40 — To John Hanson

Trin. Coll. Cambridge, Novr. 23, 1805.

Dear Sir, — Your Advice was good but I have not determined whether I shall follow it;

this

Place is the

Devil

or at least his principal residence. They call it the University, but any other Appellation would have suited it much better, for Study is the last pursuit of the Society; the Master

eats, drinks, and sleeps, the Fellows

Drink, dispute and pun

; the Employment of the Under graduates you will probably conjecture without my description. I sit down to write with a Head confused with Dissipation which, tho' I hate, I cannot avoid.

I have only supped at Home 3 times since my Arrival, and my table is constantly covered with invitations, after all I am the most

steady

Man in College, nor have I got into many Scrapes, and none of consequence. Whenever you appoint a day my Servant shall come up for "Oateater," and as the Time of paying my Bills now approaches, the remaining £50 will be very

agreeable

. You need not make any deduction as I shall want most of it; I will settle with you for the Saddle and Accoutrements

next

quarter. The Upholsterer's Bill will not be sent in yet as my rooms are to be papered and painted at Xmas when I will procure them. No Furniture has been got except what was absolutely necessary including some Decanters and Wine Glasses.

Your Cook certainly deceived you, as I know my Servant was in Town 5 days, and she stated 4. I have yet had no reason to distrust him, but we will examine the affair when I come to Town when I intend lodging at Mrs. Massingbird's. My Mother and I have quarrelled, which I bear with the

patience

of a Philosopher; custom reconciles me to everything.

In the Hope that Mrs. H. and the

Battalion

are in good Health.

I remain, Sir, etc., etc.,

Byron

Footnote 1:

William Lort Mansel (1753-1820), Master of Trinity (1798-1820), Bishop of Bristol (1808-1820), was the chief wit of Cambridge in his day, and the author of many neat epigrams. "I wish," said Rogers (

Table-Talk

, etc., p. 60), "somebody would collect all the Epigrams written by Dr. Mansel; they are remarkably neat and clever." Beloe, in

The Sexagenarian

(vol. i. p. 98), speaks of Mansel as "a young man remarkable for his personal confidence, for his wit and humour, and, above all, for his gallantries." Apparently, on the same somewhat unreliable authority, he was, as Master, a severe disciplinarian, and extremely tenacious of his dignity (i. p. 99).

return to footnote mark

cross-reference: return to Footnote 3 of Letter 51

cross-reference: return to Footnote 1 of Letter 58

Footnote 2:

Byron probably refers to Richard Porson (1759-1808), Professor of Greek (1792-1808). The son of the parish clerk of Bacton and Earl Ruston, in Norfolk, Porson was entered, by the kindness of friends, on the foundation of Eton College (1774-1778). At Trinity, Cambridge, he became a Scholar in 1780, and a Fellow (1782-1792). In 1792, as he could not conscientiously take orders, he vacated his Fellowship, but was elected Professor of Greek. When Byron was at Cambridge, Porson's health and powers were failing. Silent and reserved, except in the society of his friends, a sloven in his person, he had probably taken to drink as a cure for sleeplessness. In a note to the

Pursuits of Literature

(Dialogue iv. lines 508-516),

"What," asks the author, J. T. Mathias, himself a Fellow of Trinity, "is mere genius without a regulated life! To show the deformity of vice to the rising hopes of the country, the policy of ancient Sparta exhibited an inebriated slave."

Yet Porson's fine love of truth and genius for textual criticism make him one of the greatest, if not the greatest, name in British scholarship. Porson married, in 1795, Mrs. Lunan, sister of Mr. Perry, the editor of the

Morning Chronicle

, for which he frequently wrote. In the

Shade of Alexander Pope

, Mathias again attacks him as "Dogmatic Bardolph in his nuptial noose." Porson's wife died shortly after their marriage. His controversial method was merciless. Of his

Letters to Archdeacon Travis

, Green (

Lover of Literature

, p. 213) says that

"he dandles Travis as a tyger would a fawn: and appears only to reserve him alive, for a time, that he may gratify his appetite for sport, before he consigns his feeble prey, by a rougher squeeze, to destruction."

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