#hobhouse

[burningvelvet]

peter cochran the researcher you were... (source: The Burning of Byron’s Memoirs: New and Unpublished Essays and Papers by Peter Cochran)

[empirearchives]

John Macnamara asks Napoleon about Moscow

Diary entry date: Saturday, April 22nd, 1815

Macnamara showed his originality. He asked Napoleon why he had stayed at Moscow.

Napoleon: “I looked at the meteorological tables for Moscow for thirty years, and never but once had the winter set in so soon by five weeks as it did in 1812 - I could not foresee that - I made mistakes, as every man does, and since I have been in public life and a soldier have made ten a day.”

“What? Dix par jour?” [Ten a day?]

“Oui — dix par jour.” [Yes — ten a day.]

From the diary of John Cam Hobhouse (source), an English politician and admirer of Napoleon. He was also Lord Byron’s best friend. Hobhouse lived in Paris during the Hundred Days.

[notmanthelessbutnaturemore]

the lads are over for some claret and shooting (pray for the furniture)

(pictured L-R, Charles Skinner Matthews & Hobhouse, Byron & Scrope Davies)

[microcosme11]

Another physical description of Napoleon

This is from an amazing book, “The Substance of Some Letters" V.1 by Lord Broughton (John Cam Hobhouse). This guy was a very high-up person in England who was friends with Lord Byron. I don’t know how it occurred, but he was in Paris in April 1815 when Napoleon returned from Elba. Here Napoleon is reviewing the troops and Hobhouse is standing right near him. On the previous pages it describes Napoleon riding in on his horse--very dramatic. I haven’t read this whole book yet, far from it, but it’s packed with this kind of stuff.

[dirtyfilthy]

Epitaph To A Dog - John Hobhouse

Near this Spot are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferosity, and all the virtues of Man without his Vices. This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery if inscribed over human Ashes, is but a just tribute to the Memory of Boatswain, a Dog who was born in Newfoundland May 1803 and died at Newstead November 18th 1808

These lines begin Bryon’s “epitaph to a dog”, written not by him but by his friend, John Hobhouse, and I prefer them to the rest of the poem.

[my-ass-as-cold-as-mars]

19th-20th century anthropologists were doing their best!

oh no

Oh NO

Nononono 😰😰😰

[ladyvaughnbogg]

The Burning of Lord Byron’s Salacious Memoirs

Were the revelations in Lord Byron's memoirs so scandalous that his closest friends decided to burn them, rather than risk the damage to his—and his loved ones—reputations?

If I could time-travel, I would travel to May 17, 1824, and stop “the greatest literary crime in history.” Who’s with me? 

[notmanthelessbutnaturemore]

So bless the university of Ohio! I found a pdf of Hobhouse's letters to Byron and I'm dying at Hobby telling his bestie about going to see a version of Romeo & Juliet where Romeo paused before his death to remind the orchestra to play slow dramatic music when he died.... and then he died in silence so he sat up and kept doing his death speech (while Juliet asked him to just die already) until the orchestra gave in to his demands.. Like what?! *cries*