192 Moore's Notices of Lord Byron. FEB. 



was out, he writes a note to Tom Sheridan, the manager of this combus- 

 tible concern, to inquire whether this farce was not converted into fuel, 

 with about two thousand other unactable MSS. Now, was not this 

 characteristic ? The ruling passions of Pope are nothing to it. While 

 the poor distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only 

 worth 300,000, in comes a note from a scorching author, requiring at 

 his hands two acts and odd scenes of a farce !" 



After two years travel he returned, in 1811, and luckily escaped 

 publishing a " paraphrase" on Horace, which Moore pronounces heavy 

 enough to have sunk his lordship below the possibility of recovering a 

 poetic reputation. Dallas was the lucky critic on the occasion, and he was 

 rewarded by the MSS. of Childe Harold. In another month his mother 

 died, " characteristically/' of a fit of rage, brought on by reading over 

 the upholsterer's bills ! 



He now, probably warned a little by the suddenness of this death, 

 made his will, the most striking point of which is, his determination 

 that nobody should mistake him for any thing but what he was. 



" The body of Lord B. is to be buried in the vault of the garden of 

 Newstead, without any ceremony or burial service whatever, or any 

 inscription, save his name and age. His dog not to be removed from 

 the vault." 



So much for bravado ; too boyish for Byron's time of life ; to say 

 nothing of the profaneness. It was in this spirit, that the wretched 

 coxcomb, Shelley, whose only apology can be, that he was insane, 

 scribbled himself down, Atheist, in the album of Mont Blanc. The 

 whole was vulgar bravado that was not content with being impious 

 unless all the world knew it ; that felt insult to Heaven an empty indul- 

 gence, unless the insult was blazoned to man ; and that found its triumph 

 in calling on society to stare at the courage which could defy common 

 sense, and outrage decent virtue. We are neither Methodists nor Mug- 

 gletonians, but we have knowledge enough of the Shelley tribe to 

 know that three-fourths of their taunts and insolence are adopted merely 

 to catch the world's wonder. 



His next tidings were of the death of another atheist, his friend 

 Matthews, who was drowned at Cambridge. But this worthless person- 

 age was fortunately replaced in the same year by a different kind of 

 friend. The burlesque in the notes to the " Edinburgh Bards" on 

 Moore's duel with Jeffrey, had drawn on a correspondence, the result of 

 which was a meeting, not with sword and pistol, " and other wild 

 animals," but over coffee ; and the two poets became companions. Byron's 

 nature was haughty and bitter; there is no use in denying it. But 

 Moore's, setting aside the little retorts natural enough to a stranger 

 and an Irishman, thrown loose among the proudest aristocracy that 

 pride ever made at once insolent and ridiculous, has always been touched 

 with human good nature. His satires on the great, in and out of power, 

 we can heartily forgive, for the sake of those noble persons themselves; 

 than whom, as a race, no race on earth requires more to be reminded, 

 that men without title are not dust under their feet ; and that the wearer 

 of a coronet may deserve the lash and may meet it, from a man with 

 not a drop of Norman blood in his veins. 



The warlike correspondence ended in an armistice, cemented at a 

 dinner given by that " ancient and loving grandmother, as Massinger 

 would have it, of the muses/' Rogers ; but of which Byron would partake 



