July 8th 1817 - Lord Byron is slumming it in debauched lordly splendour in a Venetian palace while running up the enormous debts that would soon force him to sell Newstead Abbey.
A letter he writes to his publisher back in England reveals a curious case of road rage he has out riding from Dolo to La Mira. He may have looked like an angelic innocent abroad but Byron was an enthusiastic bare-knuckle boxing fan and as we'll see was not averse to using his fists himself when the opportunity arose...
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| Byron had this boxing-themed dressing screen made of cut-out boxing pictures |
TO MR. MURRAY.
“La Mira, near Venice, July 8th, 1817.
“The other day, I had a squabble on the highway as follows: I was riding pretty quickly from Dolo home about eight in the evening, when I passed a party of people in a hired carriage, one of whom, poking his head out of the window, began bawling to me in an inarticulate but insolent manner. I wheeled my horse round, and overtaking, stopped the coach, and said, ‘Signor, have you any commands for me?’ He replied, impudently as to manner, ‘No.’ I then asked him what he meant by that unseemly noise, to the discomfiture of the passers-by. He replied by some piece of impertinence, to which I answered by giving him a violent slap in the face. I then dismounted (for this passed at the window, I being on horseback still), and opening the door desired him to walk out, or I would give him another. But the first had settled him except as to words, of which he poured forth a profusion in blasphemies, swearing that he would go to the police and avouch a battery sans provocation. I said he lied, and was a * *, and, if he did not hold his tongue, should be dragged out and beaten anew.—He then held his tongue. I of course told him my name and residence, and defied him to the death, if he were a gentleman, or not a gentleman, and had the inclination to be genteel in the way of combat. He went to the police, but there having been bystanders in the road,—particularly a soldier, who had seen the business,—as well as my servant, notwithstanding the oaths of the coachman and five insides besides the plaintiff, and a good deal of paying on all sides, his complaint was dismissed, he having been the aggressor;—and I was subsequently informed that, had I not given him a blow, he might have been had into durance.
“So set down this,—‘that in Aleppo once’ I ‘beat a Venetian;’ but I assure you that he deserved it, for I am a quiet man, like Candide, though with somewhat of his fortune in being forced to forego my natural meekness every now and then.
“B.”
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| The 29-year-old Byron while living in scandalous exile in Venice in the spring of 1817. |
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| Lord Byron slumming it at the Palazzo Mocenigo, Venice |
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