118 — To William Harness

8, St. James's Street, March 18, 1809.

There was no necessity for your excuses: if you have time and inclination to write, "for what we receive, the Lord make us thankful," — if I do not hear from you, I console myself with the idea that you are much more agreeably employed.

I send down to you by this post a certain Satire lately published, and in return for the three and sixpence expenditure upon it, only beg that if you should guess the author, you will keep his name secret; at least for the present.

London

is full of the Duke's business

. The Commons have been at it these last three nights, and are not yet come to a decision. I do not know if the affair will be brought before our House, unless in the shape of an impeachment. If it makes its appearance in a debatable form, I believe I shall be tempted to say something on the subject. —

I

am glad to hear you like Cambridge: firstly, because, to know that you are happy is pleasant to one who wishes you all possible sublunary enjoyment; and, secondly, I admire the morality of the sentiment.

Alma Mater

was to me

injusta noverca

; and the old beldam only gave me my M.A. degree because she could not avoid it

. — You know what a farce a noble Cantab. must perform.

I am going abroad, if possible, in the spring, and before I depart I am collecting the pictures of my most intimate school-fellows; I have already a few, and shall want yours, or my cabinet will be incomplete.

I

have employed one of the first miniature painters

of the day to take them, of course, at my own expense, as I never allow my acquaintance to incur the least expenditure to gratify a whim of mine. To mention this may seem indelicate; but when I tell you a friend of ours first refused to sit, under the idea that he was to disburse on the occasion, you will see that it is necessary to state these preliminaries to prevent the recurrence of any similar mistake. I shall see you in time, and will carry you to the

limner

. It will be a tax on your patience for a week; but pray excuse it, as it is possible the resemblance may be the sole trace I shall be able to preserve of our past friendship and acquaintance. Just now it seems foolish enough; but in a few years, when some of us are dead, and others are separated by inevitable circumstances, it will be a kind of satisfaction to retain in these images of the living the idea of our former selves, and, to contemplate, in the resemblances of the dead, all that remains of judgment, feeling, and a host of passions. But all this will be dull enough for you, and so good night; and, to end my chapter, or rather my homily,

Believe me, my dear H., yours most affectionately,

Footnote 1:

This was the inquiry into the charges made by Colonel Gwyllym Wardle, M.P. for Okehampton (1807-12), against the Duke of York and his mistress, Mary Ann Clarke. The inquiry began January 27, 1809, and ended March 20, 1809, with the duke's resignation, the Commons having previously (March 17) acquitted him of "personal connivance and corruption."

The case has passed into literature. Wardle, the valorous Dowler, and Lowten, Mr. Perker's clerk, had all figured in the trial before they played their parts in

Pickwick

. Wardle, who was a colonel of the Welsh Fusiliers ("Wynne's Lambs") had fought at Vinegar Hill. After losing his seat, he took a farm between Tunbridge Wells and Rochester, from which he fled to escape his creditors, and died at Florence, November 30, 1834, aged seventy-two.

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Footnote 2:

Byron took his M.A. degree, July 4, 1808. In another letter to Harness, dated February, 1809, he says,

"I do not know how you and Alma Mater agree. I was but an untoward child myself, and I believe the good lady and her brat were equally rejoiced when I was weaned, and if I obtained her benediction at parting, it was, at best, equivocal."

Footnote 3:

George Sanders (1774-1846) painted miniatures, made watercolour copies of continental master-pieces, and afterwards became a portrait-painter in oils. He painted several portraits of Byron, two of which have been often engraved.

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