LIFE
OF
LORD BYRON:
WITH HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS.
BY THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.
IN SIX VOLUMES.—VOL. V.
NEW EDITION.
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1854.
CONTENTS OF VOL. V.
LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE, from
October, 1820, to November, 1822.Pg 1
NOTICES
OF THE
LIFE OF LORD BYRON.
LETTER 394. TO MR. MOORE.
"Ravenna, October 17. 1820.
"You owe me two letters—pay them. I want to know what you areabout. The summer is over, and you will be back to Paris. Aproposof Paris, it was not Sophia Gail, but Sophia Gay—the Englishword Gay—who was my correspondent.[1] Can you tell who she is,as you did of the defunct * *?
"Have you gone on with your Poem? I have received the French ofmine. Only think of being traduced into a foreign language insuch an abominable travesty! It is useless to rail, but one can'thelp it.
"Have you got my Memoir copied? I have bePg 2gun a continuation. ShallI send it you, as far as it is gone?
"I can't say any thing to you about Italy, for the Government herelook upon me with a suspicious eye, as I am well informed. Prettyfellows!—as if I, a solitary stranger, could do any mischief. Itis because I am fond of rifle and pistol shooting, I believe; forthey took the alarm at the quantity of cartridges I consumed,—thewiseacres!
"You don't deserve a long letter—nor a letter at all—for yoursilence. You have got a new Bourbon, it seems, whom they havechristened 'Dieu-donné;'—perhaps the honour of the present may bedisputed. Did you write the good lines on ——, the Laker? * *
"The Queen has made a pretty theme for the journals. Was there eversuch evidence published? Why, it is worse than 'Little's Poems' or'Don Juan.' If you don't write soon, I will 'make you a speech.'Yours," &c.
LETTER 395. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, 8bre 25°, 1820.
"Pray forward the enclosed to Lady Byron. It is on business.
"In thanking you for the Abbot, I made four grand mistakes, SirJohn Gordon was not of Gight, but of Bogagicht, and a son ofHuntley's. He suffered not for his loyalty, but in aninsurrection. He had nothing to do with Loch Leven, having beendead some time at the period of the Queen's confinePg 3ment: and,fourthly, I am not sure that he was the Queen's paramour or no, forRobertson does not allude to this, though Walter Scott does, inthe list he gives of her admirers (as unfortunate) at the close of'The Abbot.'
"I must have made all these mistakes in recollecting my mother'saccount of the matter, although she was more accurate than I am,being precise upon points of genealogy, lik