But of this
anon.
I am, yours, etc.,
BYRON.
[Footnote 1: John Claridge. (See 'Letters', vol. i. p. 267, 'note' 2.)
[Footnote 4 of Letter 136]]
[Footnote 2: i. e. 'Childe Harold', 'Hints from Horace', and 'Travels in
Albania.']
[Footnote 3: Mr. Payne, of the firm of Payne and Mackinlay, the
publishers of Hodgson's 'Juvenal', committed suicide by drowning himself
in the Paddington Canal. Byron, in a note to 'Hints from Horace', line
657, thus applies the incident:
"A literary friend of mine, walking out one lovely evening last
summer, on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington canal, was alarmed by
the cry of 'one in jeopardy:' he rushed along, collected a body of
Irish haymakers (supping on buttermilk in an adjacent paddock),
procured three rakes, one eel spear and a landing-net, and at last
('horresco referens') pulled out--his own publisher. The unfortunate
man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had
taken the leap, which proved, on inquiry, to have been Mr. Southey's
last work. Its 'alacrity of sinking' was so great, that it has never
since been heard of; though some maintain that it is at this moment
concealed at Alderman Birch's pastry-premises, Cornhill. Be this as it
may, the coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of ''Felo de
Bibliopola'' against a quarto unknown,' and circumstantial evidence
being since strong against the 'Curse of Kehama' (of which the above
words are an exact description), it will be tried by its peers next
session, in Grub Street--Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Coeur de
Lion, Exodus, Exodiad, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, Siege of
Acre, Don Roderick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of the
twelve jurors.
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