n

Cast

Lord Byron

John Cam Hobhouse

John Murray

John Wilson Croker

Douglas Kinnaird

PB Shelley

Jimmy - Murray's butler​

​

n

 

​​​Scene 1

​

​1819 - without trial, Hobhouse is sent to Newgate re. a breach of parliamentary privilege - the Albemarle Street outpost of the Tory party convenes

​​

JWC: Detention as His Majesty's request may be well for the likes of the Hunt brothers - but for a Gentleman! a competent watercolourist and author of Miscellanies! (shakes jowls) - e'en in these costermonger days, why, 'tis pitiful

M: Ah, but Mr. Hobhouse, my dear Croker, is a Radical Whig! Wilkes - Burdett - and Horne Tooke are all men of education - and courteous deportment - and so is Mr. Hobhouse - but, as for the company he presently keeps, I am convinced that Robespierre was a Child, and Marat a Quaker in comparison of what the Radicals would be could they throttle their way to power - I am exceedingly vexed at the conduct of Mr Hobhouse there is even the possibility of advantage to him – Sir Francis stands & will stand alone – there is not room for another on the same pedestal

J: Post's in Mr. Murray! (drops sacks next to fire)

M: Thank you, Jimmy (rummages) - anything from his Lordship? - oh! 'tis a large one (tears same) - och and oons! bad news from Ravenna - he has no plans to return, a great pity indeed (grips letter in shock) - migration to South America! a distance too great for my Pursuits (lows like a chilly cow)...

JWC(grabs letter): Good lord, how do you read this hand, Murray?(reads slowly) “Dear Moray - pray give Hobhouse the enclosed song - and tell him I know he will never forgive me - but I could not help it - I am so provoked with him and his ragamuffins for putting him in “quod" - he will understand that word, being now resident in the “flash" capital" - “flash capital" - what in god's name does that signify? Is it ready money?

M(sits): Chokey, my dear Crocker villainous, lewd cant  I fear - (muses, not displeasingly, on a possible shift in Byron's politics) - hmm - 'twould seem his years on the continent may have proved an anathema to revolution and reform - heh heh - let me read..

​

How came you in Hob’s pound to cool,

My boy Hobbie, O?

Because I bade the people pull

The House into the Lobby, O

​

What did the House upon this call,

My boy Hobbie, O?

They voted me to Newgate all;

Which is an awkward Jobby, O

​

JWC: Oh dear - is it a Scottish song?

M(is choking with laughter): Of sorts - oh! let me sit - Wherefore do you hate the Whigs, My boy Hobbie, O?

Jimmy! - fetch me some soda water! - this would surely end their mad friendship - I wonder has our lord seen the light of reason - and will now scribble more sensibly

JWC: Will you show it to Mr. Hobhouse?

M:  Perhaps not - although it could spell the end of their friendship (perusing) - and there he sits in Newgate contenting himself for the loss of liberty by the comfortable reflection “that the House Of Comms have no right to send him there” 

​​​​JWC: In politics, his Lordship cannot be what he appears, or rather what Messrs. Hobhouse and Leigh Hunt wish to make him appear, a man of his birth, a man of his taste, a man of his talents, a man of his habits can have nothing in common with such miserable creatures as we now call radicals

M: I know not that I can better express the illiterate & blind ignorance and vulgarity than by saying that the best inform’d of them have probably never heard of Lord Byron

JWC: 

Who are now the people’s men,

My boy Hobby, O?

There’s I and Burdett – Gentlemen,

And blackguard Hunt and Cobby, O

M: I am dining at Newgate with Mr Foscolo and Hobhouse next week - I shall neglect to pass the scurrility on  for I do most sincerely regard him as a very kind friend – but I am certain that he has no tact in politics – no more than I have to be a Sculptor

​​

n

​Scene 2

​​

Three months later, H is out of jail and relaxing at the Cocoa tree with Kinnaird - has been elected the Rt. Hon. member for Westminster

​

K(warily): Afternoon, Hobhouse - I read in the Courier that your punishment has made you into some class of a national hero - and gained your seat - have you received any word from Murray of late, by chance?

H: I do not write anything to Albemarle Street unless I wish it to be seen by all the public offices - Murray does not mean to do mischief  - but he is vain, Sir, damn’d vain - and for the sake of a paragraph with ‘My dear M’ in it would betray Christ himself Murray was entertaining – but told all the secrets of all his friends, and abused them partially one after the other. Foscolo had a gumboil and was almost silent

K: So (whistles unconvincingly) - ye have not heard an amusing wee scribb from Byron re, your later residence and how you got there? 'Twas just a petty frippery tacked on to a four-pager of book business and the gentil donnas of Ravenna - but he did ask Murray to pass it on

 

A waiter brings the brandy and partridges - and H's backed-up post - into the salon on a tray

​

very bad and base and wanton indeed – but signed ‘Infidus Scurra’ the name we used to give to Scrope Davies ... I am exceedingly unwilling to record this proof of the base nature of my friend – he thought me in prison; he knew me attacked by all parties and pens, he resolved to give his kick too – and in so doing he alluded to my once having belonged to a Whig Club at Cambridge. Now I believe this to be wantonness as much as anything – and to have mistaken the nature of my imprisonment and of the line of popular politics which I have thought it my duty to adopt – yet for a man to give way to such a mere pruriency and itch of writing against one who has stood by him in all his battles and never refused a single friendly office – is a melancholy proof of want of feeling and I fear of principle – It has at any rate rent asunder the veil through which I have long looked at this singular man and I know not that it is in the power of any circumstances hereafter to make me think of him again as I thought of him before – “sic extorta voluptas –” As for the conduct of Murray the bookseller – nothing can be more impertinent and ungrateful – But I shall not complain to myself of this poor creature – but remember Foscolo’s advice to have as little as possible to do with these “demi gentilhommes”

H(reads): ​Is it possible his hand decreases into senility at each attempt ( giggles) - now what marvelous tales of high life do I have “I congratulate you on your change of residence, which I perceive by the papers, took place on the dissolution of King and Parliament. I sent - through Murray - a song for you - you dog - to pay you off for them there verses which you compounded in April 1816 as I was in the throes of banishment and humiliation - but I won’t go on though you deserve it - but you see I forget nothing...

