Tag: Romilly

The path to the first pub­li­ca­tion of Can­tos I & II of Don Juan was unlike that of any of Byron’s ear­li­er verse. It is worth our atten­tion because it reminds us — who now see only its nov­el tone, bril­liant verse, sar­casm and fun — that this new poem had explo­sive poten­tial dur­ing a year of rapid dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the foetid pol­i­tics of late Regency Eng­land. The tra­vails of pub­li­ca­tion recall the dif­fi­cult per­son­al­i­ties and mixed inter­ests of Byron, his pub­lish­er and his Lon­don friends. They also explain much about the expec­ta­tions and ambi­tions Byron had for his great­est poem as he con­tin­ued work­ing on it over the next four years.  

When they first saw the man­u­script of Can­to I, Byron’s friends — John Cam Hob­house, Scrope Davies and John Hookham Frere — had, accord­ing to Hob­house, been struck with admi­ra­tion for “the Car­rav­ag­gio tal­ent dis­played through­out…”. It’s a good metaphor for the pol­ished, high-con­trast, man­nered but ener­getic and earthy voice of the first Can­to. Nor did they think, at first, that Mur­ray, whose busi­ness had thrived on Byron’s poet­ry and dra­ma, would object to the robust tone:

 “– You shall hear all in a day or two. Mur­ray, I believe, would pub­lish a Fan­ny Hill or an Age of Rea­son of your’s – The Hitch will not come thence – so be tran­quil –”  (Hob­house to Byron on 29 Dec. 1818 on receipt of Don Juan Can­to I man­u­script.)

Dou­glas Kin­naird, a friend and lat­er busi­ness man­ag­er, was also com­pli­men­ta­ry and attuned to the poltics of pub­lish­ing, although ready to ‘clip’:

“… I have read your Poems Don Juan is exquis­ite – It must be cut for the Syphilis – When we have pound­ed Mur­ray I will not fail to write by the same Post – Your def­i­n­i­tion of May is a great truth … I think your Poem is just­ly bit­ter & exquis­ite­ly humor­ous – You will have the world on your side – The rev­o­lu­tion is com­ing – Rely on it –” (Kin­naird to Byron, 29 Decem­ber, 1818)

But with­in a month Hob­house and crew — Kin­naird less so — had changed their tune: they now advised strong­ly against pub­li­ca­tion. Hob­house was apre­hen­sive about the orig­i­nal mot­to of Can­to I (“Domes­ti­ca Fac­ta”) that he took to be a dec­la­ra­tion that the poem was, as they con­vinced them­selves, an attack on Annabel­la and per­haps her moth­er and advi­sors. They were all appalled, said Hob­house, by

“the licen­tious­ness and in some cas­es down­right inde­cen­cy of many stan­zas and of the whole turn of the poem – from the flings at reli­gion – and from the slash­ing right and left at oth­er wor­thy writ­ers of the day”.

They were mys­ti­fied by the swing­ing attacks on Southey, and Lak­er Poets in the Ded­i­ca­tion which, they said, attrib­uted these minor poets an crit­i­cal impor­tance they did not (then) enjoy. 

What had hap­pened in ear­ly 1819 to hard­en them against pub­lish­ing the poem that sev­er­al includ­ing Mur­ray thought was Byron’s great­est “in some parts?” It may have been fears about the wors­en­ing polit­i­cal cli­mate at the end of 1818 to which the Prince Regent’s speech (above) referred. Kinnaird’s remark that “the rev­o­lu­tion is com­ing…” would have been seen by Byron’s oth­er friends as a chill­ing, if dis­tant, prospect. Per­haps it was also some­thing clos­er to home, at least for Hob­house.

In his Jan­u­ary 1819 let­ter, Hob­house couched his strong rec­om­men­da­tion for “total sup­pres­sion” in terms that sug­gest his great­est con­cern was not Byron’s rep­u­ta­tion as a poet but his own polti­cial car­reer:

“I have now gone through the objec­tions which appear <to so> so mixed up with the whole work espe­cial­ly to those who are in the secret of the domes­ti­ca fac­ta that I know not any any ampu­ta­tion will save it: more par­tic­u­lar­ly as the objec­tion­able parts are in point of wit humour & poet­ry the very best beyond all doubt of the whole poem – This con­sid­er­a­tion, there­fore, makes me sum up with stren­u­ous­ly advis­ing a total sup­pres­sion of Don Juan – I shall take advan­tage of the kind per­mis­sion you give me to keep back the pub­li­ca­tion until after the elec­tion in Feb­ru­ary: and this delay will allow time for your answer and deci­sion” (Hob­house to Byron, 5 Jan­u­ary, 1819).

