Wilmot, the
inspirer
of
"She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs.
"She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs.
Byron
.
.
.
Mr.
Richard Sharpe and Mr.
Rogers were also present.
"
Again, Miss Berry, in her _Journal_ (1866, in. 49) records, May 8, 1815,
that "Lord and Lady Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss [Lydia]
White (_vide post_, p. 587). Never have I seen a more imposing
convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered . . . Lord
Byron brought me home. He stayed to supper. " If he did not affect "your
blue-bottles," he was on intimate terms with Madame de Stael, "the
_Begum_ of Literature," as Moore called her; with the Contessa
d'Albrizzi (the De Stael of Italy); with Mrs.
Wilmot, the inspirer of
"She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs. Shelley; with Lady
Blessington. Moreover, to say nothing of his "mathematical wife," who
was as "blue as ether," the Countess Guiccioli could not only read and
"inwardly digest" _Corinna_ (see letter to Moore, January 2, 1820), but
knew the _Divina Commedia_ by heart, and was a critic as well as an
inspirer of her lover's poetry.
If it is difficult to assign a reason or occasion for the composition of
_The Blues_, it is a harder, perhaps an impossible, task to identify all
the _dramatis personae_. Botherby, Lady Bluemount, and Miss Diddle are,
obviously, Sotheby, Lady Beaumont, and Lydia White. Scamp the Lecturer
may be Hazlitt, who had incurred Byron's displeasure by commenting on
his various and varying estimates of Napoleon (see _Lectures on the
English Poets_, 1818, p. 304, and _Don Juan_, Canto 1. stanza ii. line
7, note to Buonaparte). Inkel seems to be meant for Byron himself, and
Tracy, a friend, _not_ a Lake poet, for Moore. Sir Richard and Lady
Bluebottle may possibly symbolize Lord and Lady Holland; and Miss Lilac
is, certainly, Miss Milbanke, the "Annabella" of Byron's courtship, not
the "moral Clytemnestra" of his marriage and separation.
_The Blues_ was published anonymously in the third number of the
_Liberal_, which appeared April 26, 1823. The "Eclogue" was not
attributed to Byron, and met with greater contempt than it deserved. In
the _Noctes Ambrosiance_ (Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, May, 1823,
vol. xiii. p.
Again, Miss Berry, in her _Journal_ (1866, in. 49) records, May 8, 1815,
that "Lord and Lady Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss [Lydia]
White (_vide post_, p. 587). Never have I seen a more imposing
convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered . . . Lord
Byron brought me home. He stayed to supper. " If he did not affect "your
blue-bottles," he was on intimate terms with Madame de Stael, "the
_Begum_ of Literature," as Moore called her; with the Contessa
d'Albrizzi (the De Stael of Italy); with Mrs.
Wilmot, the inspirer of
"She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs. Shelley; with Lady
Blessington. Moreover, to say nothing of his "mathematical wife," who
was as "blue as ether," the Countess Guiccioli could not only read and
"inwardly digest" _Corinna_ (see letter to Moore, January 2, 1820), but
knew the _Divina Commedia_ by heart, and was a critic as well as an
inspirer of her lover's poetry.
If it is difficult to assign a reason or occasion for the composition of
_The Blues_, it is a harder, perhaps an impossible, task to identify all
the _dramatis personae_. Botherby, Lady Bluemount, and Miss Diddle are,
obviously, Sotheby, Lady Beaumont, and Lydia White. Scamp the Lecturer
may be Hazlitt, who had incurred Byron's displeasure by commenting on
his various and varying estimates of Napoleon (see _Lectures on the
English Poets_, 1818, p. 304, and _Don Juan_, Canto 1. stanza ii. line
7, note to Buonaparte). Inkel seems to be meant for Byron himself, and
Tracy, a friend, _not_ a Lake poet, for Moore. Sir Richard and Lady
Bluebottle may possibly symbolize Lord and Lady Holland; and Miss Lilac
is, certainly, Miss Milbanke, the "Annabella" of Byron's courtship, not
the "moral Clytemnestra" of his marriage and separation.
_The Blues_ was published anonymously in the third number of the
_Liberal_, which appeared April 26, 1823. The "Eclogue" was not
attributed to Byron, and met with greater contempt than it deserved. In
the _Noctes Ambrosiance_ (Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, May, 1823,
vol. xiii. p.
