BYRON'S LETTERS TO DOUGLAS KINNAIRD ... - Get a Free Blog

[à Milord / Milord Byron / en son Hotel / à Genoa / Italie]
26 November 1822
My dear Byron,
You will already have receiv’d proof from my letters that the Papers have not lie’d – I
am going on well. Murray – whom I saw yesterday says he had sold six Thousand Copies of Werner
and he sacrificed the Two thousand copies he had printed to Werner and Heaven and Earth. I have just
received from him a packet of your Manuscripts – it turns out that the Copy of the Vision he gave to
Mr Hunt was not the copy corrected by you. wether the fault of its not forthcoming lie with him or me I
cannot determine. I am fully impress’d with the belief that he is only to be charged with slovenliness. 83
I send you the enclosed choice extract from the [ ] [ ] 84 – is it not Blasphemous? it is difficult not to be
so in our own days –
Yours ever
Douglas Kinnaird
[1:2 and 3 blank.]
December 2nd – 17th 1822: Byron writes The Age of Bronze.
Byron to Douglas Kinnaird, from Genoa, November 28th 1822:
(Source: text from NLS Ms.43454; 1922 II 233-4; BLJ X 41-3)
[To, The Honorable Douglas Kinnaird. / Messrs Ransom & C o . Bankers / Pall Mall. / London.
Angleterre // Inghilterra.]
Byron answers Kinnaird’s of November 15th.
Genoa 9b re . 28 o 1822.
My dear Douglas –
Y rs . of y e . 15 th . arrived yesterday. – It is the first I have heard of y r . accident from
yourself though you seem to refer to a prior letter. Will you please to recollect that I have few friends
and only one potestas of Attorneo – and that I cannot afford to lose you in either capacity. – Why will
you ride impracticable cattle? you are, or used to be, an excelling horseman – and therefore must have
sought out the brute for his bad qualities – unless indeed he fell with you – which may happen to any
horse or man. – Now to your Yepistle. – –
Of M r . Maddison – I know nothing – my subscriptions at Watier’s were paid up to my departure from
Englonde – and I thought – that being abroad – neutralized further disbursements during absence. –
1:2
What is the amount – or what is the excuse for it? – a large demand is impossible – I never dined at the
Club – but once with Hobhouse to meet G l . Sebastiani & Flahaut – and I paid my conscription
regularly. – It is a mystery to me – except that nothing in the impudence of mankind ought to surprize a
philosopher. – – –
It is my intention when assetts are at a certain height – to liquidate the remaining debt but it is best to
have double funds in hand first. – – About June – if you have three thousand pounds of mine in hand –
you can pay five or six hundred – and so on – in proportion – till the whole two thousand – or
thereabouts (you seem to think that it is {the remaining debt} not more) are liquidated. – The three
thousand four hundred – (which with y r . circulars and six hundred at {Messrs.} Webb’s Leghorn
1:3
I have at present disposal) I reserve for the expence of living & c . – and hope to make it
last me a year – and perhaps two – and peradventure three. – How far the Noel and the funded property
are likely to render an addition to be depended upon – you who know what the funds are – and land is –
can tell better than I. – In the mean time till the landed part at least produces something more
substantial than it hath hitherto exhibited – – the few remaining claimants must wait for some months,
methinks they might and may. –
With regard to any literary products – they are so fluctuating and uncertain – that I can make no near
calculation. – –
I shall trust the management of those as of other affairs of more importance
83: K. seems to be accepting responsibility for the confusion over TVOJ.
84: This proper noun is indecipherable. It looks like “Mnu Tiagiozi”.
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