​

 ​...No more shall Mr . Murray

Pace Piccadilly in a hurry

Nor Holmes with not a few grimaces

Beg a few pounds for a few faces..

​​

pfft! - how can he remember such a trifle? why bother to remember

K: Read on Hobby

H: Oh! - a squib - about me?

But when we at Cambridge were,

My boy Hobbie, O,

If my memory don’t err,

You founded a Whig Clubbie, O

​K: Give it here - there's no need to read more - I'm sure he was in a mood..

H:

When to the mob you make a speech,

My boy Hobbie, O,

How do you keep without their reach

The watch within your fobby, O?

​

But never mind such petty things,

My boy Hobbie, O

God save the people – damn all Kings –

So let us crown the Mobby, O!

​​

H: oh the shabby fellow!! The veil has been lifted from my eyes - he in his palazzos, his mistresses the prelates bowing before him - what knows he of an agitator political life - at home - his home which he should be using his talents to defend - oh the shabby fellow!

​​​​​​​​​​

n

​​Scene 3

​

​Ravenna​​

​

B(reads): “ Shabby fellow"!! was I a shabby fellow

PBS: perchance you are distressed at your friend in jail? suffering for his beliefs

​– {You used to be thought a} prudent man – at least by me whom you favoured with so much good counsel – but methinks you are waxed somewhat rash at least in politic

B's silence perhaps would indicate some truth in the remark

t would not have pleased me to find on my return from transportation my best friends in Newgate. – – “Did I ever – no I never”51 – – but I will say no more – all reflections being quite Nugatory on the occasion; – still I admire your Gallantry and think you could not do otherwise having written the pamphlet – but “why bitch Mr. Wild!”52 – why write it? – why lend yourself to Hunt and Cobbett

​

B: Ashamed?! of what

 

By the king’s death – Mr . H I hear will stand for Westminster – I shall be glad to hear of his standing any where except in the pillory – which from the company he must have {lately} kept (I always except Burdett – and Douglas K – and the genteel Part of the reformers) was perhaps to be apprehended. I was really glad to hear it was for libel instead of larceny for though impossible in his own person he might have been taken up by mistake {for another} at a meeting

I am out of all patience to see my friends sacrifice themselves for a pack of blackguards – who disgust one with their Cause – although I have always been 22 2:4 a friend {to} and a Voter for reform. – – – If Hunt had addressed the language to me – which he did to M r . H. last election – I would not have descended to call out such a miscreant {who won’t fight} – but have passed my sword=stick through his body – like a dog’s and then thrown myself on my Peers – who would I hope – {have} weighed the provocation; – at any rate – it would have been as public a Service as Walworth’s chastisement of Wat. Tyler. – If we must have a tyrant – let him at least be a gentleman who has been bred to the business, and let us fall by the axe and not by the butcher’s cleaver. – – – – – – – No one can be more sick of – or indifferent to politics than I am – if they let me alone – but if the time comes when a part must be taken one way or the other – I shall pause before I lend myself to the views of such ruffians – although I cannot but approve of a Constitutional amelioration of long abuses.

B: Why, I would go to war if he asked me! - yea, even if he remained warming his toes by his fathers fireside - or in the Dog & Duck gulping oysters and organising rebellion from the comfort of his armchair - I would wade through a mire for him!

S: All for a squib! His majesty's opposition, indeed ​​​​

B: 

S: In the name of all the devils the printing office

I see Hobhouse has got in a Scrape – which does not please me he should not have gone so deep among those men – without calculating the consequences. – I used to think myself the most imprudent of all {among} my friends and acquaintances but almost begin to doubt it.

​​

​

​

O You hate the House – why canvass, then?

My boy Hobbie, O?

Because I would reform the den

As member for the Mobby, O

When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,

Let him combat for that of his neighbours;

Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,

And get knocked on the head for his labours.

​​

To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,

And, is always as nobly requited;

Then battle for freedom wherever you can,

And, if not shot or hanged, you’ll get knighted.

​

​

​

​

The Whigs will make complete fools of themselves & will lose all chance of getting into power on the backs of the Radicals

​​

Would you go to the House by the true gate

Much faster than ever Whig Charley went

Let the Parliament send you to Newgate,

And Newgate will send you to Parliament.

 

Yrs truly, (Signed) Infidus Scurra

​

No no Lord Byron may be indulgent to these Jackall followers of his; he may connive at their use of his name, nay it is not to be denied that he has given them too too much countenance, but he never can, I should think, now that he sees not only the road but the rate they are going, continue to take a part so contrary to all his own interests & feelings & to the feelings & interests of all the respectable part of his country – & yet it was only yesterday at dinner that somebody said that he had read or seen a letter of Lord B’s to somebody saying that if the radicals only made a little progress & showed some real force, he would hasten over & get on

​

​

https://books.google.ie/books?id=NuKpdMogUJMC&pg=PP1&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

​

​​

n

​​END