890
HISTORV OF PRINTING.
to be the fonnality, hypocrisy, and sameness of daily life. Dwelling upon that country, as it is clear from all lord Byron's writings he did, with the fondest solicitude, and being, as he was well known to be, an ardent though perhaps not a very systematic lover of freedom, he could be no unconcerned spectator of its recent revolution; and, as soon as it seemed to him that his presence might be useful, he prepared to visit once more the shores of Greece. He embarked from the port of Leghorn, and arrived in Cephaloniain the earl^ part of August, 1823, attended by a suite of SIX or seven friends, in an English vessel, which he had hired for the express purpose oi taking him to Greece. The dissensions among the Greek chiefs evidently gave great pain to lord Byron, whose sensibility was keenly affected by the slightest circumstance which he considered would retard the deliverance of Greece. " For my part," he observes, in one of his letteiS, " 1 will stick by the cause while a plank remains which can be honourably clung to; if I quit it, it will be the Greeks' conduct, and not the holy allies, or the holier mussulmans." The last moments of Byron have been carefully chronicled by his servant Fletcher, and they furnish an interesting picture of the man when divested of the tinsel and glare of worldly selfishness. It was generally expected that he would have been buried in Westminster abbey, and that poets' comer would have possessed another bright memento of the literature of our native land. It was, however, determined by the hon. Augusta Leigh (lord Byron's sister) that the ashes of the poet should repose with those of his ancestors, and bis body was ultimately transferred to the church of Hucknall Torkard, near Newstead. The funeral took place July 16, 1824, and was attended by the corporation of Nottingham. His genius as a poet must ever place him first in the list of England's literary worthies; but the bio- grapher who attempts tu trace his moral career, finds but little to repay him for his labour but a deep sense of the moral degradation which the selfish follower of worldly pleasure may carve out for himself. His character has been thus summed up. " He was an extraordinary mixture of benevolence and misanthropy, and of aspira- tions after excellence, with a particular ensmve- ment to degrading vices. He wrote under the influence of morbid excitement, or availed him- self of the resources of egotism. He drew from out the burning nell of his own stormy passions." Yet, in all his poetry, according to William Wordsworth, we find " a perpetual stream of quick-coming fancies, an eternal spring of fresh blown images, which seemed called into existence by the sudden flash of those glowing thoughts and overwhelming emotions, that stru^le for expression through the whole flow of his poetry, and impart to a diction that is often abrupt and irregular, a force and a charm which seem frequently to realize all that is said of inspiration."
The following list will show the years of pub- lication of his principal poems, and the amount
of remuneration received by the noble poetu the price of his literary labours, from Mr. John Murray,* the eminent publisher of Albemaile- street, who acted with a degree of libeiali^ pre- viously unknown in the histoiy of liteiatnie:
1807— Hoiir> 0/ IdlaunM.
laoS—EnglM Bardi and Seofcit Hevltwtn.t
ISIS— CAiMe Banldi canto* I. nut n.t • - Mm
Ui3-The Oiamtr m
Wi-TKt BrUe of Abfiot ^
18U— T»« Coruur .m
liU—Larah uT
I81S— Heirnijretoitta.il
ini-aiege of CorbM ;m
1810— ParMu jJT
1810— CMMe HanUi canto III im
ma-Primurof ChUbm «•
laiy—Miu^fred, a dramoHc ptein .... nj
1817— LonMirf of Tono -..-.... jij
U\a~Bemoi aeomtetaleofmodemUaaamH/e SM I818-C«/S« HoreM,- canto IV. - . TT^. tito 1819 — Mtuseppa .--..-..,. 595
1810— Dm /Kon; canto* I. and II \tu
I8S»— Dm Jtumi cantos III. IV. and V. . . Itu 1890— arariiM FaHtro.
ISiO—Dogetif P^emce |«g|
I8S1— Sanfonapajiu, a tragedy; Cain, aam-
t»rgi KadtheTKoPoteaH. . ^\ um \S»\— Letter m th« Poetical Character of Foot. 18SI- VWoH of Judgment. n ^ ^^
IS»»— Werner, a tragedf; Deformed Trwu- fornud; Heanen f[ Barth. Towhldi were added.fioiin oflUenmt; EmgUA Bardt, ic Hmit from Horace, »c. 3M5
Sondiiea ---....... 41*
Ufe, bjr Thomas Moore mm
isn— Dm Jmom; cantos VI. VII. VIII. XX.
X. and XI. ISas -Age of Bronze. isas- Ivie Uland; and more cantos of Don Juan.
1824, May 10. Died, John Guthrie, of the firm of Guthrie and Tail, booksellers, Nicol. son-Street, Edinburgh. Mr. Guthrie generally
- Mr. Muiray tass conferred a great benefit on the lite-
rary world by pubUshlng the works of lord Byron, com- plete, in two .volumes, Svo. with notes by the most emi- nent men of the day. London, IS37 — 8.
t For the Uberty to republiali this satire, lonl Bttoo refused four hundred guineas.
J TTie copyright of the Brst and second cantos of CUUe Harold, and of the Conair, he presented to Mr. Dallas
} "What do the reviewers mean by ■ elaborate.' Lot I wrote whUe undressing! alter coming home from balls and masquerades. In the year of revehr, iau.-—Bfrom-e
II Written at the request of the hon. Douglas Kinnaird, for a selection of Hebrew melodies, and published by Mr. Power, with music, arranged by Mr. Braham and Mr. Nathan. James Power, music-seller, died Aug t(i 1836
pe hon. Douglas James William Kinnaird was born Feb. aeth, 1788, and died March lath, 1830.
H Written at Geneva, and published in London, by John Hiint. Its authenticity was much doubted at the tine.
June 1», I8», Mr. Hunt was sentenced to pay a Une of j^lOO, and find securities, himself in jClooo and two in ^800 each, for publishing the Vision of Judgment. This '^'^ saw the light in isaa, and after Ineffectaal negotiations with various publishers In London, at leneth appeared in the pages of the onfoitniiate lAberal.
Lord Byron's acquaintance wtUi Ldgh Runt originated in his (grateful feeling fbr the manner in which Mr. Boat
stood forward in his Justification in the Bmminer (edited by John wid Leigh Hunt,) at a time when the current of pubUc opinion ran strongly against liim. Hiis feeling induced him to invite Mr. Hunt to Venice, where, upon his amTal, a periodical publication was pitiiected, un^ the tiUe of the Literal, of which Mr. Hunt was to be the editor, and to whidi lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley mxe to contribute. Three numbers of the Uieral were published, when in consequence of the untuq)py iate of Mr. Shelley losing his life, by the upsetting of a boat, in the Mediterranean, August 8, ISM, at the age of thirty, and other causes, the publication ceased.
LjOOQ IC
