rhyme. For one who has so little command of ROBERT SOUTHEY. On a former occasion you have allowed me, through the channel of your Journal, to contradict a calumnious accusation as publicly as it had been preferred; and though, in these days of slander, such things hardly deserve refutation, there are reasons which induce me once more to request a similar favour. Some extracts from Captain Medwin's recent publication of Lord Byron's Conversations have been transmitted to me by a friend, who, happening to know what the facts are which are there falsified, is of opinion that it would not misbecome me to state them at this time. I wish it, however, to be distinctly understood, that in so doing I am not influenced by any desire of vindicating myself; that would be wholly unnecessary, considering from what quarter the charges come. I notice them for the sake of laying before the public one ย sample more of the practices of the Satanic Scho and shewing what credit is due to Lord Byro assertions. For that his lordship spoke to t effect, and in this temper, I have no doubt; Capt Medwin having, I dare say, to the best of his rec lection, faithfully performed the worshipful office retailing all the effusions of spleen, slander, malignity, which were vented in his preser Lord Byron is the person who suffers most this; and, indeed, what man is there whose char ter would 'remain uninjured if every peevish angry expression, every sportive or extravag sally, thrown off in the unsuspicious and imagi safety of private life, were to be secretly noted do and published, with no notice of circumstances shew how they had arisen, and when no explanat was possible? One of the offices which has b attributed to the Devil, is that of registering ev idle word. There is an end of all confidence comfort in social intercourse, if such a practice is be tolerated by public opinion. When I t these Conversations to be authentic, it is becau as far as I am concerned, they accord, both matter and spirit, with what his lordship him had written and published; and it is on this count only that I deem them worthy of notice the last notice that I shall ever bestow upon subject. Let there be as many More Last Wo of Mr. Baxter,' as the 'reading public' may cho to pay for, they will draw forth no further re from me. Now then to the point... The following spe is reported by Captain Medwin, as Lord Byron's: 'I am glad Mr. Southey owns that article✶ on "Foliage," ," which excited my choler so much. But 'who else could have been the author? Who but Southey would have had the baseness, under pretext of reviewing the work of one man, insi' diously to make it a nest-egg for hatching malicious 'calumnies against others? I say nothing of the 'critique itself on "Foliage;" but what was the 'object of that article? I repeat, to vilify and scatter his dark and devilish insinuations against me and others. Shame on the man who could wound an already bleeding heart..be barbarous enough to revive the memory of an event that Shelley was perfectly innocent of..and found 'scandal on falsehood! Shelley taxed him with 'writing that article some years ago: and he had 'the audacity to admit that he had treasured up some opinions of Shelley, ten years before, when he was on a visit at Keswick, and had made a note of them at the time.' The reviewal in question I did not write... Lord Byron might have known this if he had inquired of Mr. Murray, who would readily have assured him that I was not the author; and he might have known it from the reviewal itself, wherein the writer declares in plain words, that he was a contemporary of Shelley's, at Eton. I had no concern in it, directly or indirectly; but let it not be inferred that, in thus disclaiming that paper, any disapproval of it is intended. Papers in the Quar A volume of Poems by Mr. Leigh Hunt. The reader, who may be desirous of referring to the article, will find it in the 18th volume of the Quarterly Review, p. 324. terly Review have been ascribed to me, (those Keats's Poems, for example,) which I have hear condemned, both for their spirit and manner. I for the one in question, its composition would creditable to the most distinguished writer; no there anything either in the opinions expressed, in the manner of expressing them, which a man just and honourable principles would have hesita to advance. I would not have written that part it which alludes to Mr. Shelley, because having him on familiar terms, and parted with him kindness, a feeling of which Lord Byron had conception, would have withheld me from anim verting in that manner upon his conduct. other respects, the paper contains nothing t I would not have avowed if I had written, or s scribed, as entirely assenting to, and approving It is not true that Shelley ever inquired of whether I was the author of that paper, wh purporting, as it did, to be written by an Eton of his own standing, he very well knew I was n But in this part of Lord Byron's statement the may be some mistake, mingled with a great deal malignant falsehood, Mr. Shelley addressed letter to me from Pisa, asking if I were the auth of a criticism in the Quarterly Review, upon Revolt of Islam; not exactly, in Lord Byro phrase, taxing me with it, for he declared his o belief that I was not, but adding, that he induced to ask the question by the positive decla tion of some friends in England, that the arti was mine. Denying, in my reply, that eith he or any other person was entitled to prop such a question upon such grounds, I, neverthele assured him that I had not written the paper; and that I had never, in any of my writings, alluded to him in any way. Now for the assertion that I had the audacity to admit having treasured up some of Shelley's opi nions, when he resided at Keswick, and having made notes of them at the time. What truth is mixed up with the slander of this statement I shall immediately explain; premising only, that, as the opinion there implied, concerning the practice of noting down familiar conversation, is not applicable to me, I transfer it to Captain Medwin, for his own especial use. Mr. Shelley having, in the letter alluded to, thought proper to make some remarks upon my opinions, I took occasion, in reply, to comment upon his, and to ask him (as the tree is known by its fruits) whether he had found them conducive to his own happiness, and the happiness of those with whom he had been most nearly connected. This produced a second letter from him, written in a tone, partly of justification, partly of attack. I replied to this also,..not by any such absurd admission as Lord Byron has stated,..but by recapitulating to him, as a practical illustration of his principles, the leading circumstances of his own life, from the commencement of his career at University College. The earlier facts I stated upon his own authority, as I had heard them from his own lips; the latter were of public notoriety. There the correspondence ended. On his part it had been conducted with the courtesy which was natural to him,..on mine, in the spirit of one who was earnestly admonishing a fellow-creature, |