Byron was in no posi­tion, from Venice, to deny Hobhouse’s pre­sump­tion of his “kind per­mis­sion”. In any case, the pro­posed delay gave him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to add some more vers­es to Can­to I and to com­plete Can­to II of Don Juan. By May of 1819, how­ev­er, he was becom­ing fed up with the wheedling on from his Lon­don friends on the texts. He agreed to mak­ing cuts in the Ded­i­ca­tion but… 

“You sha’n’t make Can­ti­cles of my Can­tos. The poem will please if it is live­ly – if it is stu­pid it will fail but I will have none of your damned cut­ting & slash­ing. – If you please you may pub­lish anony­mous­ly it will per­haps be bet­ter; – but I will bat­tle my way against them all – like a Por­cu­pine.” (Byron to Mur­ray, 6 April 1819 from Venice)

He was rest­less; feel­ing uncom­fort­able about his dis­solute life in grub­by Venice. He was wor­ried that ser­ven­tism to a young, bare­ly-mar­ried woman — Tere­sa Guic­ci­oli — was hope­less and a bit déclassé. Nev­er keen on cor­rect­ing proofs or mak­ing fair-copies — which he found bor­ing work — he declined to receive any fur­ther proofs of Don Juan after June and pressed Mur­ray to pub­lish. 

After receiv­ing the manuscript(s) of Can­to II, Mur­ray was able to see the poem at some­thing clos­er to its prop­er scale — more than 400 stan­zas — and was a lit­tle mol­li­fied that the naughty and revolt­ing bits were much less promi­nent than the pas­sages he found “exceed­ing­ly good”: 

I think you may mod­i­fy or sub­sti­tute oth­ers for, the lines on Romil­ly whose death should save him – – the verse in the Ship­wreck – LXXXI the Mas­ters Mates dis­ease – I pray you oblit­ter­ate as well the sup­pres­sion of Urine – these Ladies may not read — the Ship­wreck is a lit­tle too par­tic­u­lar & out of pro­por­tion to the rest of the pic­ture – but if you do any thing it must be with extreme cau­tion – for it is exceed­ing­ly good – & the pow­er with which you alter­nate­ly make our blood thrill & our Sides Shake is very great – noth­ing in all poet­ry is fin­er than your descrip­tion of the two females in Can­to II – it is nature speak­ing in the most exquis­ite poet­ry – but think of the effects of such seduc­tive poet­ry? (Mur­ray to Byron, 28 May, 1819)

Byron, despite doubts about the wis­dom of the jour­ney, was on the road to Raven­na, where Tere­sa lay ill, in his high-wheeled Napoleon­ic coach. From Bologna he sent Mur­ray a rude reply:

It will there­fore be idle in him [Hob­house] or you to wait for any fur­ther answers – or returns of proofs from Venice – as I have direct­ed that no Eng­lish let­ters be sent after me. – The pub­li­ca­tion can be pro­ceed­ed in with­out, and I am already sick of your remarks – to which I think not the least atten­tion ought to be paid. – – – (Byron to Mur­ray, 7 June 1819).

Mur­ray gave up. In con­cert with Hob­house, he dropped the Ded­i­ca­tion alto­geth­er — Byron had final­ly agreed to that — and two stan­zas of Can­to I that Byron had not agreed to drop. The first was stan­za 15 on the sui­cide of Sir Samuel Romi­ly — whose West­min­ster seat in Par­lia­ment Hob­house was then about to con­test; the sec­ond — now stan­za 131 — on syphilis. He also cen­sored with aster­isks two good jokes about the his­to­ry of “the pox” in stan­zas 129 and 130.

The removal of the “Romil­ly” verse sketched the bat­tle-lines already being drawn between the poet, his friends and his pub­lish­er. For Byron, the five lines he insert­ed on Romilly’s sui­cide was a sav­age thrill: the lawmaker’s sui­cide by cut­throat razor had been an act of Neme­sis, he claimed. In con­text, they fit with the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Inez, but it was noneth­less bloody-mind­ed. Byron knew from reli­able sources that Romil­ly had act­ed in igno­rance, not dis­hon­or­ably, in agree­ing at first to advise his wife, Annabel­la, on their sep­a­ra­tion. Some­one who had more insight into him­self and his anger than Byron might have dropped it with­out, as Byron’s friends said, dam­ag­ing the poem. Still, if Don Juan was to be issued anony­mous­ly, why should his editors/advisors be so par­tic­u­lar about these lines? The plau­si­ble rea­son Hob­house offered to Byron — in a let­ter writ­ten on the day of pub­li­ca­tion — was that it might hurt Romilly’s fam­i­ly: 

“The man has left chil­dren whom I know you did not mean to annoy; and though we must both of us think that he has been bepuffed at a ter­ri­ble rate yet the death of both father and moth­er has left six poor crea­tures and three or four of them grown up with lit­tle sup­port except their father’s rep­u­ta­tion; and whether that rep­u­ta­tion be over­rat­ed or not, I am con­vinced that at this moment you would not wish to impair the lega­cy as far as they are con­cerned” (Hob­house to Byron on 15 July, 1819.)

But Hob­house was not being can­did — as Byron must have known. Drop­ping the stan­za attack­ing Romil­ly served his inter­ests as an elec­toral can­di­date as much as any oth­er. He had failed in his first, Feb­ru­ary 1819, bid to win Romilly’s Par­lia­men­tary seat of West­min­ster on behalf of ‘rad­i­cal’ reform. But he had come a cred­itable sec­ond in the bal­lot and planned to try again. It would look bad for him to be asso­ci­at­ed — as he would be — with Byron’s attack on the once-dis­tin­guished for­mer Mem­ber for that con­stituen­cy. Hob­house was a rad­i­cal who — like Byron who decid­ed­ly was not  — want­ed no over­turn­ing of the social order that pro­tect­ed Romilly’s name and saved him from a suicide’s unhal­lowed grave.