusted to Mr. Murray the painful duty of making arrangements for the burial of the remains in Harrow Church. Mr. Cunningham, the clergyman of Harrow, wrote in answer to Mr. Murray: Rev. J.W. Cunningham to John Murray. August 20, 1822. Sir, Mr. Henry Drury was so good as to communicate to me a request conveyed to you by Lord Byron respecting the burial of a child in this church. Mr. H. Drury will probably have also stated to you my willingness to comply with the wish of Lord Byron. Will you forgive me, however, for so far trespassing upon you (though a stranger) as to suggest an inquiry whether it might not be practicable and desirable to fulfil for the present only a part of his Lordship's wish—by burying the child, and putting up a tablet with simply its name upon the tablet; and thus leaving Lord B. more leisure to reflect upon the character of the inscription he may wish to be added. It does seem to me that whatever he may wish in the moment of his distress about the loss of this child, he will afterwards regret that he should have taken pains to proclaim to the world what he will not, I am sure, consider as honourable to his name. And if this be probable, then it appears to me the office of a true friend not to suffer him to commit himself but to allow his mind an opportunity of calm deliberation. I feel constrained to say that the inscription he proposed will be felt by every man of refined taste, to say nothing of sound morals, to be an offence against taste and propriety. My correspondence with his Lordship has been so small that I can scarcely venture myself to urge these objections. You perhaps will feel no such scruple. I have seen no person who did not concur in the propriety of stating them. I would entreat, however, that should you think it right to introduce my name into any statement made to Lord Byron, you will not do it without assuring him of my unwillingness to oppose the smallest obstacle to his wishes, or give the slightest pain to his mind. The injury which, in my judgment, he is from day to day inflicting upon society is no justification for measures of retaliation and unkindness. |
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